The release and re-releases of Vertigo
A few days ago I saw Vertigo and Rear Window again and, in the light of our conversation, I naturally noticed many new things in them. Vertigo is the more sentimental, the more poetic, but Rear Window is perfection itself.
The quote above is from a letter from François Truffaut to Alfred Hitchcock, written in September 1962.1 I am of the same opinion as Truffaut.
You will often hear that Vertigo (1958) was a box office flop. It was not.2 You will also often hear people claim that Vertigo was not particularly liked when it came out. To claim that something was not appreciated when it first appeared is one of the oldest clichés in criticism and scholarship. It might be true, but considering that any given film, not least an important one like Vertigo, might be reviewed by thousands of critics from all over the world, it is the case that most films will have plenty of both good and negative reviews. It tells us very little. When Vertigo opened in the US in May 1958, Jack Moffitt, The Hollywood Reporter’s top reviewer, wrote that "Hitchcock exhibits absolute genius" and that Vertigo is "one of the most fascinating love stories ever filmed."3 Moffitt’s original review is not different from how a critic might write today about a re-release of the film.
Variety’s review signed Stef. (I do not know who this is) was more relaxed but said that "through all of this runs Hitchcock's directorial hand, cutting, angling and gimmicking with mastery" and called it "solid entertainment in the Hitchcock tradition,"4 while also, since it is Variety, saying that it would do well at the box office. It was a different time then, 1958, when a film like Vertigo was considered a “blockbuster film.”
Amusingly, Bosley Crowther’s enthusiasm for Vertigo in his review in the New York Times was tempered by his fear of spoilers. He spent more time in his review apologising for that than spelling out what he thought. But he urged people to see the film. "And, believe us, that secret is so clever, even though it is devilishly far-fetched, that we wouldn't want to risk at all disturbing your inevitable enjoyment of the film."5
Dilys Powell was impressed by the film in her review in the Sunday Times but added: "And yet the film disappoints. It seems too long, too elaborately designed; the narration of this kind of criminal intrigue sags under such luscious treatment; it needs the touch of the harsh and squalid."6
Penelope Houston had something similar to say in Sight and Sound. After praising several particular sequences, she added that it was “reminiscent of things Hitchcock has done before, and generally done with more verve. One is agreeably used to Hitchcock repeating his effects, but this time he is repeating himself in slow-motion.”7
In 1965 came Robin Wood’s influential book Hitchcock’s Films, in which he said that “Vertigo seems to me Hitchcock’s masterpiece to date, and one of the four or five most profound and beautiful films the cinema has yet given us.”8
Vertigo is today regarded as a milestone, as one of the best films ever made, but as we have seen many felt like this as soon as it first appeared, despite what is often claimed. Since then, it has had a profound influence on art and culture in general, on books, artworks, films, TV, and so on. I think two later events are part of why this is the case, beyond the obvious qualities and haunting images of the film itself. The first of these events is its re-emergence in 1983 as part of the five films by Hitchcock that for reasons of rights (in a way) had been unattainable for some time, some since the early 1960s, but which were now re-released with considerable impact.9 The other four are Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Trouble with Harry (1955), and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and at the end of 1983 they all began to be screened again, both in ordinary cinemas and at museums and cinematheques, and then eventually for home viewing.
Many critics, curators, scholars, and filmmakers (such as Wes Anderson and James Gray) have said in interviews and elsewhere that seeing these Hitchcock films when they were re-released was important to them. For some they were a key stepping-stone on the path of becoming a person working with film, in one way or another. They were for me when I saw them on Swedish television in the late 1980s, when they were shown chronologically, five weeks in a row.
The other event was the major restoration of Vertigo, done by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz in 1996, sponsored by Universal Pictures and others. The re-release of Vertigo in 1983 had been with damaged prints and with faded colours, so even if it being available again was a major event, it was not ideal. When Vertigo was re-released again in late 1996 it looked and sounded much better, and closer to how it appeared in 1958.
One way of measuring Vertigo’s status is to consider Sight and Sound’s once-in-a-decade list of ”The Greatest Films of All Time.”10 Vertigo’s first appearance was as a shared number 12 in 1972, then a shared number 7 in 1982, 4th place in 1992, 2nd place in 2002, and first place in 2012. (In the latest poll, 2022, it was back to second place.)
Considering how difficult it was to watch the film in 1972 and 1982, it is impressive it came so high up on the lists then, and it was probably inevitable that it would reach the top as soon as it was re-released. It is a similar case with the film that in 2022 replaced Vertigo as the “Greatest Film of All Time,” Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), by Chantal Akerman. It too had been difficult to see for a long time, until it emerged on DVD around 2007. Then in 2014 a restoration of the film was made by the Cinémathèque royale de Belgique; it was then re-released around the world, in time for Sight and Sound’s poll of 2022.
The quality of a given film itself is not enough; it has to be seen, and it needs to be nourished and preserved, and sometimes restored, too.
Vertigo has been growing steadily for me since the first time I saw it and did not particularly care for it. I loved the other four Hitchcock films, they changed me, but I was primarily confused by Vertigo. But that was then. Now I cannot get enough of it.11
Reprinted in François Truffaut Letters (Faber and Faber, 1989), translated by Gilbert Adair, p. 199.
Vertigo recovered its costs, and according to Variety’s (January 9, 1959) list of domestic box office numbers for 1958, Vertigo was at place 14. Not the most successful, but hardly a flop.
The Hollywood Reporter, May 12, 1958.
Variety, May 14, 1958.
New York Times, May 29, 1958.
Original review in August 1958, reprinted in Dilys Powell, The Golden Screen: Fifty Years at the Films (Pavilion 1989), p. 149.
Sight and Sound, Vol. 27, Iss. 6, Fall 1958.
Robin Wood, Hitchcock’s Films (A.W. Zwemmer 1965), p. 72.
Here is an article in New York Times, November 15, 1983, which explains the situation and the reasons for it: https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/The_Times_(15/Nov/1983)_-_Return_of_the_missing_Hitchcocks
It is not the staff at Sight and Sound themselves who makes the list. They do a poll among film critics and others from all over the world, and then publish the result. https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time
A previous post by me with Hitchcock connections, where I try to get to the bottom of what happened with No Bail for the Judge:
No Bail for the Judge - the unmade Hepburn/Hitchcock film
History is full of lost films and films that were planned but never got made for one reason or another. This in itself is not particularly interesting, as it is an inevitable part of life. But some lost or unmade films are more interesting than others so I thought I could write about some of them. Here is the first.
Lovely text - read it just after reading a post from The Swedish Film Institute about the wonders of finding a whole and intact copy of a silent film. I enjoy your discovery of Vertigo, and how you link it to the rediscovery of Jeanne Dielman, although Hitchcock’s film will always mean more to me than Ackerman’s . Also, it is fascinating how film history is becoming ancient, and every story about how a film has survived and how it grows in memory becomes something of a thriller on its own.