Vertigo - Plot Summary

PLOT SUMMARY -


The film Vertigo is based a police detective, John 'Scottie' Ferguson who is asked by an old friend, Gavin Elster to privately investigate his wife, Madeleine's eccentric behaviour in which Gavin believes that she is the reincarnation of her dead ancestor Carlotta Valdes. John agrees to this and then follows madeleine throughout the day only to then rescue her from attempting suicide off San Francisco Bay. As the film progresses and they spend more time together and they begin to fall in love. Later in the film Scottie takes Madeleine to the old Mission San Juan Bautista and they enter a Bell tower, Madeleine runs off from John and he chases after her up the steeple only to be startled by the height as he suffers from Acrophobia which stops him from saving Madeleine as we realise she jumped off. John feels responsible for her death and a few months later he meets Judy Barton who is identical to Madeleine and he begins to idolise Judy and wants to alter Judy's looks such as her hair colour and her clothes to resemble Madeleine. But John soon realises that Judy is actually madeleine and this was a scheme to cover up the fact Gavin killed his wife by using Judy to act as Madeleine and pretend to be her and act possessed to convince John, who suffers from acrophobia that she fell to her death although John didn't witness it because of his fear which meant he couldn't make it to the top of the steeple. By the end of the film John takes Judy back to the steeple where Madeleine supposedly committed suicide, a nun enters the steeple claiming she heard noises and this frightens Judy causing her to fall backwards off the edge plummeting to her death.

The narrative in the film portrays the different gender roles of the time it was made (1958), obsession in relationships and mental health issues.