[Triple HHH]

That was a good analysis on the theme of Vertigo. It's as if someone is always the puppet. At first, it was Madeliene "pulling the strings" while Scottie followed her completely, oblivious to her scheme, then it was Judy who allowed herself to be made over by Scottie's obsessive image of what she needs to look like. (good point about Judy's desire for Scottie to love her if she concedes).

Originally posted by Morticia
Finally, Scotty's transformation of Judy back to "Madeline." First, the clothes, then her appearance. A chilling line by Scotty....(to paraphrase), "Your hair. You need to change the color, the cut...Oh, it can't matter to you...."

This line by Scottie was indeed very distrubing to hear. For one, Scottie really "has it bad." He's uttering a line that is completely selfish and insensitive (he basically cares nothing for Judy as long as he can obtain Madeleine again). Strangely, one would've expected Judy to be deeply wounded by such a remark. By saying "it can't matter to you," seems to imply she doesn't matter, and that she is free to be used as an object, like a cheap doll that can be clothed and made-up. But instead, looking at her face as Scotty (sp?) says this, she actually nods in agreement to this. She actually wants to be given this morbid make-over, as long as she can get closer to Scotty and closer to telling him the truth about her dual identity.

Almost forgot...there is a small scene where Midge paints her own face on the Carlotta portrait. Midge is still smitten with Scotty (they were engaged for three weeks) and while I'm not sure really if she was trying to 'win' him back by doing this, (or simply poke fun at the situation) it most certainly backfired!

The portrait scene is both very amusing and sad. Amusing because Midge is simply having a playful time trying to win Scotty back, seeing how much he's ignored her for the past few days. And sad because her well-intentioned attempts to win Scotty back didn't work. It must hurt to mean well, but have thrown back in one's face. One can sympathize with Midge and her muted frustration as she pulls her hair and curses her own name.

The portrait itself, of her head plopped onto another torso, is a bit chilling to see initially. The way Hitchock framed that shot, and the abrupt cut to it, made it rather unexpected, and the viewer is taken aback by it. One can say that the portrait is another example of "reflections". On the left you have the real Midge, and on the right of the frame you have a painting where the head is hers, and yet the body belongs to someone else (most notably, Carlotta Valdez). There's something eerily off-putting by that. And some portraits, particularly of dead 19th-century historic figures, are perfect "windows" to the dead world. This may have been Hitchcock's (or the screenwriter's) sly tongue-in-cheek way of marrying the living with the dead. So much of this movie is about the mingling of the living and the dead. Of course, the film is based on a book called "d'Entre les Mortes", From Among the Dead. Scotty is obsessed with a dead woman. Judy is keeping a secret about the dead woman. Gavin Elster killed his wife, and fled to Europe. All three are haunted by death in one way, and while Gavin fled, Judy and Scotty are to be tormented by it, until Judy becomes the one to meet her fateful end. And unfortunately, instead of being cured by finally discovering the real Madeine he was always looking for, he loses her. There's something so painful about Scotty's situation....to just get a grasp of something he was chasing (and may have offered closure and cured his vertigo), he loses it all over again, and his cycle of grief and suffering is to start all over again.