Hal Ashby and Being There (1979)

[Jeff Bernstein]

"You know, a man could do that in those days."

[Jeff Bernstein]

(1:48:34) What is going on here?

(a) The storyteller adored symmetrical compositions.

(b) something more.

 

If we go the (b) route, what then?

 

We might ask, Why is JS doubled? Why would the storyteller want to communicate this? In what ways might we say JS has changed from Part I of the film, so that we might say, “Ah, this visual doubling reflects the thematic situation.” He was firm with GE in Part I to the point of apology; so it isn't his strong composure that's new. Perhaps it is not a surplus that generates the doubling in the mirror. Perhaps Hitchcock is doubling JS as a sort of perverse move : because JS is now as vacuous as Elster. What is the utility of the goal JS is after? Might JS spend the rest of his life in blissful happiness with Judy-as-Madeleine, if he never discovers the “truth”? Might we deem JS insane? Here, though, we might again refer to Jack Nicholson. Sanity, insanity : “What’s the difference?” What if there are only degrees of insanity? Is that too much truth? At any rate, JS is a blank. Hitchcock shows us two blanks, in order to accentuate the One. The surface. What is under the surface? Nabokov : “a cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind a smile.”

[Jeff Bernstein]

(1:48:34) What is going on here?

Judy is caught. Surrounded. Inhabited. Ghosts everywhere. They, too, are ghosts. When they step away from the mirror, the mirror will maintain no memory of their moment there.  

[Jeff Bernstein]

(1:48:34) What is going on here?

Consider the geometry. The arched window = Churches. Guilt for the sacrifice of the policeman. Guilt associated with “acrophobia”. JS’s seeking after Madeleine is a way to get closer to the phenomenon of that sacrifice.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Isn’t this Situation extremely perverse? If JS knew what he was doing to Judy, he would be condemned for his cruelty. He is forcing her to relive what she would much rather forget. He is forcing her to face something terrible. In Judy the terrible is intermixed with love. Weird?

 

JS is forcing the criminal to relive the crime down to the smallest detail. This is a Senecan revenge—if JS knew what he was doing. But—apparently, he doesn’t know who she is, until he sees Carlotta’s necklace around her neck. What about Judy? She has certainly fallen into a sick situation. Yet she still hopes for the best.

 

Note the brown. (1:48:08) : "Do you have them in brown?" "Yes, we have." "Fine."

 

 

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

(1:49:10)  Symbols in the Dream

By now Vertigo has put the audience into a dream state proliferating with symbols. These symbols recall people, places, vibes; too much to tabulate. This shot suggests secret symbols that a Spectator might identify; yet most of these symbols are not even meant to be noticed by an audience paying attention to the two principals in the scene. Is Carlotta in this shot? Midge? Madeleine? Ernie's? The "gay old Bohemian days"? And what about the two extras at screen-right? That old woman : how might one's Unconscious absorb her presence?

 

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Patterns.

(1:09:32) "Drink this down. Just like medicine."

(1:49:21) “Here, Judy, drink this straight down. Just like medicine.”

 

In the first, JS speaks with the authority of Reason; in the second, he is desperate, lost, repeating himself idly.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Dioramas

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

(1:50:00)  The Dream

Some items in this shot have extra signification in some manner (color, design, whatever) because the storyteller is presenting his material well. For example : the colour gold; the Far-East motif; the old books; the photograph resembling Judy’s; and so on and so forth. A film frame transmits far more information than any Spectator can take in at any one time, or ever.

 

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Judy : “I don't care anymore about me.”

How mournful a scene. Judy will yield to JS’s obsession. She has no idea if JS is Senecan or insane or simply lovesick in a hometown David Lynch way. What do meanings matter when there’s no choice but to comply with power? Judy yields as if falling through open space.

 

Judy : “Couldn't you like me, just me, the way I am?”

 

Isn’t this question ridiculous? Judy is an accomplice to murder. She tricked JS, and wrecked his mind. At heart she is a good girl, though, so, though everything hurts, inside and out, she still hopes for the best.

 

Obviously JS doesn’t have a speck of interest in Judy : though physically she is Madeleine.

 

Obviously JS is insane. At least that. We can never entirely discount the theory that his Unconscious knows Judy is Madeleine.

 

Cruelty is an active component to the situation, to some degree or other.

 

Both characters are in cruel situations. As the scene ends, the audience sees a reprise of the JS / Madeleine scene by the fire. Hitchcock embodies the repetition in a new way : this particular shot is new to the old situation. Hope?

 

Electric light at left, fire at right.

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

Living the Dream of the Fire Inside

What is happening? Isn’t “love” often a physical attraction? Judy is Madeleine—physically. Yet JS has not a speck of attraction for Judy Barton.

 

JS would rather have the Dream Girl. JS would rather “live the dream”. Why might he maintain an obsession for Madeleine Elster?

 

Some key words :

 

(a) guilt. Madeleine’s loss intensifies the guilt associated with the lost policeman.

(b) love. JS is mourning his lost love and wants her back.

(c) high society. JS is dazzled by the attractiveness of the world of the wealthy.

(d) self. Focusing on Judy, JS is reaching toward Madeleine, therefore reaching toward the reason for his acrophobia (i.e., "If I could just find the key, the beginning." 1:04:30).

(e) unfinished business. JS spends the entirety of Vertigo processing the events of the first scene.

(f) abandonment. JS fails the heroic policeman by failing to reciprocate the policeman's life-saving efforts; subsequently, JS spends the rest of Vertigo in a type of stasis. Indeed, in the second half of Vertigo, stasis is a key aspect of JS's character.

(g) imagination. Who can compete with a Dream Lover? (e.g., the "Naval Officer" of EWS.)

(h) disinterest. Simply put, Judy's character simply isn't for him, regardless of her physical equivalence with Madeleine.

(i) Whatever else.

 

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

the eyes of the lost

Might a policeman be a symbol of Reason? Doesn't a policeman maintain the Word of the State? (And isn't the State an ultimate symbol of Reason?) If we assign this signification to the policeman, then Vertigo might be titled, instead, Lost Reason. Or, In Search of Lost Reason.

 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

The hanging man

Hanging on for dear life, looking down at the open space, horrified with the Situation.

 

This is the last we see of JS in scene one. Might this image capture his interior "mood" that spans the entire film? JS spends the entirety of Vertigo feeling vertigo.

 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

(11.21) Glimpse of Hitchcock

The dispensable craftsman with his nose to the grindstone.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Track in / Track out

Track in : Desire. Fascination.

Track out : A sort of "audience-recoiling"?

 

 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Art

All the technical facility in the world comes to nothing much if the storyteller doesn't know much about this activity : writing.

 

Without a pen and a piece of paper, would there have ever been a Hollywood?

[Jeff Bernstein]

Society has lost the understanding of what a good story is, how it is told, what it can be. Society has no idea what Art is. These days Hollywood has virtually zero idea. (Who will disagree? All those who have no idea how to tell a story. So tell it to the hand.)

 

"The origin of the work of art is Art" (i.e., the facility of creation itself) : if society has no idea what Art is, society doesn't know itself.

 

So what are people doing?

 

JS is you.

 

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

How might this author know that society has "no idea"? Because, for example, the technicians of this site, while extraordinarily knowledgeable in technics, have zero idea how to write even simple sentences. And since writing is emblematic of Thinking. . . .

 

Say I'm wrong. Then, at the very least, the users of this site care zero about good writing, or about showing themselves in public as proper thinkers. (Truth hurts.) But isn't writing well (as well as one can) respectful of the reader? So what is careless writing?

 

Technicians are Reasonable people. Like JS. But they mistake themselves for Hitchcock. And end up as Judy Barton.

[Jeff Bernstein]

"Enjoy it. . . . You've earned it."

[Jeff Bernstein]

Here now for a limited engagement.

[Jeff Bernstein]

(1:55:39)  Introducing : not the horizontal, not the vertical, not the track in, not the track out, but :

The circle.

[Jeff Bernstein]

[Jeff Bernstein]

[Jeff Bernstein]

[Jeff Bernstein]