The Criterion Channel has made a large collection of Hitchcock films available for the holidays—a good excuse for me to catch up on some that I’ve been meaning to see and ones like this that I watched when I was very young.

I always admired the angles and approaches to composition in this: the opening credit close-up into the pupil of the eye, the dream sequence with the floating head, Kim Novak’s emergence from green mist, the catatonic look in Jimmy Stewart’s eyes, the looming presence of the Golden Gate Bridge and the bell tower, and all of the dolly zoom effects. These qualities make it very memorable, so it is no surprise that the film has amassed something of a larger-than-life following. From a filmmaking perspective, it is fascinating. Hitchcock shows so much of his hand in this—he’s not hiding his tricks, he’s putting them on full display. 

As for the plot, I never really understood it. Why is he desiring to mold her into the image of the other woman? Why is he so insistent on revisiting the past? Why can’t he just forget and move on? As a kid I didn’t understand, but from a symbolic perspective the allegory is quite clear. In the long history of humanity, can we ever be more than mere reflections of one another? Is anything we do truly meaningful? Every individual success can be undone by another person’s meddling, by a web of deceit and lies, and even by one’s own delusions. There is an intense layering of symbols in this film that are so in your face that they cannot be missed. To watch this film looking solely for a traditional plot is a fool’s errand. The goal here is to connect the dots and form a poetic understanding of the proceedings. It urges the viewer to rewatch—something I failed to do until now. However, I will need to rewatch it again before I’m ready to claim it as the masterpiece that others say it is.

AFI Top 100 (Original) Ranked
AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary) Ranked
Alfred Hitchcock Ranked