Analysis of "Vertigo" Opening Scene

The opening scene of the film “Vertigo” is pretty much only titles, there are no characters, that we know of, except from the women who is in the first scene. We are given the impression that she will be involved in the story in some way, giving us a sense of enigma as we might find out the woman’s true meaning later on in the film.

In the background you can hear some mysterious music and the titles are placed as the camera moves around her face. Each time a new title appears the music gets really loud as though to make you jump out of your seat. As the camera moves up to her eyes, you can see her eyes move side to side as if she is worried or looking out for someone suspiciously, maybe someone is following her.

Then the camera moves on to one of her eyes and zooms in, the screen goes red, maybe portraying blood, which could be a theme kept throughout the movie. The main title “Vertigo” seems to come out of her eye, starting small at first but then becoming large and almost jumping out the screen at you. This could be symbolising the vertigo is in the women or what she is seeing could be making her feel “Vertigo”.

Then an abstract spiral forms in her eye, as a verb spiral means to increase continually or follow round in helix getting progressively farther away as it revolves around the point, this could mean that the more you try to understand this woman the more it seems you are going round in circles and each time you try you seem to be farther away from the truth then you were at the start. This is amplified by the colour red which signifies “danger” or “stop”.

This dissolves and zooms out into another abstract spiral, the spirals are meant to confuse and disorientate the audience as they are not quite sure what relevance the spirals have and so are kept entertained by the thought of working it out. Then the final spiral when at first seems abstract but as it zooms in it takes the shape of an eye, and inside the eye is another spiral this zooms in and dissolves out like in the first scene and carries on continuously. This could be relating back to the “spiral effect” that this women is giving, once again after going through all the spirals you are back to the start with an eye but inside the eye is another spiral, it seems to get deeper and deeper each time you go round, just like a spiral does.