Episode 155: Alfred Hitchcock's Money Shot

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist David Pizarro having

[00:00:06] an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.

[00:00:09] Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say and knowing

[00:00:14] my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] He says what we're all thinking.

[00:00:20] I'm not thinking that.

[00:00:34] I'm a very good man.

[00:01:08] Just a very bad wizard.

[00:01:11] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:15] Dave, if life were a musical and you went to go see a musical, would it just be a play?

[00:01:26] I don't know what motivated this question, but the minute you said if life were musical

[00:01:32] I was like suicide.

[00:01:34] Suicide.

[00:01:35] Suicide.

[00:01:36] And then doubly suicidal that you would then have to go see a musical.

[00:01:42] You know, even in TV shows, my favorite kind of TV shows, I think the wire was like

[00:01:49] this on purpose is when the music isn't part of the background, not even when it's used

[00:01:59] to get you to a moat because even that is mildly bothers me.

[00:02:05] You might have a problem with our main segment, the movie that will be discussing vertigo

[00:02:11] because music plays quite a prominent...

[00:02:14] Yeah, no, no.

[00:02:17] I don't know.

[00:02:19] I haven't thought too deeply about this.

[00:02:21] A score, a well done score is better than when all of a sudden you see the character

[00:02:32] all sad and some emo song is playing.

[00:02:34] Right.

[00:02:35] And it's almost like a montage of an emotion that seems artificial to me.

[00:02:42] A score, the best scores, I think you don't notice them too much.

[00:02:47] You have to sort of pay attention.

[00:02:49] And I don't know if that...

[00:02:51] I mean, I certainly noticed the score in vertigo, but it's very hard to...

[00:02:56] The best score is it's very hard to separate from the movie.

[00:02:59] It's hard to imagine how that movie could possibly be done without it.

[00:03:05] I mean, psycho and Jaws come to mind as having just one theme that is almost like

[00:03:12] that Jaws sound is almost just what now what a shark sounds like.

[00:03:17] Is it approaching you?

[00:03:18] Even though...

[00:03:19] Yeah.

[00:03:20] And the knife stabbing.

[00:03:21] But I feel like you're avoiding my question and the import of the question.

[00:03:26] If life were a musical...

[00:03:28] And then you went to go see a musical in this world, would it just be a play?

[00:03:37] Because all it is is doing what life is doing.

[00:03:42] So a play in that since life is a musical, what would be special about it is that there is no music?

[00:03:49] No.

[00:03:50] Well, a play?

[00:03:51] Yeah, I wasn't asking about a play.

[00:03:53] But yeah, seeing a play would be sort of like seeing a musical.

[00:03:58] People would find it weird that nobody was breaking out into song and dance

[00:04:03] and there were no numbers and they were just talking.

[00:04:07] Yeah, they were just talking.

[00:04:08] That'd be weird.

[00:04:09] You know, if life were a musical and I went to see a play, I might feel like people do

[00:04:13] when they go see musicals, which is like, wow, if only life were like this.

[00:04:17] Right.

[00:04:18] You know?

[00:04:19] Exactly.

[00:04:20] I'm fucking people singing all the time.

[00:04:22] I even have nightmares where I am sort of all of a sudden thrust on stage

[00:04:30] and I'm supposed to know all the words to the stupid songs.

[00:04:32] And I am like, wait, did we agree on what we were going to sing?

[00:04:38] There's probably something deep and like, I don't know, traumatic about your reaction

[00:04:46] to musicals.

[00:04:47] This is why I don't like most of the sort of Disney movies from the 90s.

[00:04:54] Little mermaid and.

[00:04:55] Yeah, Lion King.

[00:04:57] Like I was like, oh, they're just trying to secretly get kids into musicals.

[00:05:02] That their musical agenda.

[00:05:05] Yeah, no, and it's probably true.

[00:05:09] Look what Broadway completely transformed Broadway and Lion King musical.

[00:05:13] I think it's the most successful musical of all time on Broadway.

[00:05:17] Holy shit.

[00:05:18] Holy shit.

[00:05:19] Beat that cats.

[00:05:20] So they win the Disney.

[00:05:23] The lobby.

[00:05:24] The musical lobby has won.

[00:05:27] Resist people.

[00:05:29] The tobacco lobby was ultimately brought down or at least, you know, crippled.

[00:05:33] But you don't big musical will always find a way.

[00:05:40] You know, your question reminded me of this small detail in the Watchmen comic.

[00:05:48] Since superheroes actually exist in that world, all of the comic books that people read are like cowboy comics.

[00:05:55] Because they don't have any superhero comics because why would they?

[00:05:58] Like superheroes are a real thing.

[00:06:01] I actually saw, we haven't talked in a while, but I saw and I never see Marvel movies.

[00:06:07] I haven't last Marvel movie.

[00:06:08] I saw I can't even remember.

[00:06:09] Maybe it was the first Guardians of the Galaxy.

[00:06:13] But I can't take the CGI in it.

[00:06:15] But the Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse.

[00:06:19] Yeah.

[00:06:20] I, A, heard that it was really good and B, since it was itself animated.

[00:06:26] But I didn't have to worry about the CGI element, which I just can't stomach at all.

[00:06:33] So I went and saw it and it was good.

[00:06:36] It was amazing.

[00:06:38] It was an amazing Spider-Man.

[00:06:40] And it's a Sony picture because Sony owns the rights to Spider-Man.

[00:06:45] But I went into it, well, I had read some reviews, but when it was announced, I was like, oh, they're going to ruin this.

[00:06:52] Like it's going to be so bad.

[00:06:54] But I think it's the best animated movie I've ever seen.

[00:06:57] Like, really?

[00:06:58] Yeah.

[00:06:59] Like the animation style was amazing.

[00:07:02] It was very cool.

[00:07:03] Yes.

[00:07:04] And the story was good and it was fun and it was not, it didn't take itself too seriously.

[00:07:09] But it had rules and for the most part followed it.

[00:07:14] Yeah.

[00:07:15] I'd like to see it again maybe with some narcotic help because that scene is, there's a lot of really trippy elements to it.

[00:07:25] Super trippy.

[00:07:26] Yeah.

[00:07:27] Yeah.

[00:07:28] What good art design?

[00:07:29] Speaking of art design today, did we say what we're talking about?

[00:07:32] It was part of the art.

[00:07:33] We did.

[00:07:34] We mentioned it.

[00:07:35] We're going to go to Alfred Hitchcock movie from 1958 starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak.

[00:07:41] And we'll be discussing that shortly.

[00:07:44] But first a little business, right?

[00:07:47] Yeah.

[00:07:48] Well, business, the reviews.

[00:07:50] I thought it'd be fun.

[00:07:53] Bad reviews.

[00:07:54] Bad reviews.

[00:07:55] Yeah.

[00:07:56] I thought it'd be fun.

[00:07:59] Somebody on the Very Bad Wizard subreddit posted a thing.

[00:08:04] I think they've posted on yours too.

[00:08:06] They called our Rate My Professors ratings and they posted what is at the top of my Rate My Professor currently a very horrible, horrible review.

[00:08:18] This student put, if you want to comprehensively learn and appreciate psychology as a subject, I wouldn't recommend it.

[00:08:24] Lectures are useless and contain very little substance.

[00:08:27] And they gave me like the lowest ratings.

[00:08:31] That's kind of like how I feel about you as a co-host.

[00:08:36] The person who posted it on Reddit, let's give credit.

[00:08:40] So Lennie's W said honestly felt like reading a podcast review.

[00:08:47] And I thought it'd be fun to talk a little bit.

[00:08:49] So of course, like when I first saw that, like it hurt my feelings.

[00:08:54] I don't know if that, if you get that feeling in your stomach.

[00:08:58] I told you what I did, the Reddit one, they did this like it was right near the start of the subreddit.

[00:09:05] And then somebody posted something about my Rate My Professor rating or review.

[00:09:12] Or I don't even remember and I didn't even click the link.

[00:09:15] I thought there's no upside in me doing this.

[00:09:19] There's no that.

[00:09:21] So I mean, I tend to feel that way.

[00:09:23] I will occasionally check Rate My Professor just to see if there's something, you know, like if there's some sort of comment trend.

[00:09:34] But you know, there's not enough of them to really gain anything from it.

[00:09:40] Like to gain a sense of what the majority of students are really thinking of what you're doing.

[00:09:48] And yeah, so I tend to stay away from these things.

[00:09:52] Whereas podcast reviews not at all.

[00:09:54] Like I will seek those out.

[00:09:57] You know, as a podcast you kind of become a part of the internet and you know that those are the rules that people are going to follow.

[00:10:04] Like people saying mean things, even though it's more infrequent than I would have thought.

[00:10:10] People saying mean things about us on podcast reviews is just a bit easier.

[00:10:17] We kind of signed up for being a public.

[00:10:20] Like the classroom feels a little bit more personal, but Rate My Professors is not a fruitful place to look.

[00:10:28] I do realize that like a lot of people probably when choosing a class go to see that probably less now than they used to.

[00:10:35] But it's only going to attract people who have some sort of extreme view of you.

[00:10:42] I wanted to mention this because I think there's a good lesson to me that I was taught by Paul Bloom.

[00:10:51] At the beginning, I was TAing for his intro site course and at the beginning of the semester we had a TA meeting

[00:10:57] and he handed us each a page of student reviews of his.

[00:11:06] And some of them were like, this was the worst class I've ever taken.

[00:11:11] I thought I wanted to be a psychology major but taking Paul Bloom's class has completely changed my mind.

[00:11:18] And some of them were glowing. This is the best class I've ever taken at Yale because of Paul Bloom I want to be a psych major.

[00:11:25] And I remember thinking at the time like wow that was kind of a vulnerable move to show us the good and the bad.

[00:11:32] But the point he was trying to get across was you can't take these too seriously.

[00:11:39] Like there is a part of me that Maya Angelou said it once, she said don't pick it up, don't lay it down.

[00:11:51] If you get too gassed up by the positive comments whether it's podcasts or whether it's your teacher ratings or whatever.

[00:12:00] Then you're opening yourself to get completely crushed by the bad comments.

[00:12:05] And I feel like that kind of holding it as a distance, there are people who are going to love me, they're going to love my personality,

[00:12:11] they're going to think I'm charming, they're people going to hate my guts.

[00:12:15] That's not useful feedback. It does nothing for my professional development.

[00:12:20] And that's a different kind of feedback than the feedback that does help your professional development.

[00:12:27] I mean and sometimes I think student evaluations or maybe the occasional rate my professor evaluation does give you invaluable feedback.

[00:12:37] It's just really hard to sift through the ones that don't to get to them.

[00:12:42] I mean I think this is one of the problems with our profession, it's also one of the benefits in some ways.

[00:12:49] But there's very little feedback and this is especially true for teaching.

[00:12:56] Even for other elements like we're both at research institutions where teaching is given nominal attention at best but just nominal attention.

[00:13:09] And unless you're really, really great or really, really bad it makes absolutely no difference.

[00:13:16] And really it only makes a difference if you're really, really, really bad.

[00:13:21] And so we don't have these mechanisms and we also don't really take classes to improve our teaching, to improve our pedagogy.

[00:13:30] It's all our own initiative how we decide to either improve or just stultify as instructors.

[00:13:41] It's in sharp contrast to other professions.

[00:13:44] I was just my friend who's in a, he actually is now the CEO of a small investment bank.

[00:13:53] They had these 360 reports. Have you heard of these?

[00:13:57] Yeah.

[00:13:58] Were they just interview everybody like in your company anonymously and generate through these interviews a narrative about you

[00:14:08] and what people think of you and your strengths and weaknesses and how much that might leave you vulnerable and naked to just like that strikes at the deepest core of who you are.

[00:14:23] Especially in a profession where so much of your life is committed to that work and we just don't have anything close to that.

[00:14:32] Nothing like that.

[00:14:33] So I totally agree with you that we getting any kind of constructive feedback is difficult.

[00:14:41] Maybe with the exception of journal like reviews when you submit for peer review, in fact that my comment in the Reddit was you should read the reviews of my journal articles.

[00:14:51] This is nothing but say you want to improve how you talk, like how you give talks, like good luck finding anybody who's going to tell you anything other than good job.

[00:15:02] Like at the end, you know, the most informative thing maybe is if very few people tell you that was a good talk.

[00:15:08] Like maybe you should worry then.

[00:15:11] But you would have no idea what you did wrong or why or how you could improve it or you'd have to have a really good friend in the business.

[00:15:22] Actually, you know, having somebody who is a good enough friend who's willing to give you negative feedback is it's worth its weight in gold.

[00:15:32] Well, you know, and also this is in sharp contrast to what people sometimes say about a philosophy talk where philosophers will try to tear apart the person's argument and their paper and really try to expose them and try to outsmart them.

[00:15:51] And I think that is true in some fields, although I think it's less true than it was 25, 30 years ago.

[00:15:59] You know, that kind of gamesmanship and that kind of competitive.

[00:16:04] I think, you know, some a lot of people think of it as hyper masculine.

[00:16:08] It's like a dick measuring contest of like how how sharp you are and how quick you are to.

[00:16:14] I think that there is good. There's been reaction against that, which I think is good.

[00:16:21] But it also has made a lot of talks more like a love fest.

[00:16:29] You know, and you think it's swung in the opposite direction.

[00:16:32] Maybe. Yeah. I mean, not entirely.

[00:16:34] I think actually the free will world since I've been involved with it for about 15 years has always been had a good balance of, you know, they'll criticize you.

[00:16:44] But but but you get a sense of underlying support for what you're doing.

[00:16:48] Right. Psychology actually has it's interesting in that the sub areas in psychology, I find have very different cultures.

[00:16:55] So like cognitive psychology and judgment decision making, which sort of has a foot in the world of economics and the business school world.

[00:17:04] They're much more likely to harass you and interrupt your talk.

[00:17:09] And there's a norm of that in social psychology and other fields psychology.

[00:17:14] It's it's and this is institution dependent, but it's very much more supportive.

[00:17:19] I remember when I was a postdoc, the the department there, you know, if you gave a talk,

[00:17:24] they'd be like, I loved your talk. You know, they would open their questions with that was a great talk.

[00:17:29] And I'd be like, were there any gender differences in your data?

[00:17:32] You know, they'd give you like a real low hanging like a sorry ball question.

[00:17:35] And I always thought that didn't prepare people adequately for what they were going to find in the real world when they when they wouldn't gave talks.

[00:17:41] Yeah.

[00:17:42] You're going to get attacked and you're going to get and maybe this is the general lesson that that I've I am actually really sensitive about about bad feedback.

[00:17:52] And it's I've had to learn over the years to be able to try to it's very easy to be tempted to dismiss it all and not learn from it.

[00:18:05] And it's very easy to be tempted to be to get really upset by it.

[00:18:10] And there's a balance there, you know, you have to you have to really try.

[00:18:14] You have to go out of your way to say, Hey, maybe you know, maybe like this guy who says or girl who says my lectures are useless and contain very little substance.

[00:18:25] Is there anything there that's right?

[00:18:27] Like is it, you know, I don't want to think that but but and that's really hard.

[00:18:33] Hey, let me ask you this.

[00:18:34] And this is this is for smaller classes.

[00:18:37] But this is something I've noticed over the last five or six years that if you have a class of students and regularly when you walk into the class, they're all talking with each other.

[00:18:51] And it's a very lively environment among the students themselves before you even got there.

[00:18:58] And, you know, you have to sort of quiet them down to get the class started.

[00:19:03] Then that's almost always a great class and it's going to be a good semester.

[00:19:11] Whereas if you have a class where most of the time when you walk in there, they're not talking to each other, they're on their phones or they're doing whatever.

[00:19:21] That's just going to be a rough semester.

[00:19:25] Yeah, I think you're right.

[00:19:27] I haven't I hadn't thought about that but I as you were describing it, I do have this image of walking into a class seminar classroom and everybody being quiet and having that sinking feeling like I'm going to the next two hours is going to be me trying really hard to get people to talk.

[00:19:44] Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:46] Those small seminar courses really get sometimes made or broken by one or two people.

[00:19:54] You know, sometimes it really is the case that there's one person or two people who really enjoy commenting and discussing and they'll bring other people into the discussion and they can make the difference between a horrible semester and a great semester.

[00:20:09] So what we're saying is if a class goes poorly, it's your fault, the student, not our fault, the professor.

[00:20:17] To be honest, when I first read that rate my professor comment, my first thought was they must have gotten an A minus.

[00:20:23] Because A minus is the worst grade you can get a Cornell.

[00:20:27] It means you were trying and you didn't get it.

[00:20:32] Speaking of fuck ups, should we talk about a fuck up in give well read that I that you did.

[00:20:43] Yes. So give well.

[00:20:47] One of our favorite previous sponsors are not sponsoring this episode, but but there was a read that I gave a couple of episodes ago where I very, very offhandedly, perhaps to flippantly said,

[00:21:03] you should donate five bucks or whatever because you can save a life.

[00:21:08] Now, you in one of your paranoid moments called me out on this after we got an email from a reader.

[00:21:16] And I was like, oh, that people understand what I meant.

[00:21:20] But and I thought, well, but they're very sensitive about this how much money can save a life thing.

[00:21:26] That's right. You made fun of me.

[00:21:28] The very thing and I was like, oh, Tamler, come on.

[00:21:31] But the very thing that I've praised often about give well is their wonderful nerds and their wonderful sort of numeric based approach and transparency.

[00:21:40] Their transparency. They they let us know that that this this was a misleading way to talk about it.

[00:21:48] And they're absolutely right.

[00:21:49] So so and I they are such a transparent and honest company that that the least we could do or I could do is issue a correction.

[00:21:58] So the cost that I was referring to of buying a single insecticide treated net is cheap, but that doesn't translate into saving a life.

[00:22:09] Like if that were the case, that would mean every single person would get malaria if they didn't have one of these nets.

[00:22:14] And that's just not true.

[00:22:16] So they've actually created models to try to figure out how much money is given before life is saved and their model says it's about donating to the to the malaria

[00:22:27] against malaria foundation about $4500 before life is saved.

[00:22:33] So while what I was saying was was in the spirit of trying to tell you like the net that you buy might save a life.

[00:22:42] It is not an accurate way of saying what it would cost.

[00:22:46] Yeah, it's like a lot.

[00:22:48] That's right.

[00:22:49] If a life is saved, it might be your it might be the malaria net that you bought but but but yeah, so for $500.

[00:22:56] This is something the other reason that I was slightly concerned now my responsibility is also I have responsibility in this because I edited it.

[00:23:07] Notice it.

[00:23:09] It was sort of too late to have to rerecord and I just thought at the time like you did OK, they'll know what he meant.

[00:23:18] I was a little worried because I teach this it's it's a very kind of concise expression of his view that he did.

[00:23:30] I think for the New York Times magazine or where in that article he says something like $200 can save a life and that's the figure that he used.

[00:23:40] And then when I interviewed him for the very bad wizard book, I brought that figure up and he said well actually now we're thinking it's more along the lines of $14 to $1600 not $200.

[00:23:54] And so it does seem like this is a thing that is that they're focused on and rightly so because you don't if the whole point of these kinds of effective charities is that people don't think they're being duped and

[00:24:11] Exactly.

[00:24:12] And and give well is is at the forefront of being transparent about that which is why it's right like you said they're one of our favorite sponsors.

[00:24:22] All right, so we'll be right back to talk about vertigo.

[00:24:25] Welcome back to very bad wizards. This is that time of the show when we like to express our deep appreciation to all of our listeners, everybody who who takes part in the dialogue surrounding the show, whether you

[00:25:39] email us or whether you tweet us, whether you post on Reddit or Facebook. We very much appreciate it we love our community.

[00:25:47] Even when you guys are assholes.

[00:25:49] We still love you post our bad.

[00:25:52] So, so we really appreciate it if you do want to get ahold of us.

[00:26:01] We're not hard to find you can tweet to us at Tamler at P's or to the at very bad wizards account. You can email us very bad wizards at gmail.com you can go to our Facebook group very bad wizards or to our subreddit engage in discussion there.

[00:26:20] Just to note we have no control over those discussions.

[00:26:23] I know some people want us to to.

[00:26:26] I don't know what intervene on these but this is an independent community and it is Reddit, but but take part.

[00:26:34] It's a fun discussion usually people usually are pretty nice which is reddit.com slash r slash very bad wizards.

[00:26:41] You can follow our Instagram even very bad wizards if you want to support us in more tangible ways, which we also very much appreciate.

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[00:27:02] You can just shop as you normally would by clicking on the Amazon link and and we would get a little cut of that even though you don't have to pay anything extra or you can become one of our beloved Patreon supporters and go to patreon.com slash very bad wizards.

[00:27:19] Tamler you just posted over in December you posted another discussion of yes with Jesse Graham and Natalia Washington fun discussion centered around five questions.

[00:27:32] That we had and yeah when I'm about to post right around the time when this episode comes out I'll post a call for topic suggestions so all of our Patreon supporters will be able to suggest a topic.

[00:27:46] Dave and I will then narrow it down to five choices and then our $5 and up listeners will have a chance to vote and select a topic and I'm excited just to get topic suggestions from our listeners because.

[00:28:02] When you've done a hundred and what fifty five of these you start to you start to sort of really depend on your listeners and that community for ideas and also just to know when we're being repetitive.

[00:28:18] We're getting a lot of emails from people who have gone to our backlog and they talk about you know certain episodes that happened.

[00:28:26] Even episodes that I really loved but I just have almost no memory of.

[00:28:31] And I and so you know that it's it's we're extra appreciative that not only our community engages with us and not only do they sometimes support us in more tangible ways but that they give us ideas and help make the podcast better.

[00:28:51] Yeah I mean honestly like you know the suggestions to do borehaze for instance like yeah have it's those turned into my favorite episodes and if you haven't read those stories please read them then then you can listen but they're great but but all so so much of what we talked about lately has come directly from from listeners.

[00:29:13] Last thing I'll mention is that we got a really nice email from Matthew Herbert's who is a filmmaker he made a short film which will link to in the show notes.

[00:29:25] You should always check our show notes if you want to know what we're talking about.

[00:29:29] This is a short film called Relax which is I think a very good film.

[00:29:37] It's only what seven minutes long and it is about an anti Trump person getting mad at a Trump supporter but the reason brother it seems like yeah our brother in law maybe.

[00:29:52] But the reason Matthew sent it to us is that at the very end of the film as the main character is in his car there is audio of our discussion of the Trump election which was really surreal to hear.

[00:30:09] To hear my voice your voice in a media in a medium other than our own podcast.

[00:30:16] Yeah that was cool. Yeah so we appreciate all of that it's really fun it's it always surpasses our expectation.

[00:30:25] Yes thank you guys.

[00:30:27] Oh but right before we get into this I just wanted to mention that I'm sad that Bob Einstein died.

[00:30:34] Yeah who's your often compared to not your comedy necessarily but your voice.

[00:30:40] I can't hope to have been as funny as that guy but my voice yes some people have said that I'm a voice twin.

[00:30:47] I don't hear it but I think you're right and if anything it's made me love Bob Einstein even more Super Dave Osborn Super Dave Osborn.

[00:30:55] He sometimes called he was dog like this.

[00:30:58] Yeah on curb your enthusiasm is probably what he's most known for.

[00:31:04] He's and he was fucking hilarious.

[00:31:05] In fact if you want if you're a fan I happen to listen to this when it came out the ringer Bill Simmons and cousin Sal who worked for the Jimmy Kimmel show.

[00:31:20] They did an interview with him and it's one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

[00:31:24] Oh I haven't heard that again.

[00:31:26] It's just honestly it's me it's it's in the top five funniest podcast I've ever listened to.

[00:31:31] I listened to a lot of comedy and he was I had no idea that this guy was so funny and I don't know they just reposted it.

[00:31:42] So I think it's on the BS podcast.

[00:31:46] Check it out if you're a fan or even if you're not because it's just hilarious.

[00:31:51] Cool.

[00:31:53] All right.

[00:31:54] So we are going to discuss vertigo.

[00:31:57] I think this was a suggestion by a listener at some point it was directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

[00:32:03] It's from 1958 starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak.

[00:32:08] At the time it debuted to mixed reviews and just OK box office but it gained stature almost every year afterwards and especially after the restoration that they did in 1997.

[00:32:22] And then finally in 2012 the sight and sound poll of film critics named it the greatest film of all time.

[00:32:32] This is a poll from film critics around the world.

[00:32:35] So Citizen Kane had been number one for 50 years and now it's vertigo.

[00:32:40] I want to give a brief synopsis of it but maybe just get our impressions off the bat at first.

[00:32:49] I watched this last night again.

[00:32:52] I've seen it many times but I watched the last night again with my family and before we started my wife Jen asked what this why we were doing this movie what it had to do with philosophy or moral psychology specifically.

[00:33:09] And at first you know like I thought are you kidding me like because this is far and away maybe the most academically studied film of all of Hitchcock's movies.

[00:33:23] Like there's more scholarship academic scholarship of this than you know the vast majority of films.

[00:33:32] So I was like what do you mean.

[00:33:35] But then she you know she's like OK so what then and I couldn't really give a specific answer.

[00:33:42] This was before we watched it.

[00:33:44] Now I have some thoughts but but what do you think are the most obvious philosophical and psychological themes of this movie.

[00:33:53] You know.

[00:33:55] First of all.

[00:33:57] Fuck you for this very specific reason which is I didn't even think about that and the reason I didn't think about that is because I have already just in my mind we do movies.

[00:34:13] And they're just good movies and and you know we talk about them because we're a philosopher and a psychologist and so.

[00:34:20] So that's the only aspect that to me is a necessary requirement is that we like we like the film and that we talk about it.

[00:34:28] I mean we've become a film podcast.

[00:34:30] Exactly.

[00:34:31] That's why I'm saying fuck you.

[00:34:33] I never wanted this.

[00:34:35] But I never I never thought that that would be a requirement.

[00:34:39] I just figured if we like it there's going to be stuff to talk about that's interesting and deep in some in some way.

[00:34:43] But now that you asked me I mean the psychology.

[00:34:48] I mean Hitchcock's like Hitchcock psychology is amazing.

[00:34:52] The just in this case this is this is a film that is so deeply about emotions in its in its themes that it sort of obviously has a psychological relevance.

[00:35:09] Now Hitchcock psychology was a little weird.

[00:35:12] You know I don't know that he's what emotions.

[00:35:14] What do you mean by that.

[00:35:16] Why do you feel fear and guilt and desire sexual desire obsession.

[00:35:23] So emotions that border on pathology as well.

[00:35:27] And and Hitchcock said we'll talk about this I guess a bit his use of color.

[00:35:31] I mean this is yeah.

[00:35:33] I mean the use of color to tag both characters and character development but also.

[00:35:38] Those emotional aspects of the characters.

[00:35:43] Yeah it's so good.

[00:35:45] It's so good.

[00:35:47] Yeah no I definitely want to talk about that it's not something I'm always attuned to as much as I should be.

[00:35:54] But in this movie holy shit it's like you can't help it.

[00:35:58] You can't help it.

[00:35:59] Yeah.

[00:36:01] One that's jumping out at me that in her hotel when towards the end with the neon green as he is turning into the woman that he thinks is dead is just it's you know it's hallucinatory.

[00:36:20] It's trippy but in a way that just shows how out of control he's become at that moment.

[00:36:29] Yeah.

[00:36:31] You know I was reading the Roger Ebert review he argues that that is one of the best scenes in all the film that that apartment.

[00:36:44] I think that's right.

[00:36:46] I think I might agree with that.

[00:36:48] But so much so that the colors at first I was like is my TV saturation turned up too high like it's so saturated.

[00:36:57] There's the scene with the sequoias you know where the soil is just like red it's like blood red.

[00:37:04] And yeah I had that same thought or is this restoration like I was relieved to read that the restoration was considered just a master class in film restoration because I thought is this exaggerated is this like.

[00:37:19] Right.

[00:37:21] And no this is this was Hitchcock's attention all along.

[00:37:24] So I think at least the psychological themes are obvious the philosophical ones I don't I don't I don't know I mean to the extent that that there's overlap between the idea of obsession of identity.

[00:37:35] Right.

[00:37:37] I feel it's more psychological and philosophical but but maybe over the course of our discussion.

[00:37:42] Well so I'll just briefly say the philosophical theme that jumped to mine for me which is the fundamental central importance of perspective in shaping our experience.

[00:37:57] So our subjective perspective and how that shapes our experience.

[00:38:00] So I think this comes out on so many levels.

[00:38:04] So you see it at the level of the character of Jimmy Stewart he's seeing Madeline or you know later Judy as as both they are setting up for him to see here but also as he wants to see her as this like distant almost vacant sad beautiful woman.

[00:38:25] And I think you get it at the level of the viewer too.

[00:38:29] So you have this break in perspective when we find out two thirds of the way through there's the twist is revealed and that is a shocking break in perspective for the viewer.

[00:38:43] We now see the movie from her perspective whereas before we saw it entirely from the character of Jimmy Stewart and that changes the way we see the movie.

[00:38:57] And this is something that Hitchcock made a very significant choice.

[00:39:01] And then I think the movie itself and the scholarship and the critical discussion of the movie also is an interesting case of how perspective will shape how you see the movie.

[00:39:13] I was you know just doing a little research as I always do about how people regard the movie and you know it's you see all these different radically different perspectives on it.

[00:39:26] Some people see it as misogynist kind of confirmation of Hitchcock as this misogynist controlling male figure.

[00:39:36] Some see it as a radical feminist statement.

[00:39:41] Kind of revolt against the kind of misogyny that is present in the late 50s when it's done.

[00:39:51] And I think a lot of people as you said see it as a kind of very deeply personal revelation of Hitchcock's own issues his sexual repression his obsessions his his way of seeing women and.

[00:40:06] So the idea of perspective and how it shapes how we view the world.

[00:40:11] I think of that as a philosophical theme that's crucial to understanding or to approaching this movie.

[00:40:19] Yeah.

[00:40:20] So should I give like a brief summary of the plot and then we can talk about all these.

[00:40:27] It is possible to briefly summarize.

[00:40:29] It is a complicated plot.

[00:40:30] It's important.

[00:40:32] Yeah.

[00:40:33] It's in that in that sense it's I don't think it's film noir in any technical.

[00:40:38] I would call it a psychological thriller.

[00:40:40] Yeah.

[00:40:41] Like but in the but in in some very very important ways it is film noir has a convoluted plot.

[00:40:48] Yeah.

[00:40:49] It has a convoluted detective.

[00:40:51] It has not a femme fatale exactly but it's almost almost.

[00:40:56] It's the story of a man named Scotty although he's sometimes called John and he has a agoraphobia which is a.

[00:41:07] Acrophobia.

[00:41:08] Is that how it's called.

[00:41:09] Acrophobia.

[00:41:10] Yeah.

[00:41:11] He finds out that he has this crippling fear of heights in this dizziness this vertigo when he gets to heights and that causes the death of a policeman.

[00:41:20] So he has to quit the police force and and then he's hired by an old friend from his school days named Gavin Elster.

[00:41:30] He hires Scotty to follow his wife Madeline.

[00:41:34] And the reason Elster gives he says I'm about to commit Madeline to medical care because she just seems possessed and I'll talk to her and all of a sudden she's not there.

[00:41:44] And then she's also wandering off all day and I don't know where she goes.

[00:41:48] And so he hires Jimmy Stewart to find out where she's going.

[00:41:52] So he follows her and this is big part of the first two-thirds of the movie follows her to go a museum where she stares at this portrait.

[00:42:00] He follows her to a hotel where she sits for a few hours a few times a week and then to Mission Dolores which is about an hour.

[00:42:09] So it's south of the city of San Francisco where he stares at a grave of a woman named Carlotta Valdez.

[00:42:19] And then we subsequently learned that Carlotta Valdez was Madeline's great grandmother and that Carlotta had been discarded by her husband after they had their first child and that she ultimately...

[00:42:33] It wasn't her husband, it was she was his mistress and he had a wife that he couldn't have babies with.

[00:42:40] He took her as a mistress. Once she gave the baby to him he discarded her.

[00:42:45] Right. And then she ultimately went mad, was wandering the streets asking about her child, her daughter.

[00:42:53] Stabbing people.

[00:42:55] Right. And then she committed suicide.

[00:42:57] And so then he's still following her and on one of these following sessions she goes to the Golden Gate Bridge and jumps in the water.

[00:43:09] And he rescues her, he undresses her, brings her back to the apartment.

[00:43:15] And at that point she wakes up as Madeline and at that point he falls in love with her. Jimmy Stewart falls in love with Madeline.

[00:43:24] But then the next time she tries to commit suicide it is at the bell tower of the mission, Mission Dolores.

[00:43:34] And she runs up there and as he's following her he can't get up there because of his vertigo.

[00:43:41] Then you have that famous shot and she jumps.

[00:43:45] At least that's what we think at the time. She jumps.

[00:43:48] And you see a body hit the floor.

[00:43:50] Yeah, that looks exactly like her. And so again he's fear of heights in his mind resulted in the death of another person.

[00:44:00] So he has a nervous breakdown and it becomes deeply depressed and six months later he's just wandering the streets aimlessly looking for people who might be Madeline.

[00:44:13] And then he sees a woman who looks like Madeline named Judy Barton from Salinas, Kansas.

[00:44:19] Also played by Kim Novak who gives this remarkable...

[00:44:24] I remember the first time I saw this movie thinking, wait is that another actress?

[00:44:29] Yeah, she's great. That's exactly right.

[00:44:32] In the same way, Mohan Drive you almost don't know that it's Naomi Watts at first.

[00:44:37] At first you don't know that because now she's playing more of a working class person.

[00:44:43] At the time she was playing a rich wife of a wealthy shipbuilder and now she's playing somebody...

[00:44:49] What does she do? Does she work in a hair salon?

[00:44:52] Yeah, like something retail.

[00:44:55] Yeah, something retail.

[00:44:57] And then you get this shift almost immediately he wants to have dinner with her and then you find out, oh it's actually Judy Barton was in on this plot with her.

[00:45:07] And then with Gavin Elster she was his mistress and the plot was to kill his wife and make it look like a suicide.

[00:45:15] But Jimmy Stewart doesn't know that he thinks it's just a striking resemblance.

[00:45:20] And then in just an unbelievably creepy sequence he convinces her to dress up like Madeline, wear the same clothes, buy the same dress

[00:45:30] and dress up like Madeline when she was dressing up like Carlotta.

[00:45:35] So uncomfortable.

[00:45:38] So uncomfortable and get her hair done in the same way and to do it so that he can love her.

[00:45:46] And you find out that Judy Barton kind of has fallen in love with Jimmy Stewart.

[00:45:52] And so even though she knows that this is sick and she knows why he's doing it and she knows at some level that it could reveal her role in the murder, she goes along with it.

[00:46:06] But then she wears the necklace that Carlotta wore and that's the necklace from the portrait and he realizes what happens, brings her to Mission Dolores, takes her to the top of the bell tower again

[00:46:18] and now he can get up there. He's conquered his crippling fear of heights and he tells her that he knows and you don't know what's going to happen at that point.

[00:46:30] But then a nun appears but looking like just in shadows, I don't know how you could see that but you could see it as almost like an angel of death or something.

[00:46:41] And she jumps, Judy Barton jumps.

[00:46:47] Or falls.

[00:46:49] Or falls. Yeah, that's right. It could be that she falls and he's looking over and once again there's this woman at the bottom that he has.

[00:47:02] But guess what? Vertigo cured.

[00:47:03] But vertigo cured. Yeah. So that's the, it's not brief but it is the best I could do. It doesn't even mention another kind of central character played by Barbara Belgedes, Midge.

[00:47:19] Midge. That's right, the sort of friend-zoned woman.

[00:47:24] Friend-zoned woman. Yeah, she's clearly in love with Jimmy Stewart but and she's very sensible and she's actually the only person who really understands what's going on in the movie.

[00:47:37] But he doesn't love her. He loves this vision.

[00:47:41] Right. So through, you know, this, the movie plays really well sort of as a mystery at the beginning, the first third of the movie.

[00:47:49] There's this like detective mystery that he's unraveling and it seems as if the story is that this woman is actually crazy and perhaps even supernaturally possessed by her great-grandmother.

[00:48:01] And so he's, you know, he's putting together these clues and I remember the first time I saw it thinking, well that's stupid if that's the solution to the mystery that she really is possessed.

[00:48:16] You know, I thought that would be done.

[00:48:19] But it's almost like a whole different movie then after that, right? You could imagine a mediocre movie being just that story.

[00:48:28] So I mean, what, let's, maybe we should talk about the, just to start out.

[00:48:36] So in the book that it's based on and it was a book that was written by a couple of French authors who wrote it specifically with the intention and the hope that Hitchcock would make it into a movie.

[00:48:47] I didn't know that.

[00:48:48] Yeah. So in the book it plays out as a more conventional who done it and the reveal only comes at the end.

[00:48:56] So the audience finds out when Jimmy Stewart finds out that she was, you know, what the plot was and Hitchcock decided in the screenplay to change it so that the audience knows what happens well before Jimmy Stewart knows what happened.

[00:49:15] It was something that was controversial with the producers and the studio heads.

[00:49:21] And like, it was only decided once and for all actually by Hitchcock's wife had the final word on it and that they would do it the way they did it.

[00:49:31] But to me, like that's such a, it is such the right choice and it could have been not a, it could have just been, it would have reduced it to a cool twisty, you know, shamanamian.

[00:49:48] Good shamanamian, but shamanamian kind of.

[00:49:57] Shyamalan.

[00:49:59] Shyamalan.

[00:50:01] It took me a second to figure it out.

[00:50:04] I apologize to my Armenian friends of which I have one very good one.

[00:50:10] Yeah, no, I absolutely agree.

[00:50:13] And in fact what this allows is he Armenian or he might not be never mind.

[00:50:16] No, Indian.

[00:50:20] This is it.

[00:50:22] I'm done.

[00:50:24] This is what happens when Tamler doesn't have alcohol.

[00:50:28] No, that the decision to make the reveal something that the audience knows but Jimmy Stewart doesn't know makes allows for this to become a great film.

[00:50:40] I think for the following reason that from then on we get to see Judy's pain at being turned into somebody who she was, you know, she was basically hired to be this wife.

[00:50:59] Well, she was his mistress.

[00:51:01] So I think she thought, we don't get exactly, I think she thought they were going to be together after this was done.

[00:51:07] And then he.

[00:51:08] Yeah, yeah.

[00:51:10] Right.

[00:51:12] They express their mutual love for each other at some point, you know, the second date that they're hanging out.

[00:51:17] And so and it really seems like I'm talking about her and Elster.

[00:51:21] Oh, she was a mistress.

[00:51:24] She was his mistress.

[00:51:26] And she was just impersonating the wife.

[00:51:28] Yes.

[00:51:30] So that they could be together but then he discarded her much like Carlotta.

[00:51:36] Much like Carlotta got discarded.

[00:51:39] But the the great performance of Kim Novak in expressing sort of this weird sadness, almost a heartbreaking feeling that she wants to be loved by Jimmy Stewart for as Judy, not as Madeline.

[00:51:57] But she's willing to go along with it.

[00:51:59] She has some some scenes where you could just see that pain in her face.

[00:52:03] And because we know the whole story, I think that's much much more poignant.

[00:52:09] Right?

[00:52:11] Yeah, it's more tragic from her perspective.

[00:52:13] Yeah.

[00:52:15] If imagine not knowing that you're like, why is she putting up with this creepy guy asking her to you would start, you would lose kind of.

[00:52:23] I mean you would, you might and because we're with his perspective, you might just lose sympathy for that character for not just getting the hell out of what's obviously just a weird situation.

[00:52:40] But also I think, you know, I was wondering about this because, you know, knowing the movie really well, he's pretty creepy when he's following her in the opening scene.

[00:52:52] Absolutely.

[00:52:54] And so maybe the reason you don't notice that is because we have this from his perspective.

[00:53:01] But once you get her perspective, you start to notice just how weirdly obsessive and possessive this person is.

[00:53:15] Yeah.

[00:53:16] And Jimmy Stewart is in this movie, I think the most unlikeable to me as he is in any of the other films of his that I've seen where it's very hard for Jimmy Stewart to come across as unlikeable.

[00:53:31] But he comes across as a real creepster from I feel like the moment that he saw her in the restaurant the very first time where he gets hired by Gavin Alster.

[00:53:41] And you know, this is something that that I was thinking is, you know, Jimmy Stewart is hired by his friend believing that it is his friend's wife.

[00:53:52] And he pretty much just completely betrays his friend like if in fact was her wife, his wife, he's just like, well fuck it, like I'm falling in love with you after two days.

[00:54:03] Yeah, brocode? I mean.

[00:54:05] No, no, no honor.

[00:54:07] This was pre brocode, I guess.

[00:54:09] It's a pre brocode film.

[00:54:11] Yeah, you get the sense that they weren't really good friends, right?

[00:54:16] That he hadn't seen him in a long time.

[00:54:19] Yeah, he knew it from college.

[00:54:21] It's still like.

[00:54:23] Yeah, you've been hired to follow this person not to not to take off all her clothes and

[00:54:30] That's right.

[00:54:32] So, so I'm kind of creeped out by Jimmy Stewart throughout this movie.

[00:54:38] And I don't know if that was intentional and this is I think what people are pointing to, you know, this sort of autobiographical way in which Hitchcock seemed obsessed with women.

[00:54:48] Blond.

[00:54:50] And yeah, and in fact he kind of creates the perfect vertigo.

[00:54:55] I mean the perfect Hitchcock woman.

[00:54:57] Yes.

[00:54:59] It's almost seems self expressive or cathartic perhaps or something.

[00:55:06] It seems like like Hitchcock is taking his very, very personal obsessions and laying them bare in this movie.

[00:55:16] I don't know if that was his intention at all, but I almost don't care.

[00:55:20] I think it's true whether he intended that.

[00:55:22] It's funny because there's a lot of meta like parallels.

[00:55:26] So I was about to.

[00:55:28] Yeah.

[00:55:30] Kim Novak had her own ideas about what her character should wear and Hitchcock that they got into a fights on set.

[00:55:38] Hitchcock was I was like, you know, I've been planning for three months the things that you'd wear for this in the color scheme.

[00:55:45] And that's and you know they had a they had a troubled relationship on set, although I think it's sometimes overblown just how troubled it was.

[00:55:57] But it's this idea that Hitchcock is dressing her up to be what she needs to be for him in just the way that Jimmy Stewart is doing that.

[00:56:05] And and and Kim Novak in some some interview that I read in a couple, I think she she mentions that throughout she was fighting against Hitchcock's.

[00:56:19] And she thinks kind of successfully so that she says that you can tell in her character that she was resisting Hitchcock's manipulation of her and that this came out in Judy's resistance of being manipulated by Scotty, which if true is a pretty awesome, pretty awesome way of bringing bringing that sentiment from real life into into your character.

[00:56:45] There are a lot of other meta aspects that I want to comment on but but I'll save those sort of toward the end.

[00:56:51] I but back to Jimmy Stewart. The one thing that I learned from this movie is Jimmy Stewart is appears incapable of making out.

[00:57:00] He's like a horrible kisser.

[00:57:02] My daughter said to yeah, it looks he looks like like like an like an awkward.

[00:57:11] I don't know.

[00:57:12] Well, he just like they don't kiss they like press their faces against each other.

[00:57:18] It's like a pressing.

[00:57:20] Yeah, it's so weird.

[00:57:22] Yeah, it just does not.

[00:57:24] So Barbara Belgedy is who plays Midge.

[00:57:26] She's a character that isn't in the book.

[00:57:29] What do you think her importance is?

[00:57:33] And I think there's a scene which is maybe the saddest scene in the movie that she's centrally involved in.

[00:57:40] The one I remember like I saw this the first time my mom took me to it.

[00:57:44] It's got to be like 1983 or 84 when it was first re-released and I just and I remember that scene vividly from then.

[00:57:53] Which scene the what?

[00:57:55] So when she makes a painting of herself as Carlotta Valdez and he says, oh no, this isn't funny.

[00:58:02] And then he they were going to go out for dinner in a movie and he just immediately breaks it and and she starts, you know,

[00:58:10] she realizes she made some kind of miscalculation.

[00:58:13] Although it's not totally clear why he had that reaction or it's a very jarring scene, actually.

[00:58:20] It is. I watched it twice when I was watching the movie last night because of that just to see his like it's not funny.

[00:58:29] And I could see where he's coming from where you know this woman has essentially you know he had to save this woman's life.

[00:58:36] She's possible she's possibly still suicidal and she's you know, immensely unstable and it's just not a funny joke.

[00:58:44] But it's also not a joke right?

[00:58:46] I mean she's saying I want to be your object of obsession not a port and shouldn't be a portrait.

[00:58:53] It should be there's an actual person right here.

[00:58:56] It's an actual bear.

[00:58:58] It's actually a very weird looking painting.

[00:59:00] It is.

[00:59:02] It's really creepy.

[00:59:03] The thing is she looks she looks like a person like a real person who has real understanding and the portrait and the way that Kim Novak plays Carlotta slash Madeline is of just a distant vision.

[00:59:20] They're not real people.

[00:59:22] I think that that the role that Midge plays here is an injection of normalcy.

[00:59:27] It's almost as a proxy for an audience member.

[00:59:31] But it is to remind us that Jim Jimmy Stewart is losing it.

[00:59:36] Yeah.

[00:59:38] And she's also a nice contrast with Kim Novak.

[00:59:41] Yeah.

[00:59:43] She's a real as you say a real person.

[00:59:45] Sensible young woman who actually really seems like the smartest character in the sense that she she really just kind of figures out what's going on with that whole situation.

[00:59:57] Very quickly.

[00:59:59] There is something kind of sexless about her and there's nothing sexless about Kim Novak in any of the roles that she's playing.

[01:00:09] And you can see how this could be a way of Hitchcock sort of.

[01:00:13] There's the here's the woman that I should be attracted to because Barbara Belgettis is a very pretty actress.

[01:00:22] I think that it's very clear to me in the movie watching it like I think that she's the key.

[01:00:27] She's cuter.

[01:00:29] She's I think it's like pretty clear that Jim Stewart is full.

[01:00:31] Really.

[01:00:33] So like but you think that because there is I mean the way that it's done up she's not she doesn't have a lot of sex appeal.

[01:00:40] No but she's funny.

[01:00:42] She's charming.

[01:00:44] She's she's clearly talented.

[01:00:46] She's as you say smart.

[01:00:47] She's the smartest and Hitchcock couldn't help but throw in that she makes braziers.

[01:00:52] Right exactly it's like what do you want to me do it like what's wrong with you and I think he's sort of saying that to himself.

[01:01:00] I read and I don't know if this is true but I read in one of the things that Alfred Hitchcock so he had a wife that he respected

[01:01:08] and it was very instrumental in in his work in terms of editing it and making crucial decisions including the

[01:01:17] decision we talked about. And he said he had sex with her one time when they conceived their

[01:01:23] daughter and that was it. Jesus. So he had a lot of strong women around him that he worked with

[01:01:29] and that he trusted and respected, but then he also had this obsession with these other kinds

[01:01:35] of women. And I think this was like an illustration of that, a reflection of that.

[01:01:40] Right. At the beginning, when you were talking about the various interpretations of this

[01:01:45] film and some people view it as ultimately misogynistic and some people view it as ultimately feminist

[01:01:53] and empowering in a weird way. I think it's they're obvious. It's obviously both. You know,

[01:02:00] I don't know. Right? Like I think that Hitchcock probably was a misogynist in some deep way.

[01:02:07] Like he was weirdly sexually repressed. There's I read an interview with the production,

[01:02:14] the designer where he was talking about the use of Coyt Tower in the background. I remember

[01:02:21] I went to college not far from San Francisco and I remember thinking, God damn, that's just a

[01:02:27] dick in the middle of the city. But apparently that is exactly why Hitchcock wanted it. He

[01:02:33] wanted it as a phallic symbol to be visible from Jimmy Stewart's apartment. And there's

[01:02:39] a moment where she asks Madeline asks about Coyt Tower and he says something like that's the only

[01:02:48] time I've ever appreciated having Coyt Tower so close to me or something like that. He's just

[01:02:53] clearly like, clearly uncomfortable. But I think it both reveals Hitchcock's weird obsession with

[01:02:59] crafting the perfect woman. And because maybe of Kim Novek's performance reveals the possibility

[01:03:06] of a woman exerting independence, resisting that.

[01:03:12] The play devil's advocate and how does she resist it? She does everything that is asked of her and

[01:03:21] does it at his behest. Every time she puts up a little fight like, oh, I don't this dress is fine.

[01:03:29] It looks I like, you know, he says no. And you have that woman who works at the dress shop

[01:03:35] saying, this is a man who knows what he wants over and over again. And then with the hair she

[01:03:40] makes a little rebellion. But it's immediately. Right. It's I mean, it's horror. It's as you

[01:03:47] mentioned, it's really uncomfortable. Like Jimmy Stewart is coming across his character

[01:03:52] increases a creepiness and the height of his creepiness is those moments where he's just

[01:03:57] dead set on having her look exactly like this dead woman. So it is not just to me like

[01:04:03] it's not just her resistance in the film where she does put up a fight. She's very unhappy

[01:04:09] with what he's doing and he's getting increasingly crazy in his in his demands.

[01:04:15] The fact that he is showing that the ugliness of Jimmy Stewart wanting to completely control her

[01:04:24] and that this is breaking her heart slowly, that that to me is is really the part right

[01:04:31] where at least it's illustrative. It's it's laying bare the damage that this can do to

[01:04:37] another human being and to me, Judy is actually at least for the second part of the film,

[01:04:43] the protagonist. Yeah, absolutely. And that's and that's because of the choice that Hitchcock

[01:04:50] and Mrs. Hitchcock make. Right. I mean, the way that it would I could I could see it as a

[01:04:58] feminist statement is in exactly what you said. The way it exposes the harm and the wrongness of

[01:05:09] this kind of controlling male figure. And I don't think that's something that's unintentional.

[01:05:15] You have an echo of it when they're describing the story of Carlotta Valdez,

[01:05:22] and he says something along the lines as he says she's just discarded men could do that back then.

[01:05:34] And when he's saying that, I wasn't sure whether he was saying it wistfully or

[01:05:37] come across as condemningly. But yeah, you guess you never know with Hitchcock.

[01:05:44] In the interview that Hitchcock did with Truffaut, the French filmmaker Francois Truffaut,

[01:05:51] they became a book, right? It's great. Yeah, I have the book. I own the book.

[01:05:55] Here's a psychological theme. Him dressing her up to look like Madeline who he believes is dead,

[01:06:02] his intention was to shoot it as if he's undressing her. Because his goal is to

[01:06:08] his necrophilia to have sex with the dead woman. And he says right at the very end where she

[01:06:13] has the dress and the shoes, but that she's let her hair down. Because she says it goes better

[01:06:26] with her face or something like that. And he says no, you have to put your hair up.

[01:06:32] Hitchcock said that was like she's naked except she still has her knickers on.

[01:06:36] And then when she puts her hair up now that the knickers are off,

[01:06:42] and now he can love her and accept her and embrace her. And so that's the moment where

[01:06:50] he's finally having sex with, he's finally engaging in that active necrophilia that he's

[01:06:55] been trying to engage in. Right. And I mean, hopefully Hitchcock didn't mean,

[01:07:06] actual sex with a dead body. But in some symbolic way, like this is having sex with somebody who

[01:07:11] just does not exist. Right? He's creating somebody. Yeah. And who you, so their existence is purely

[01:07:18] your creation. Which leads me to kind of interpretation of this film that,

[01:07:27] like I don't know if it's a stretch for me. But because I think I'm just a fan of meta-ness

[01:07:35] in general, everything that I like either is meta in some way or I interpret it in that way.

[01:07:42] But my favorite works of art are ones that seem to be critiqued, like seem to be commenting about

[01:07:47] about something, yeah, themselves. And here's what I was thinking as I saw the movie and I

[01:07:54] was reading about it. This could be taken as a statement of what, what movies cinema Hollywood

[01:08:05] does to the audience. It creates this fake person that we then become obsessed with.

[01:08:14] And if that's the case, if that's the statement that's being made, to me,

[01:08:18] the stand-in for Hitchcock in this movie is Gavin Elster. Gavin Elster creates this person,

[01:08:26] X knee, he looks, you know, and Jimmy Stewart from the moment he sees her in that restaurant,

[01:08:33] it is like the classic movie sort of love at first sight moment. He is obsessed with her

[01:08:40] in the way that people become obsessed with actors. And he has created this person.

[01:08:47] This person is not true, is not a real person. And Jimmy Stewart has to deal with the pain of

[01:08:53] that not being a real person and he tries really, really hard to make that into a real person.

[01:08:59] And the whole time there are other real people in his life. Right? And I couldn't help but read

[01:09:07] that this is, you know, and we haven't even talked about his actual vertigo. But the role of this

[01:09:15] movie director in giving us emotions is like what Gavin Elster has done to Jimmy Stewart.

[01:09:21] He's taking advantage of his natural sort of vertigo, exploiting it,

[01:09:27] exploiting it masterfully by creating this scene of her running up to the tower

[01:09:32] causing Jimmy Stewart to have this reaction killing her. And then he has to deal with the

[01:09:40] aftermath of having fallen in love with somebody who doesn't really exist.

[01:09:44] And then he goes off to Europe to make other movies or something.

[01:09:48] Exactly. Do this to some other schmuck.

[01:09:51] Yeah, that's interesting. And of course I take it this is the implication of what you're

[01:09:54] saying that would make us Jimmy Stewart.

[01:09:57] Jimmy Stewart. Exactly. Exactly. We are the audience that is experiencing vertigo and, you know,

[01:10:04] to bring Hitchcock's legendary ability to manipulate the audience is to me, we are Jimmy

[01:10:14] Stewart. The dolly shot is the quintessential Hitchcock ability to manipulate our own vertigo.

[01:10:22] He's making us feel vertigo in the way Jimmy Stewart feels vertigo by giving us that very

[01:10:27] famous vertigo shot. Yeah, and you know the cult of celebrity we they create and this is what studios

[01:10:35] did not just directors but studios would craft these personas and have them go out on dates

[01:10:42] with the right people and. Kim Novak exactly says this. She says that it was she

[01:10:49] had a brief relationship with Sammy Davis Jr. Right. And was told not to by the studios.

[01:10:56] Yes. Right. She was forbidden to see Sammy because of course Sammy Davis Jr. was black,

[01:11:00] a black Jew. Yeah, no, I just read about that today. That's really interesting.

[01:11:06] Yeah, I think that's definitely a way of interpreting it. We are Jimmy Stewart and

[01:11:13] there's a lot of meta. There's a lot of ways in which the movie is indicting us.

[01:11:18] Kim Novak looking at us when she has the revelation. I think there's a moment where

[01:11:23] she stares right at the camera. It's a weird moment where she's staring and it's like she's

[01:11:29] staring at us implicating us in this charade that she was forced to participate in or not

[01:11:39] forced to participate in but. No, but I think yeah, I don't know like my sense is maybe I got

[01:11:46] more of it than you but her resistance is real but a real sort of resistance that

[01:11:53] you know was she could only resist so much. I mean, she's crying. She's begging him not to do this.

[01:12:00] Yes. But Jimmy Stewart has the power. Yeah.

[01:12:03] I think you're right. I think this has got to be almost an explicit intention on Hitchcock's

[01:12:08] part. The fact that she's from Salinas, Kansas and so she's the prototypical young actress that

[01:12:16] came from Kansas to go and so you can say yes, she's complicit. She agreed to do what

[01:12:23] the Gavin Elster was asking her to do but she's just a working girl from Kansas.

[01:12:31] And she did it for money. And she did it for money and she did it for love and for all the

[01:12:35] same reasons that probably a lot of young actresses from Kansas come out to Hollywood

[01:12:42] and agree to do what these the very controlling studio heads and directors ask them to do.

[01:12:49] Right. Not unlike, not unlike Mulholland Drive's central character.

[01:12:53] Which is a very, I mean Mulholland Drive I thought a lot about as I was rewatching this it is

[01:12:59] there are so many parallels. Let me just say a little bit more about the perspective thing.

[01:13:05] Yeah. When you really try to get in the head of Jimmy Stewart

[01:13:10] and you're seeing what he's seeing in this woman, it's so different from what we actually

[01:13:18] learn is going on. What he's seeing, what he's imagining. And you have to wonder to what extent

[01:13:27] we all suffer from this exact condition, right? Where we perceive somebody, a person and their

[01:13:39] circumstances and their situation. And we're projecting a story onto them and a personality

[01:13:46] and an identity. And in this case it's being deliberately manipulated, but sometimes it might

[01:13:53] not be deliberately manipulated. And we're still not able to really discern what's going on.

[01:14:01] And we are trapped in that. And there's a sense in which I mean you said it when you said

[01:14:07] Jimmy Stewart is us, but there's a sense in which we are, we're all in this condition of being a

[01:14:18] prisoner of our perspective. And this movie brings out the extent to which that just sort of

[01:14:27] generalizes to multiple levels. Yeah. And a prisoner of others perspective on us.

[01:14:33] Of us, yes. Exactly. Which she becomes when they meet again and she's Judy this time.

[01:14:42] Yeah. And I don't know if I'm reading into it, but I think Kim Novak does, or Hitchcock or whatever,

[01:14:51] does a great job of actually romanticizing Madeline so much that she seems like this,

[01:14:59] you know, whatever goddess, this ideal goddess that even when Judy becomes Madeline in appearance

[01:15:09] again, she never quite gets back that, that Jean-Ésacquah. Ethereal kind of. Yeah. Only in

[01:15:18] that scene where she's a ghost like apparition, she retained this perfection.

[01:15:24] Right. And then you're right back to maybe it's because we saw her as Judy and we can't get back,

[01:15:30] we can't undo what we know of her as Judy or maybe there's something actually in her performance

[01:15:34] where she doesn't have that same affectation that she had as Madeline. But again, we're now

[01:15:40] seeing it from a different perspective. We're not trapped in his perspective anymore.

[01:15:45] We're trapped, we're now in her perspective. And so maybe we, you know, maybe she doesn't

[01:15:50] look any different except we see her differently now. Yeah. That's right. And you get the sense that

[01:15:56] this is, this is Jimmy Stewart's orgasmic moment when he sees her as this apparition

[01:16:02] for a split second, he is happy. That's the perfection. That's the necrophilia moment.

[01:16:08] That's the money shot. Money shot in the dead body. That's his money shot. Right. Yeah.

[01:16:12] And I think it's deliberately meant to be orgasmic as he said.

[01:16:21] Yeah, yeah, no. And I think that that's, you know, that's what's philosophically

[01:16:27] fascinating about this movie is the extent to which we're all implicated on a number of different

[01:16:33] levels. Prisoners of other people's impression of us and prisoners of our own impression of

[01:16:40] other people is an inescapable part of, you know, our experience. Right. And she so much wants

[01:16:48] the Judy character so much wants to be loved for who she really is for her authentic self. Yeah,

[01:16:54] for Judy and he's, you know, not only doesn't love her for being Judy, but

[01:17:03] you know, just loves some, some idealized version of it. And, and you know, like she's

[01:17:08] caught as Kim Novak as Judy, right? Like she's kind of got her, you know, I think she's made to be

[01:17:15] a more buxom kind of beautiful woman at that point. And it's just so not what

[01:17:23] what he wants that it's comical even though it could be what a lot of men might want. But

[01:17:29] it's so not, you know, I think they did a good job of contrasting the Judy and what she is and her

[01:17:37] accent and her the way she dresses. And when she goes in dresses in that purple, which I guess

[01:17:44] it just seems wrong. It seems certainly seems wrong to him. But we've been we've been so long

[01:17:53] in his head. Yeah, like it's just like, no, she shouldn't be in purple. Like that's wrong.

[01:18:00] So yeah, I mean, that's, I guess that's the thing that to me makes this movie great is

[01:18:08] there's so much to think and talk about. And so many, I would watch this again, you know,

[01:18:15] next week. You know, I'm struck by the that this is what it must be like for

[01:18:24] movie stars, actors of some level of fame, that this is what their existence is, that it must be

[01:18:30] how and I've heard some, you know, play me The World Smiles by Lin for the sympathy I have

[01:18:36] for actors. But one source of sympathy that I really have is when they say it's hard to date

[01:18:40] people who think that you are that movie person, right? Who they think that you are that person that

[01:18:45] they've seen in the movie so many times that it's very hard to get them to see that you are a

[01:18:49] different person. You know, I feel that same way when I meet people who listen to us. I'm like,

[01:18:55] I'm not that guy on the podcast. Except that we are those. We are those. Except for that.

[01:19:02] We are just exactly like we are. The authenticity is a weakness of mine.

[01:19:09] Can I talk a little bit about so, so, you know, Hitchcock was to me,

[01:19:15] it's not an original point to everybody, a master at manipulating his audience, right?

[01:19:20] I think that the there is a discomfort from the very beginning, that opening scene

[01:19:27] where Jimmy Stewart is, you know, they're running on the rooftops and he slips and he's hanging on to

[01:19:35] basically the drain. What do you call it? The gutter. What do you call it? The gutter, yeah.

[01:19:42] And the vertigo kicks in and the cop dies trying to save him. This sets the stage for

[01:19:51] Jimmy Stewart's guilt for obviously the fear of the terror that he experiences. But the fact

[01:19:59] that he never tells us how he got out of that situation, that he's still dangling there. Yeah.

[01:20:05] Like there is no conceivable way that you can escape that. That to me adds attention to the

[01:20:10] story, tension to the story from the get go. He never I never he never quite escaped that

[01:20:16] dangling ledge. Like I don't know how he got out, right? Yeah. It's that's interesting. So that was

[01:20:24] probably a deliberate choice. I mean, I suppose you would think because I had actually, I had that

[01:20:29] thought at the time and I thought I guess we're supposed to assume that he just pulled himself

[01:20:34] up. But the whole point of his illness is that he gets dizzy and so probably wouldn't be able

[01:20:41] to do that. Or maybe a different cop came down and helped him or they brought it. Like how long

[01:20:47] would he have had to be up there? You know, so much so that I was tempted, which I don't think is

[01:20:52] true. This would be and it would be cheap. Tempted to think you know this this is all

[01:20:57] happening. She's telling from the ledge. Yeah, no. I'm not tempted in that direction here.

[01:21:06] No, I immediately dismissed that. That would add nothing to this film.

[01:21:11] Yeah, no. But yes, he was a total master at that. The obsession from the get go

[01:21:18] makes Jimmy Stewart a horrible detective. Like when he's following her, you alluded to this.

[01:21:25] When he's following her, he's doing a terrible job at it. Like it's very clear that she has

[01:21:31] noticed him a few times. He doesn't even leave a car in between. Eliza had a trouble

[01:21:38] getting past this and she didn't remember. She had seen it once when she was really much younger.

[01:21:42] She didn't remember the twist. So it's like she just thinks he's really following her.

[01:21:48] Now, of course, she doesn't care that she knows that he is following her.

[01:21:52] But yes, he's awful. And even when they're on deserted roads going to the mission,

[01:21:58] it's just this one car. Exactly, the green car right in front of him. And he's just

[01:22:05] completely obviously following her. She keeps turning and turning. Somebody pointed out

[01:22:08] that they're always going downhill too. Like a spiral. Yeah. It was actually unsettling

[01:22:14] the way that scene is cut when he's following her. It's like he keeps turning and it is a

[01:22:20] spiral, right? That's right. I hadn't really thought about that because you don't see,

[01:22:25] all you see is right before the turns, right before the turns, next cut right before the

[01:22:29] turns. You get no sense of continuity in the chase or in the following.

[01:22:32] I have a question about the hotel. Yeah. So there's this scene where she's in there and

[01:22:41] he's seeing her in there. And then he goes and talks to the receptionist. And the receptionist

[01:22:48] says she hasn't been in today and then goes up and checks her room and she's not there.

[01:22:53] Yeah. So I don't understand that on a number of levels. Nope. I don't know. I had the same

[01:22:58] question. It's not even, it wouldn't even seem to be part of the plan that they would do that, right?

[01:23:05] I don't know what was going on there. But we never find out how she could have slipped through.

[01:23:13] I don't think she would have paid off. And why she would have wanted to do it that way.

[01:23:16] And no other point, like that makes it seem like she really is like a ghost.

[01:23:21] Yeah. She gets up to the window, opens it. Clearly is looking at him. Yeah. I think,

[01:23:26] you know, he turns away in his really bad following way, like as somehow to avoid notice. But he's

[01:23:32] clearly stalking her. I don't know if this is, if we're supposed to interpret this as,

[01:23:37] you know, after she dies and he keeps seeing her everywhere, even though it's not really her.

[01:23:41] Yeah. You know, I don't know if we're supposed to take it as some trick that Jimmy

[01:23:45] Stewart's might, you know, he's actually going a little bit crazy.

[01:23:48] Or maybe that their goal is to make him really at this moment think it might be

[01:23:57] a ghost. Is that the idea? Because he does sort of the Gavin Elster at the hearing where the judge

[01:24:04] just lays into Jimmy Stewart, just almost comically. Oh man. We're not here to blame

[01:24:13] the guy who clearly let someone die. The law doesn't say anything about not acting, unfortunately.

[01:24:20] But yeah, Gavin Elster says we know who really killed her. So is the idea that Jimmy Stewart is

[01:24:25] supposed to think that there really was kind of an apparition involved? I think so. I mean,

[01:24:32] they play up the possession aspect so strongly that it seems like that.

[01:24:38] But I had no point was it suggested that it could actually make her disappear, like the actual

[01:24:43] person, Madeline, disappear or appear. It only makes sense as a mentally unstable story,

[01:24:50] not as an actual poltergeist. I don't know. I mean, so maybe he's gaslighting us.

[01:25:00] I'm not exactly sure what's supposed to happen. I meant to look up if there was any

[01:25:05] discussion of that. So here there are a couple of things about this movie that actually bother me.

[01:25:11] One is a general complaint about movies of this sort and from this time period.

[01:25:16] And that is that are we really to believe that people fall in love that quickly?

[01:25:21] Like that they really in this is actually almost a trope in film noir, like, you know,

[01:25:26] women fall in love with with the male protagonist so quickly. Like there's

[01:25:33] some time. But it's often that as in this case, a ruse, right?

[01:25:40] Yeah, but I actually think she even states like I genuinely had feelings for you.

[01:25:44] But only over the course of their...

[01:25:48] I think she's referring to her character as Madeline actually fell in love with

[01:25:53] you. And he falls in love with her and some genuine feeling is I think supposed to be

[01:26:03] inferred by the audience. But I find that so unrealistic, like they don't even fall in love

[01:26:08] after years. I don't know. Like yeah, I guess as somebody, I've been off the market for

[01:26:20] quite a long time. But I remember in my younger days, I could get pretty inf...

[01:26:25] I could certainly get very infatuated with someone very quickly.

[01:26:30] Yeah, I don't know. That doesn't surprise me too much. And then the movie is yes,

[01:26:34] it seems quicker and it seems like a, you know, like a...

[01:26:37] Yeah, I'm like what was it about Jimmy Stewart that she found so attractive?

[01:26:40] Like from the book?

[01:26:41] Well, that's separate. It's a separate.

[01:26:44] Here's another answer to your question about falling in love so easily.

[01:26:51] Jimmy Stewart's character is kind of interesting. It's not something I've seen discussed

[01:26:56] that much, but...

[01:26:57] He's a man of independent means.

[01:26:58] He's a man of independent means and really no job. Like...

[01:27:05] Yeah.

[01:27:06] So he has nothing to do. And I think that's kind of important to his character,

[01:27:11] his obsessions, the way he'll fall in love, the way he'll...

[01:27:15] And I thought that was kind of as, you know, as someone who has had periods of time where I've had

[01:27:22] also not that much to do and spent a lot of time wandering around cities, including San Francisco.

[01:27:29] Like I thought it captured that feeling you sometimes get when the aimlessness is

[01:27:36] really a problem. Like it's a problem for your emotional state.

[01:27:41] His mind is looking for something to do and it falls into this obsession.

[01:27:44] Yeah. And I think if he had had something that he was focused on and that was important to him

[01:27:51] and was a part of his identity, then maybe some of... I think, you know, that's really good

[01:27:58] interesting character work there, I think. Then maybe this couldn't happen to...

[01:28:04] It could only happen to a person as aimless as Jimmy Stewart is at that time.

[01:28:11] So I take it we're supposed to believe that he comes from money, probably.

[01:28:20] That's why he's independent means because certainly he hasn't created his own wealth.

[01:28:25] And you know, I kind of read into this like he's not a strong man in any way.

[01:28:33] He's broken by the traumatic experience of...

[01:28:36] He doesn't even seem strong in that moment when he's dangling from the ledge.

[01:28:43] And he seems like probably Hitchcock had an overbearing mother in mind for his character.

[01:28:48] Yes.

[01:28:49] Right?

[01:28:49] Although there's not even any mention of his family at any point.

[01:28:53] Not at all.

[01:28:57] Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think that makes sense that he does capture this

[01:29:04] this what do you do when you don't have to do anything.

[01:29:06] And the other people, they have jobs, they have work that...

[01:29:12] Barbara Belgedes is always working. Whenever he drops by our house and she loves them.

[01:29:18] So it's not like... But he's just wandering around the city even then looking for somebody

[01:29:23] to talk to, looking for... Yeah.

[01:29:25] And even Judy, she has a job that... And he says, you know, take the day off tomorrow,

[01:29:33] spend the day with me. She's like, I gotta go to work.

[01:29:36] He never has to go.

[01:29:38] You're not living in reality, dude.

[01:29:40] Yeah. I think the weakest piece of acting in the movie is when Jimmy Stewart is in Midge's

[01:29:47] apartment and he's telling her about his theory about how he's going to get over

[01:29:53] his acrophobia and he climbs up on the ladder and he sees... He stupidly put the ladder too

[01:29:58] close to the window and he looks down. His fainting?

[01:30:02] Yes.

[01:30:04] Is the most affected, like weird, bad, like he looks like a stereotypical woman from

[01:30:11] the South who passes out.

[01:30:14] And simultaneously, which I think captures his performance, vulnerable but also creepy.

[01:30:21] Creepy.

[01:30:22] Vulnerable, creepy and a weak person.

[01:30:25] Yes. Yeah.

[01:30:28] The strongest that he gets is at his ultimate creepiness is when he's getting mad.

[01:30:32] Exactly.

[01:30:33] When he's getting mad for her not for Judy not doing everything. And that to me is

[01:30:39] testament to Jimmy Stewart. He's so likable as a person and in his roles that for him to

[01:30:46] be scary took a lot.

[01:30:49] Yeah. And then when he... And he's just crazed in the height of him dressing her up. And then,

[01:30:54] of course, at the bell tower he is crazed. But that's when he finds out.

[01:30:59] And so he has maybe more of an excuse to be crazed at that point. But before then,

[01:31:04] it's just... Yeah. And again, watch it. It's really interesting to rewatch it because

[01:31:10] it... You really get a sense of the seeds of his obsessiveness. It is clear in his performance

[01:31:19] throughout and that it's not something you might notice on the first go around. Especially given

[01:31:25] that it's Jimmy Stewart. And we have our preconceptions about Jimmy Stewart that

[01:31:30] Hitchcock will certainly knows about. And yeah.

[01:31:33] Right. I don't know if you have much else to say, but what I wanted to ask you

[01:31:38] is, what I assume that you think this is a great movie?

[01:31:42] I do. Yeah. I don't think it's one of my all-time favorites, but I think it's a great movie.

[01:31:48] Yeah. I have no problem with it being considered the greatest. There is kind of a sense in which

[01:31:54] this is a certain kind of cinema at its peak.

[01:31:59] Yeah. So I was going to ask you what makes it great. And I have some thoughts on this.

[01:32:06] Because I don't think that the story or the acting or the writing or any of those things are enough

[01:32:14] to make this a great movie. I'd agree with that. Yeah.

[01:32:18] I would say what makes it great, this is going to sound cliched, but how every aspect of it fits

[01:32:28] together perfectly, masterfully as a kind of a singular vision.

[01:32:36] Unobsessive.

[01:32:37] Yeah. Obsessive singular vision that, yes, mirrors and reflects the themes of the story itself and

[01:32:45] the movie itself. But yeah, the way the production designed the colors, the music, the performances,

[01:32:52] the, even some of the writing I think, and Hitchcock is very involved in the screenwriting

[01:32:59] process, although he's never listed as a screenwriter. It all comes together. And that's what

[01:33:05] I mean in this way, that it just seems like the peak of a certain kind of cinema.

[01:33:12] Right. This is, you know, and I can see why probably filmmakers put this as a list. I

[01:33:16] mean, this is filmmaking. The greatness here is in the filmmaking. You know,

[01:33:21] if you gave me the script, I think there are a lot of forgettable movies that have stories that

[01:33:27] are along the lines of this. And Hitchcock turned it into a great movie by making a great film.

[01:33:36] What do you think?

[01:33:38] Yeah. I think it's a great movie, but I think it is great because it's Hitchcock flexing.

[01:33:45] Flexing his great moviemaking skills. Hitchcock, even in this movie, you know, his use of color is

[01:33:54] just obviously brilliant. There are beautiful shots in this movie that I don't associate so much

[01:34:03] with Hitchcock. I'm far from an expert, but I really do like Hitchcock. I never really

[01:34:06] think of Hitchcock as making beautiful movies. But I think this movie is beautiful. I think

[01:34:11] he uses San Francisco as a landscape in one of the best ways. San Francisco is sort of a favorite

[01:34:17] of movies and TV shows, but I think he makes San Francisco come alive.

[01:34:22] It's a good marriage, him and San Francisco. Yeah. And that whole area, Northern California.

[01:34:28] Yeah, exactly. And yeah, so I agree with like, I hadn't thought to put it that way,

[01:34:34] but the way it all comes together makes it great despite what I think if I was aware of just

[01:34:40] the storyline, I'd be like, eh, that's interesting. But it's, you know,

[01:34:45] Hitchcock famously has MacGuffins where plot is really an excuse to have great scenes and great

[01:34:54] visuals. I would say among Hitchcock plots, this is one of the better ones. The MacGuffin is

[01:35:05] not necessarily just a MacGuffin. It is tied into the themes and the look and the visual aspects of

[01:35:13] it. But it's, yeah, it's almost not a MacGuffin. It's just kind of an interesting, it's kind of a

[01:35:18] cool twisty plot, you know? Yeah. Like you said, it's nothing special. It's like a film noir plot

[01:35:25] in that, that's sort of what I was referring to it. It's a twisty attorney and there is a

[01:35:28] mystery and it's solved. But it is only interesting in, well, sorry, only great in Hitchcock making

[01:35:38] the psychological tension. I mean, I remember really liking it as a kid and taking, it took me time

[01:35:44] to like rear window because I was like, this is just like, you know that he's the killer and

[01:35:49] turns out he is the killer and like, what's the point of this movie? Like exactly. And now...

[01:35:59] But it is that thing, it is that ability of Hitchcock to give us human tension, like

[01:36:06] that makes rear window good, but that makes this plot turn into a good, a great movie

[01:36:11] that he adds that sort of dimension of human psychology to it.

[01:36:16] I think to go back to rear window, it's been a while. I don't have that initial reaction anymore,

[01:36:21] but it's still been a long time since I've seen it maybe. Because some people think of that as the

[01:36:27] ultimate Hitchcock movie and not this one. Yeah. Is this your favorite Hitchcock movie?

[01:36:37] I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's definitely Hitchcock at

[01:36:43] its peak filmmaking. But if I had to watch a Hitchcock movie, it might be rear window or

[01:36:51] north by northwest or psycho honestly. I think psycho is brilliant. To me, there's a clear top three.

[01:37:00] It's psycho, vertigo and I don't know, this may be a little more idiosyncratic,

[01:37:08] but shadow of a doubt. I love shadow of a doubt. I think it's peak early Hitchcock.

[01:37:13] It's the one with the girl and her uncle Charlie and the girl is also named Charlie.

[01:37:20] That's Joseph Cotton and I just, I love that movie. Psycho is so fucking good.

[01:37:29] It's so good. It's hard to tease apart psycho from its influence.

[01:37:35] Um, all right. Well, that was us discussing vertigo. Join us next time on Very Bad Wizard.