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hitchcockVertigo stars James Stewart as Scottie, a retired detective, and Kim Novak as Judy Barton, who gets disguised as Madeleine, a woman hired by Scottie's friend to act as his wife in order to frame Scottie. The story takes place in San Francisco in the 1950's. The film opens on a high building, where officer Scottie and his partner are in pursuit of a suspect. Scottie's partner's life is on the line and only he can save him. Unfortunately, he has vertigo, a fear of heights. Scottie is unable to assist his partner who unfortunately falls to his death. Hitchcock underlines Scottie's fear of heights by using intense music and a bird's eye view of the street below, to give the viewer an impression of height. Closeups of Scottie's face demonstrate his obsessive fear, hence making it more realistic to the audience. As the story develops, Scottie falls deeply in love with Madeleine, a beautiful young blonde woman. Madeleine later runs up the stairs of a church, unsuccessfully pursued by Scottie, and jumps off the roof killing herself, or so Scottie thought. Here again, the camera angles play an important role in demonstrating Scottie's fear of heights, as a spiralling effect is used to shoot the staircase. As the story develops, Scottie gets admitted to a psychiatric unit. His mental and emotional confusion is illustrated by chaotic music. When he meets a young woman named Judy Barton, who bears a striking resemblance to the late Madeleine, Hitch really takes advantage of color in a scene in Judy's apartment. Fog, typical to San Francisco, combined with green light coming from a neon sign in the street, give the scene a remarkable, almost divine effect. In order for Scottie to overcome the trauma he suffered when he lost Madeleine, he drives Judy to the same church and asks her to run up the stairs in an attempt to reproduce the sequence of events leading up to Madeleine's death. Shockingly, Judy really jumps off the roof, thus abruptly ending the story. An Internet review