Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock - 1958
One of the few perfect films, maybe, it has nothing to do with classicism, though the credits may say it comes from that tradition; this is as related to Fellini as it is to the cinema of Griffiths. It is the cinema of looks, looking. Stewart looks. A film made up entirely of eyeline matches.
The master's camera perhaps moves less than in others of his work I have seen. We stay so much with Stewart, they walk towards him and the camera, we get his reverse. We of course have tracks and moves, that '360 pan where cinema and time; I get the feeling this film isn't strictly chronologically arranged, when do Scottie and Madeleine first sleep together? There isn't chronology, just the memory...
Another technical point is the changes of filters; quick moves to blue filters, for example. Also some blatantly 'non-realist' stopping down, as with the vivid colours (which I remeber so strongly in 'Rope', and a bit on 'Marnie').
I could play with symbolism, I think I can just say it needs to be watched, then again... Stewart us a free man, an independent man, who is free? What kind of man lived in San Francisco ten years ago? I kept thinking of Chris Marker, this film goes with 'Sans Soleil', among others. Time comes together, memory, 'Marienbad', cinema and time, a picture, a dress. No second chances.