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Vertigo

1958 · TMDB 8.1

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

Why it matters

Hitchcock's masterpiece of romantic obsession, where retired detective Scottie Ferguson's acrophobia and fixation on a ghostly woman lead him to reconstruct her image onto a living woman. The film's famous dolly-zoom and colour-coded lighting externalise Scottie's spiralling inte...

From The Architecture of Obsession: Cinema of the Fixated Mind

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