North by north west and Vertigo

Today we watched the opening of the movies North by North west and Vertigo.

North by northwest


The opening titles are on a green grid, just as the movie starts it changes into skyscraper windows, this is a Graphic match as the lines of the green grid match with the window frames. We then meet the main character, Roger Thornhill. He is fast talking, which shows he is busy. He works in advertising, and so the fact he is fast talking is a sterotypical characteristic of someone who works in advertising or on a newspaper. He is also dressed very smart, which further shows he must be an advertiser as advertisers have to get an image across, just like he is doing from the way he's dressed. The plot of the story starts right away, the plot being he is mistaken for someone else and kidnapped, this further shows his busy life and nature.

Vertigo

Like the opening of North by northwest, vertigo also has a graphic match, this time it goes from an eye to a swirl pattern. The story starts off with a chase across some rooftops when the main character,John Ferguson , falls a building and is left dangling on the edge. This is when his fear of heights start, which is were the title comes from, however, vertigo doesn't mean fear of heights, but in fact it is a type of dizziness, where there is a feeling of motion when one is stationary,but many people believe it means fear of heights due to this movie. This shows how influential Hitchcock's movies were. When he looks down, while dangling on the roof pipe, a rolling shot is used to show his dizziness as he hangs there.