Charles Barr

Barr has written a cold and analytical dissection of a cold and analytical film. That's a little bit of a suprise, when other BFI Classics entries are sometimes given over to a more personal appeal to the reader, but Barr's approach works because it challenges us to separate from our subjective opinion of Vertigo and just focus on Hitchcock's mastery. Of particular interest is the way Barr breaks down major sequences from the film, shot for shot, comparing the perspectives of the camera, the symmetry of the screenplay's structure, and even balance of the shot durations. Barr's argument is that these are all completely intentional on Hitchcock's part, and his evidence is convincing. Anyone who has ever dismissed Vertigo as "slow" or "boring" will surely be impressed by the sheer magnitude of Hitchcock's control over the passive viewer, and it might even convince them to give the film a second look. For my part, as someone teaching Vertigo to a class for the first time, I've gone from feeling reticent to actually excited by the challenge. That's not a bad result for such a slim volume.… (mehr)

One of the great things about the BFI series is that contributing authors each approach their works from different schools of criticism. While Charles Barr does go into the historical and collaborative efforts behind the film Vertigo - including debates on the contributions of the multiple writers involved - but the majority of Charles Barr's analysis focuses on textual deconstructionism, as he examines Hitchcock's film frame by frame, shot by shot, delving not only into what individual images or sequences communicate to the audience, but also how removing the tacked-on ending or the expository middle sequence that Hitchcock tried to remove alter the narrative and it's influence on the audience's emotional investment in the film. While Barr's methodical breakdown of screen time dedicated to silence or POV shots - complete with charts - might come off as needlessly ponderous, the book as a whole provides great insight into one of Hitchcock's most beloved and studied films. Yet another indispensable BFI Film Classics volume.… (mehr)