Hitchcock's movie, Vertigo, is a twisted story about a police detective dealing with a deep fear of falling (Acrophobia) while being played like a pawn. Retired police detective, John "Scottie" Ferguson, meets up with an old college friend, Gavin Elster, who influences him to take on another assignment, shadowing Gavin's wife, Madeleine. Alfred Gavin believes that Madeleine is being possessed by her dead grandmother and told to commit suicide. Through this assignment, Scottie falls in love with Madeleine but due to his tormented mental state, his vertigo, he is unable to save her from suicide. Falling deeper into his sickness, Scottie is sent to a mental asylum for treatment. Once released, a year later, he soon becomes infatuated with another woman, Judy Barton, who bares a striking resemblance to his former love, Madeleine. Scottie makes over Judy to look just like Madeleine, but in the transformation he realizes that Judy was actually hired to act as Madeleine and that Gavin actually killed the real Madeleine and used Scottie as a decoy. Scottie becomes distraught by this realization and takes Judy back to the place where the real Madeleine was killed. Judy tries to plead her case but in the end she trips and falls to her death just as Madeleine did. With the differing emotions of Scottie and the male dominance in this film it is easy to see that this is another one of Hitchcock's masterpiece. He uses many different techniques to get his point across. In Tania Modleski's book, The Women Who Knew Too Much, she makes references to the "repetitions" that occur in the film. Repetition is a major theme in this film and it provides an insight to what Hitchcock may have been thinking when making this film. .
Repetition is a style that is used in many films because it is a dynamic way for the director to get his point across. Showing something more than once allows the director to solidify his point and make the audience remember.
