San Francisco of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo - by Douglas A Cunningham (Paperback)

About the Book

This collection of essays examines the relationship that Vertigo enjoys with the histories and cultural imaginations of California and, more specifically, the San Francisco Bay Area. Contributors to this collection explore the specificities of place and the role such specifici...

Book Synopsis

This collection of essays examines the relationship that Vertigo enjoys with the histories and cultural imaginations of California and, more specifically, the San Francisco Bay Area. Contributors to this collection explore the specificities of place and the role such specificities play in our comprehensive efforts to understand Hitchcock's most critically acclaimed film.

Review Quotes

Cunningham himself has been to all the locations, of course, and reflects on the passion that makes him and others hunt them out: "Was I not, after all, like Scottie, hoping to reify an apparition, chasing a precious, enigmatic memory rooted in a fiction, the truth of which I desperately hoped I, in my own time and space, could somehow make real?" The attempt is fraught with disappointment; Scottie cannot make things real in time enough to prevent tragedy, and some of the sites which pilgrims might try to attain are changed beyond recognition (and some are complete illusion, as was discovered by the first pilgrims who tried to find the Argosy Bookshop, where Scottie goes to research Carlotta's history). But the search is inspiring for those who want to visit the inside workings of Vertigo. The inspiration suffuses all the chapters of this fine study, a worthy contribution to the numerous books devoted to increasing our understanding of a true masterpiece.

About the Author

Douglas A. Cunningham is a film scholar and historian, who has contributed essays to many publications, including Screen and The Moving Image. He is the coeditor of A Companion to the War Film (2016).