Symbolism In Vertigo

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Vertigo Film Essay Many directors use little details in movies to describe what is happening. In the film Vertigo, director Alfred Hitchcock used the colors red, yellow, and green to symbolize what was going on in the movie. Each color symbolized its own thing: red was deception, yellow was sanity, and green was obsession. Often in the film when Hitchcock used the color red, he was suggesting to the viewer that John Scotty was being misled. This is where it is evident that the color red symbolized deception. In the plot John Scotties friend, Gavin Elster, asked John to follow his wife. Gavin was concerned with what she was doing during the day because she had been acting unusual by going off for hours and not remembering what she did. Gavin, however, had his own motive; he deceived John by having him follow the wrong person so he can get away with murdering his wife. Consistently throughout the film, every time Scottie was being deceived, there was red in the scene. Hitchcock used the…show more content…
It was apparent that when Gavin’s wife Madeline was in a scene, she was often wearing green or she was surrounded by green, and most importantly, Scottie had become obsessed with Madeline. As a result of Gavin hiring Scottie to follow Madeline, Scottie started to occupy his time by following her around everywhere she went to try and find out what was going on with her. Through this processes, he ended up falling in love with her, and this particular job became an obsession. Later in the movie Scottie found out that the person he thought was Madeline was not really her. As stated previously, the lady he was following was just a diversion so Gavin could kill his wife. To conclude, Alfred Hitchcock in the movie Vertigo, brilliantly used colors to play a vitally important role in the film. The colors of red, yellow and green certainly swayed the viewers thinking, changed actions and caused

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