Abstract
Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo (1958) has attracted the interest of classical reception scholars because of its adaptation of Ovid’s Pygmalion myth. Scottie, the film’s main character, has been interpreted as a re-enactment of Pygmalion, a character in the Metamorphoses who sculpted his ideal woman out of ivory. In this article, the idea of a direct line of reception from Ovid to Hitchcock is challenged. Rather, the principal model of the film is identified as George Bernard Shaw’s drama Pygmalion (1913). However, Ovid’s Pygmalion story does constitute a model for the film as well, though it does so on a more indirect level. In fact, all the film’s main characters display Ovidian traits. These add an extra layer of meaning to the understanding of the film and the complexity of its characters, and allow for an unexpected re-interpretation of Scottie and his desires.
Highlights
The psychological thriller Vertigo (1958) is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best-known and most praised masterpieces
The film has attracted the interest of scholars of classical reception because of its purported adaptation of the Pygmalion myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses
I challenge the idea of a direct line of reception from Ovid to Hitchcock and argue that the film’s principal model is George Bernard
Summary
The psychological thriller Vertigo (1958) is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best-known and most praised masterpieces. Ovid’s Pygmalion story does constitute a model for the film, but it does so on a more indirect and subtle level. I demonstrate that, all main characters in the film (viz., Scottie as well as the three female characters Madeleine, Judy and Midge) display Ovidian traits. Some of these traits appear as parallels to Ovid’s. I argue that, in sum, these Ovidian intertexts add extra layers of meaning to the overall understanding of the film and, in particular, to the complexity of its characters, and they allow for an unexpected re-interpretation of Scottie and his desires
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