Vertigo is the first Alfred Hitchcock film I've seen. That being said, it lived up to everything I'd ever heard about Hitchcock's film style. I really like the way vertigo, in and of itself, was a theme. When John is experiencing vertigo, his sensation of dizziness and fear is conveyed through the camera using 'trombone shots', where a combination of zoom, focus, and tracking creates a distorting effect. When John's vertigo strikes, it is usually at a time in the movie when things are spinning out of control, or there is a heightened level of stress for him. Just before Madeleine's first alleged death, John didn't make it to the top of the stairs due to vertigo. He suffered from it the next time he went up the stairs as well, but made it to the top, showing that he could conquer the condition. When he revealed to Judy that he knew about the scheme she was part of, John also redeemed himself in the sense that he wasn't going to be the victim of a murderer's plot. Then, as Judy falls to her death, John looks down at her body, only without the trombone shot.
Early on in the movie, John learns that the only way he might be able to shake the vertigo would be to experience another shocking event. Judy's death seems shocking enough...well, maybe a shock to him. It was well foreshadowed, so it wasn't too much of a shocker to me, although I still experienced the temporary emotion of "did that really happen!?", since I had hoped that it wouldn't! The movie ends with us looking at John while he looks down at Judy without any vertigo. I like the ending because it brought closure to the plot...the true underlying plot was for John to try to cure himself of vertigo, not to find a lover. He succeeded, which by some standards warrants a happy ending...which it was, depending on how much you were rooting for the relationship between John and Madeleine...or how much you were against it.
