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Acknowledgements
I would like express gratitude to Salman Akhtar MD, Glen Gabbard MD, and Adrienne Harris PhD for encouraging me to write this paper and to Steven Z. Levine PhD, Stephen Kerzner MD, and Sydney Pulver MD for their helpful comments on an earlier version of it. My thanks to Homay King, PhD for inviting me to present this paper at the Bryn Mawr College Center for Visual Culture and to her and Lisa Saltzman, PhD for their astute comments. This essay is dedicated to beautiful, elusive Madeleine.
Notes
2. D'Entre les Morts was the title of the original novel. The film was released in France as Sueurs Froides [Cold Sweat], and the novel was later reprinted under this name. The title of the English translation was Vertigo.
3. If you are a Vertigo virgin, I urge you to see the film before reading further; however, short plot summaries may be found at sites such as http://www.sparknotes.com/film/vertigo/summary.html;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_(film) and in books, such as in Truffaut (Citation1969, p. 303).
4. The MacGuffin is the essential but often unseen plot ‘gimmick’ that drives the movie (Truffaut, Citation1969, p. 157). For instance, in Notorious (1946) we never find out a thing about why the ore from the mountains near Rio is important; however, we have been thrilled to see Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman discover it in the wine bottles, terrified that they will be discovered by Claude Rains.
5. Zizek (Citation1990, pp. 6, 7, 14; and cited in Ravetto‐Biagioli, Citation2011, pp. 84, 120) does bring up dignity in the Kantian sense in his discussion of Vertigo. Citing Lacan's formula that sublimation raises the object to the dignity of the ideal Thing, Zizek compares the ordinary Judy to the sublime Madeleine. This rests on the assumption that, without the defense of sublimation, our desires and drives would result in unrestrained acting on our impulses. To do so would be to treat others as means to the end of our satisfactions – not as entities with personal dignity. The Golden Rule of universality and our capacity for sublimation are what permit the acknowledgement of dignity and human rights following Kant.
6. ‘Dignity’ has a complex history (Rosen, 2012). I am not utilizing the term in its senses of elegance/gravitas/comportment or prestige/lordliness/status; each category has its own tradition. Scholars also disagree about whether ‘dignity’ is, or should be, primarily a legal or a moral term. I am obviously using it as the latter. Akhtar (Citation2014) has proposed a psychoanalytic taxonomy of dignity.
7. We could term this ‘gaslighting,’ but that would only be Hitchcockian.
8. The room, however, was not seedy enough to have featured a torn curtain.
9. http://www.content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,160439,00.html (search date, July 7, 2014)
10. This comment actually helped me focus on the detective element of Scottie's identity!
11. Coit Tower was named after Lillie Hitchcock Coit, no relation. Hitchcock referred to it as a ph
12. This occurs on page 56 of the 190 page screenplay.
13. http://www.babycenter.com/popularBabyNames.htm?year=1957 (search date, May 22, 2014)
14. http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/decades/names1950s.html (search date, May 22, 2014)
15. http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/amazing-tale-Arnold-Bennett-Alfred-Hitchcock/story-16494970-detail/story.html (search date, May 22, 2014)
16. “To my knowledge Judy has never been thrown anywhere (other than the fact that all traditional glove puppets exit as if through a trap door). It is the Baby who is thrown about in the traditional scripts – a piece of slapstick carried on into pantomime, early film and vaudeville. A 3 year‐old Buster Keaton was physically thrown about in the act by his vaudeville father. Mostly a prop baby would be substituted for a live infant before the sight gags escalated. As all the cast of P&J are wooden there was no need for this substitution in the puppet show. Mr. Punch blames Judy for the mishap to the baby in the Victorian script by claiming he assumed she'd be there to catch it. The current version of this gag is for Mr. Punch to sit on the baby having misinterpreted Judy's instruction to do the babysitting.” ‘Prof.’ Glyn Edwards, punchandjudy.com. Personal communication, June 3, 2014. NB Alfred Hitchcock greatly admired Buster Keaton.