Once I decided to look at “Vertigo”, I looked at which books might be interesting and went on a Library mission. I got out 4 books, “Hitchcock’s Romantic Irony”, “Hitchcock’s Films Revisited”, “The Women Who Knew too Much: Hitchcock and the Feminist Theory” and “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Lacan But Were Too Afraid To Ask Hitchcock”. I did not use this last title, it was quite interesting to read around though, but the others all proved quite useful. I looked up the relevant passages and read them. All roads led back to “Hitchcock’s Films Revisited, so this I used as my starting block.
The book provided scene-by-scene analysis of many of Hitchcock’s films, including “Vertigo”. So I found the paragraphs corresponding to the scene I was looking at and read. I drew two key ideas out of this reading, and other ideas floated around my head, which would resurface later.
The first of the ideas I wanted to look at from this passage was that of audience and first hand reaction to suicide. This became a dead end. So it was time to cut my losses and move on. I did look at the idea of suicide in later posts, partially to do with Scottie’s reaction, but nothing on the audience reaction.
But, moving on, I went on to try to look at the roles and male and female protagonists and romantic leads in films generally, and how Scottie and Madeleine relate to the typical portrayal of male and female leads. This again, very nearly proved a dead end. I did however, after hours of searching, find some information, which I could draw my own conclusions from, rather than drawing and adjusting someone else ideas on the subject. I didn’t really like this way of gathering information for these purposes, as when trying to form an opinion on a topic, I find it useful to look at other peoples to help me create an opinion with depth and that’s not just based on my own ideas. I tried reading the books I had, which brought up some interesting notions about the characters, but not relevant to what I wanted to discuss. But it was time for a good rest after looking at information that was getting me nowhere for hours before having to finally give up and form my own opinions on the matter.
Two days later I was ready to address the question that had been raised by the books I read, Does Scottie Love Madeleine? This day I looked at the two key points that lead me to look at this question. The first was that of fetishism. After a good scour of the Internet, I found a really good article on fetishism, that wasn’t just talking about inanimate objects, or looking at fetishism in a sexual sense. I sat down and read, and thought, and concluded and typed. After that it was time for a good break, a nice dinner and half a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. I’ve always found that I work well if I start working half an hour to an hour after I’ve had a good meal, a pattern that repeated itself throughout my research process. Another way of getting myself to do work if I wasn’t focusing was by denying myself things, or treating myself (things like cigarettes and chocolate) until or when I felt I had done a reasonable amount of work. This is a particularly effective reward system I find. Anyway, after this break I went on and found an article that was relevant to the idea of possession and provided that and analysis of if in a day. Phew. What a lot of work. Up until the small hours, and now it was time for a well-deserved rest.
My research continued in the same pattern for the rest of my blog, finding questions, noting them, and finding a juncture to research and answer them, generally working an hour after dinner till the middle of the night. I’ve known how I work best for quite some time, and followed this pattern for my research.
