The Acoustics of Vertigo: Soundtracks, Soundscapes, and Scores

Abstract

Picture Scottie pursuing Madeleine up the stairs of the bell tower, forcing himself to move against the instincts of his acrophobia. Fear grips harder the higher he climbs and, although he knows better, he succumbs to the temptation to look down. As the camera assumes his viewpoint, it enacts Hitchcock’s signature Vertigo zoom, that optical effect designed to instill in us the same dizzying disorientation experienced by Scottie. It is a jarring moment that unsettles looking itself, making us doubt our vision. Now imagine this scene silent. Imagine it without Bernard Herrmann’s score that builds the suspense and, crucially, without that jarring shock chord that strikes at the moment the image seeks to induce us with vertigo. This little anecdote should reveal an obvious fact, one stressed in the literature on the film: the soundtrack is incredibly important. Indeed, it is so central to Vertigo (1958) that a number of artists have devoted their attention to this aspect of the film alone, shunning its otherwise rich and complex images. This is the subject of the present chapter, which explores how these artists have engaged with the uses and significance of soundtracks, soundscapes, and scores in Hitchcock’s films and Vertigo in particular.