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Some critics, together with Donald Spoto and Roger Ebert, agree that Vertigo is the director's most private and revealing movie, coping with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who moulds a girl into the particular person he needs. He is pursued across the United States by enemy agents, together with Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint). At first, Thornhill believes Kendall is helping him, but then realises that she is an enemy agent; he later learns that she is working undercover for the CIA. When Frank discovers Angela has been sleeping with Griffin as part of their arrangement, he has a physical altercation with Griffin, then goes to remain together with his uncle Pat and aunt Aggie. The title-sequence of the present pictured a minimalist caricature of his profile (he drew it himself; it is composed of solely nine strokes), which his real silhouette then crammed. Hitchcock makes use of close-ups of Stewart's face to point out his character's reactions, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's condo". Stewart's character is a photographer named Jeff (primarily based on Robert Capa) who must temporarily use a wheelchair. As with Lifeboat and Rope, the principal characters are depicted in confined or cramped quarters, in this case Stewart's studio residence. |
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