Yes, this is indeed the first time I am watching both of these movies. STOP WITH THE CONDESCENDING DISAPPOINTMENT, I KNOW I'M A FAILURE AS A MOVIE BUFF. I'm working on it, I am.
Vertigo
So, this is the movie that was voted by critics everywhere as the greatest film of all time this year in the Sight & Sound poll, beating out Citizen Kane, which won for the last five years consecutively, and also was named by the American Film Institute as the greatest movie in the Mystery genre, beating out Chinatown. I'm not the biggest fan of Citizen Kane (I'm not "drinking the Kool-Aid", as they say), but it IS a great movie and I know it's a big deal, and I AM a huge fan of Chinatown, so I was curious to see this.
Verdict? It's pretty darn good. Better than the other Hitchcock movies I've seen for sure. Rear Window's one fault is that it's entirely too predictable and convenient, though it is an exciting mystery/thriller. Psycho was spoiled for me, so that may have something to do with it, but it seems to me that Psycho has a lot of weak writing mixed in among all of the strong writing. I haven't seen any other Hitchcock yet, but Vertigo's undoubtedly the best. It functions well as a romance, a mystery, a thriller, a redemption story, a domestic drama, and more. A lot of deep characterization and a very interesting and compellingly twisting plot.
That's not to say it doesn't have its problems. After as instantly exciting first scene, the story grinds to a halt and has a scene purely in the story for really sloppy exposition and on-the-nose dialogue. There's a lot of, "Oh, as you and I both already know but I'm going to tell you again anyway, Midge..." which just makes the whole scene fail for me and really pulled me out of the movie and made me skeptical for the rest of the movie. Also, the plot IS a little... far-fetched, in hindsight. A little convenient. These things are relatively forgivable, though, on the strength of the rest of the movie. I will say that I think Citizen Kane and Chinatown are MUCH better movies, by far. I'll give Vertigo an 8/10.
Favorite line: "Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere." A good line in general, elevated to great by the romantic subtext and even deeper layers of meaning in hindsight.
Jaws
Spielberg, man. I think we've all heard of Jaws. Needless to say, it's great, a MASTERCLASS on everything from screenwriting to directing to acting to composing. First things first, DAT SCORE. Oh my gosh, how eerie is the shark's theme? I could have sworn my heart stopped beating every time it started playing. The rest of the score is reminiscent of pirate music, too, which is cool. So go John Williams.
Next, the screenwriting. I got on Vertigo's case above for its weak and forced exposition, so watching Jaws right afterwards was like a breath of fresh air. In the first two scenes, the screenwriters almost overload us with information, but they do it so eloquently that we almost don't notice: there is a shark in the water, it's killing people, Martin Brody is the chief of police on Amity Island, he's new here from New York, and he totally has no idea what he's doing or how things work here. That's the first five minutes of the movie or so. And the dialogue is brilliant because it's character-specific, humorous while still being fitting to a thriller, and really reveals conflict without being on-the-nose about it.
And the directing. OHMIGOSH. This movie is TERRIFYING at times. I was SCREAMING at the screen right before the second shark attack, "GET OUT OF THE WATER!" Todd Alcott, a screenwriter (whose website you should check out at toddalcott.com) also talks about how Spielberg creates a visual scheme throughout the movie of the fact that, as long as you are out of the water, you're safe, but if you're in the water, all bets are off. Hence Chief Brody being scared of the water. And it really does work, too. Spielberg knows how to create suspense.
As for the acting, it's great acting.
I'm gonna give Jaws a 9.5/10. Just wish I'd seen it earlier.
Favorite line: The one that's most famous, of course: "You're gonna need a bigger boat."
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