Movie Maps: Vertigo

The last time I saw Vertigo was at the Burke & Wills Mechanics Institute in Fryerstown. The screen was small and the sound crunchy. The audience, mostly vintage, sat on fold-up chairs. There were no advertisements exhorting you to switch off your mobile phone and I would have been surprised if anyone had even had one.

The film was in two reels. Twice we heard the lovely click and roll and saw the flickering edges, and the experience was as thrilling and transportive as when I first saw it as a teen.

At intermission, over a buffet of homemade lemon slices and cups of tea, I heard a woman declare: ''What a horrible man!'' She was talking about Scottie (James Stewart) who, by that stage of the movie, was cultivating the transformation of Judy into Madeleine (Kim Novak). I was affronted by the woman's words. Scottie wasn't horrible. He was doomed and tragic and romantic. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised she was right.

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