If you think about it, parts of Vertigo are kind of silly. “The Mad Carlotta”? The level of coincidence involved? The jump scare at the end? But typically you’re not thinking about it, because the rest of Alfred Hitchcock’s film (aided by Bernard Herrmann’s score) taps into a relentless frisson of obsession that pulls James Stewart’s haunted exdetective—and you—along against any rational objection.
