Why Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s class Vertigo would fail with this generation.

When it comes to cinema and movies there are three types of movie watchers, as the term goes. The first category belongs to people who watch it for leisure, entertainment, on weekends and with friends and family. The second kind is the ones who watch it as background noise while scrolling through Instagram. And the third kind is the ones who study them, like me (and most of my friends). The third kind in my opinion is the worst because they extract all the fun and joy out of the simple form of entertainment, and that is what I am here for today. 

If you are even mildly interested in writing and creating movies, there is no chance that you have not heard the name Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Popularly known as the Master of Mystery, Hitchcock has given Hollywood some of its greatest classics in the genre of mystery. The famous shower scene from Psycho is printed on all the books of cinematography for analysis. 

Here's a task for you, name 5 Hitchcock classics.

Did you name vertigo? Great, because that is what we are here for. Vertigo is a story about retired police investigator John "Scottie" Ferguson, on a side adventure to follow his friend's wife. The wife in question thinks that she is her own great great grandmother Carlotta Valdes, and reenacts her life and death. Our hero however has his own problems, namely Vertigo. Spoiler alert, the wife was already dead and the lady acting was hired to mask the death as suicide, with Scottie boy as the witness of suicide. 

The story, direction, cinematography, sound, suspense, everything is top-notch in the movie, yet I bet if it were to be launched today, it would fail miserably. 

The reason: Short Attention Span

According to this Guardian article, our attention span is shorter than decades before and reducing even more. And this The Hindu article starts with, “Humans now have an attention span shorter than a goldfish”.  

With increasing technology, the pace of life, and a highly competitive work culture, we are losing patience. The trends come and go faster than ever before. The avid social media users now rely on short, crisp articles to gather information and current event news. 30-second entertainment content is increasing in popularity with the users. Articles come with ‘reading time' tags so the viewer can decide if the time spent reading is worth investing in or not. Time has become a sacred commodity. 

But how do these things link?

Well, vertigo starts with classic Hitchcock fashion, in the middle of the action. We get Scottie boy chasing a criminal when a fellow policeman falls from height, which springs fear of height in Scottie boy’s heart. He develops acrophobia and vertigo as a result of the accident. Now, the only way to counter this is to expose him to an equally high level of trauma (IDK). 

After we are introduced to the characters and action the movie retreats to a slower pace and longer scene. Sir Alfred wanted to stretch the scenes to build suspense and create the feeling of fear in the hearts of the audience. This trick worked, but only till we got subjected to YouTube shorts and Instagram reels. 

Vertigo has many sequences where Scottie boy is simply driving and following Madeline (the wife). The scenes are long and monotonous, not to mention do not have a background score. The silence and suspense are the main ingredients of the mystery genre but not if it lasts longer than a limited time and ends with a shocking discovery. 

Vertigo is, was, and always will be a great cinematic gem. But decreasing the attention span of the audience is problematic for cinema as a whole. The audience is moving towards a film of a shorter duration. 3 hours is too long for one movie now and movies with long scenes tend to get boring with the audience. 

People want entertainment quickly. If the punchline is taking anything more than 10 seconds, people will swipe. One cause is an abundance of content. Second is the subject of this write-up. But social media is not to be solemnly blamed for it. The early morning telemarketing ads are the precursor of ‘the goldfish effect’ 

Maybe there is a section of people who still enjoy cinema with elements like long takes, but most of us have adapted even watching YouTube videos on 2X playback speed. 

But vertigo is not a complete bore. In a little game I like to play while watching mysteries, I like to play armchair detective and solve the ending before it's revealed, but vertigo ended was a little twisted. In many scenes, unlike James Stewart starer rear window, vertigo has a location scene. The picturesque locations were perfect attention grabber and a light break from the thick atmosphere.

Despite the slow pace I loved this piece of art. Yet, Rope remains my favorite Hitchcock film.