Analysis on musical scores and their impacts in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo

Abstract

In films, the mood in each intricate scene is shaped not only by its plot and characters, but also by the coordination of visual and auditory components, such as lighting, camera angles, color, and, particularly, music. In particular, the musical score the director chooses to implement in their movies can significantly shape audience perception, helping to reflect more deeply into a character’s inner psychology, foreshadow events, or complicate the storyline. This is particularly inherent in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, where one must consider how Hitchcock uses Bernard Herrmann’s music to externalize the emotional collapse of his protagonist. In Vertigo, musical scores by Herrmann function not only as background accompaniment but also as a psychologically evocative device. Through the intensity of the opening sequence, the mournful leitmotif of Carlotta Valdes, the dreamlike atmosphere mirroring Scottie’s mental decline, and the climactic tension of Judy’s revealing of the truth, Herrmann’s compositions - shaped by Hitchcock’s deliberate placement in specific scenes - highlight the film’s themes of obsession and longing, identity, and the spiraling consequences of madness and death.