Spiraling into Control: Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Cold War Anxieties
By Jolin Yu, Class of 2025
Editors Note: Final research essay for VI Form English elective, “Cold War, Cool Culture,” taught by Mr. Eslick on Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Vertigo.
Introduction
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo opens with a chase: a San Francisco police detective, Scottie
Ferguson, clings to a rooftop as he watches in horror his partner plunges to his death below. This scene embodies the essence of the film—its obsession with heights and falls, with control and instability, with the fragility of perception. Much like Scottie’s dizzying descent into a maelstrom of psychological and emotional turmoil, 1950s America sat on a precipice. At the height of Cold War paranoia, cultural anxieties surrounding control, conformity, and identity reverberated across all levels of society. Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece offers a profound critique of these anxieties, using its protagonist’s destructive obsession to mirror the era’s fear of instability and its relentless pursuit of ideals unattainable.
This paper argues that Vertigo critiques patriarchal control and societal constructs of identity and power, using Scottie’s obsessive recreation of Madeleine as an allegory for Cold War anxieties. Through its subversion of traditional gender dynamics, disorienting cinematography, and narrative structure, Hitchcock’s masterpiece exposes the fragility of male fantasies and the human cost of cultural repression. By situating the film within its historical and psychological context, this analysis reveals Vertigo as a layered critique of 1950s societal norms and their enduring implications.
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Wellness Support for Visual Impairment
By Matthew Lee, Class of 2027
Editor’s Note: Deliverable for Matthews Grant
Prior to high school, I volunteered at Our Space Our Place (OSOP), a non-profit organization which supported legally blind students One day, while volunteering at a rowing center in Brighton, Massachusetts, I asked a blind student what he saw as a visually impaired individual, to which he replied that he saw nothing. I followed by asking if he could see colors, to which he responded the same: he saw nothing. At that moment, I realized that he did not even know what colors look like. I felt terrible and decided to devote time to support the visually impaired community. Unfortunately, OSOP became inactive in December 2022. However, inspired by the mission of OSOP, my Co-Founder and I have decided to continue the organization under a new name, Together We See (TWS). Our mission is to advocate diversity, equity and inclusion for the visually impaired population. TWS provides a safe, focused, inclusive, and fun environment for students of all ages who are legally blind. Students participate in activities to improve their physical and mental health and gain skills for their daily life and future jobs.
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