Script To Screen: “Vertigo”

An oldie but goodie: The 1958 movie Vertigo, screenplay by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor, based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, it is a taut thriller.

Plot description: John “Scottie” Ferguson is a retired San Francisco police detective who suffers from acrophobia and Madeleine is the lady who leads him to high places. A wealthy shipbuilder who is an acquaintance from college days approaches Scottie and asks him to follow his beautiful wife, Madeleine. He fears she is going insane, maybe even contemplating suicide, because she believes she is possessed by a dead ancestor. Scottie is skeptical, but agrees after he sees the beautiful Madeleine.

Setup: Scottie [James Stewart] is asleep and starts to dream…

Here is the script version of the scene:

Here is the version of the scene in the movie:

Apart from lots of visual tricks, the most noticeable difference from script to screen is there’s no dialogue in the movie scene. Speaks yet again to the fact that movies are primarily a visual medium.

By the way, we would almost never see scene description like that today: 15 line paragraphs, camera shots. Once again showing that screenplay format and style is an ever evolving, organic thing. Remember: Today’s screenplay ‘rules’ are tomorrow’s folly.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more articles in the Script To Screen series, go here.