Hitchcock’s Masterly Vertigo to Be Remade – or Reduced to Nothingness?

I have a problem with remakes, especially of classics. Can Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn be ever remade? Can Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman be retold? Or, for that matter My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison and Hepburn? A classic should never be touched. Any attempt to recreate it could end up disastrously. It is in this context that I shudder to think what would be the fate of Alfred Hitchcock’s all-time favourite classic, Vertigo, made in 1958.

In fact, it is considered to be the Master of the Macabre’s finest work, probably his very best had James Stewart plays a retired detective. When a college friend of his wants Stewart to spy on his wife, the detective takes up the assignment.

It is said that Stewart essayed the most complicated role of his life. Now, a remake of Vertigo is being planned by Paramount, which also did the original version. And Robert Downey Jr could be Stewart. Downey – has played Sherlock Holmes, and became a superstar in 2015 with Iron Man.

Surely, this is a travesty if they can do this to Hitchcock’s Vertigo, reportedly, one of the gems of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Of course, movies have been remade earlier. In the 1990s, there have been remakes of all kinds. Variety said in an article: “Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear, Jonathan Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born, the Coen brothers’ True Grit, Irwin Winkler’s Night and the City,Spike Lee’s Oldboy, and, of course, Gus Van Sant’s infamous shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, a folly that was hell to sit through but fascinating to think about.”

But, somehow the idea of Vertigo being remade makes me feel uneasy. There is something about this film that is so unique and so special. The 2012 Sight & Sound called Vertigo is the greatest movie ever made. This may be an exaggeration. The film may not be heady and entrancing, but it is a “ singular poem of swooning success”.

Can you remake Vertigo without making a hash out of it? As one writer quipped, you can merely reduce it. Maybe to nothingness.

(DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are of the author alone and not the organisation.)