1. THEMES MOTIFS SYMBOLS
Death Spirals Red
•Presented as attractive and •eyes / hairstyles / stairs / trees •considered to signify danger
frightening through ideas about fear •reinforces ideas surrounding vertigo
of vertigo (Scottie) and potential and closely linked to themes around
suicide (Madeline) life and death
•Scottie seems obsessed with
paradox of being attracted by death
but terrified of it.
The Supernatural Flowers Green – considered to represent
•ideas about dying and coming •idealised notions of beauty and •nature & life
back from the dead femininity as fragile •life after death / supernatural / ghosts
•represents Scottie’s idealisation of
Madeline as his ideal woman
The power of Psychological Tunnels & Corridors Towers
obsession •represented as passages to (and •Phallic symbols and connected to themes
•the rational v irrational romantic from) death around Scottie’s impotence and power
delusion Scottie has with Madeline struggles in the film
•The idea that we’re all prisoners of
our own psyche
Physical appearances & beauty: Religious Icons Sequoia Trees
1)physical manifestations in people •relates to themes to do with life, •considered to by symbolic of life and death
2) ideals of beauty but with a price death and the supernatural – the years we live and generations of time
to pay
Crisis of Masculinity
•Role of men and women in 1950s
society