Vertigo (4/10) Judy Barton Analysis

Judy Barton is perhaps the most tragic character in the entire film, which is saying a lot, the naive and insecure country girl in the big city. Unfortunately, she gets taken for a ride by two men, leading to three years of continuous abuse and heartbreak until her death. She’s the person who most embodies the tragedy of the Carlotta story: a beautiful young woman used by men for their purposes and then thrown away after she displeases them. Gavin used Judy to get away with murder, no doubt promising he’d run away with her after it was all over. Then Scottie forces her to live out that obviously remorseful period in her life for his own pleasure. Gavin cynically used the story of Carlotta to suit his own nefarious purpose, Scottie only saw it as a literal ghost story, but neither man took the lesson to heart.

Kim Novak did a stellar job with this very complicated role. She had to play two different characters at the same time, then bring them together at the climax. In the final tower sequence, you can hear her going back and forth between Judy’s nasal twang to Madeleine’s airy whisper in an appeal to Scottie’s love for the dead woman. There are some interesting parallels in their mannerisms as well: I notice that Madeleine’s wide-eyed stares, which at the time seemed like possessed trances, soon become Judy’s default look as a traumatized thousand-yard stare. There are parallel shots where both open the windows of their respective apartments while Scottie waits below. Madeleine and Judy tend to walk a short distance away when they get upset, and examples of this include: at the beach, the clothing store and in Scottie’s apartment. It’s almost certainly due to the circumstances of her guilt and Scottie’s troubling behavior, but Judy seems a lot more cloistered and timid in her mannerisms than Madeleine, who was more confident and deliberate in her movement. It’s as if Judy needed direction and a deeper sense of purpose in life, so taking on the identity of Madeleine allowed her to free herself by becoming another person…if only for awhile.

A Cycle of Abuse

What little we learn of Judy is that she grew up in Kansas and has (step)dad issues. Interestingly, her backstory of getting tossed out by a man who took her mother is the opposite of the Carlotta legend, where a man threw away the mother but kept her child. We get a few unsettling insights into Judy’s past (“I’ve been picked up before”/”I’ve been understanding since I was 17”) implying abuse or at least mistreatment by men as a common occurrence up to this point. In a lot of ways, she needed rescuing just as badly as Madeleine. Unfortunately nobody (including Scottie) would take the time on a lower class, average-looking, working girl such as herself in order to notice or care. The rescuing modern women need is from a society of objectification (one men also profit off of by selling beauty products to women as well as the allure of sex-appeal to other men). This abuse is a lot more subtle though still harmful, and it is accepted by the would-be saviors of the world like Scottie. Indeed, men like Scottie buy into and perpetuate this cycle without a hint of shame or irony, as evidenced by making Judy over to match his romantic fantasy.

By contrast, the more straightforward “damsel in distress” rescuing Madeleine needed is a common storytelling and sexual trope that no longer really exists in our civilized world. Modern men almost never get to experience the primal thrill of saving or protecting a woman from physical harm, nor do modern women get the thrill of feeling defended. In some ways, this unhealthy post-industrial lifestyle is one we were never meant to live, and none of us individually agreed to participate in. In my opinion, it drives a lot of the sexual dysfunction, insecurities, unrequited longing and escape to fantasy which plagues Scottie and Judy alike.

The Fantasy Trumps Reality

Everything associated with Judy is a cheap reflection of something we saw of Madeleine. Scottie watches the latter in an ornate flower store where she bought a full bouquet, while he takes Judy to a little flower stand and gets her a single boutonnière. Madeleine and Scottie bonded in the eternal Sequoia forest and a untamed scenic beach, while he and Judy walk through a pretty but comparatively “pedestrian” park. Scottie has Judy sit by the fire like Madeleine but he only throws Judy one cushion to sit on while Madeleine got two. Judy wears the gray suit but has no hummingbird brooch (Judy wears a rabbit brooch with her own clothes). She also wears the black evening dress without the brilliant green sash. We have an iconic shot of Judy’s profile in her apartment similar to Madeleine in Ernie’s, but her face is blacked out. The quaint old world charm of the McKittrick Hotel Madeleine stays in is replaced by the gaudy and cheap Hotel Empire.

I have no evidence, but I always inferred that Judy Barton is at least loosely based on Judy Garland, perhaps the most famously mistreated woman of Golden Age Hollywood. This is someone who, among other things, had to change her name and appearance to make it in the business, had a tough personal life, and was abused by the studio in spite of all the money she made them. Their names are remarkably similar, Judy comes from Kansas (“Toto…I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”) and they even sort of look like each other. This all seems like a pretty big coincidence if it wasn’t intentional. In any case, it’s an interesting parallel and fits with the “making a movie”/”molding actresses to suit a man’s vision” theme of Vertigo. (More on that later.)

Judy’s True Intentions

The famous flashback scene where Judy reveals her true identity to the viewer but not Scottie has always been controversial. Apparently there was some debate whether it should be left in the finished film or not. I’ve seen it called “the biggest mistake ever made by a great director” and I admit on my first viewing it caused me to lose interest; I felt then that the film had meandered and lost its own plot. However, on subsequent rewatches, I feel it does have a purpose, though the execution still feels a bit hokey. It’s Judy’s one and only real scene to herself outside the influence of the men in her life and the lone peek into her motivation. We see here that she really does love Scottie, and feels guilty for hurting him so badly. This helps to make her sympathetic going forward. It keeps us from wondering “why on Earth would this woman put up with all the abuse?” She does it because she knows how kind and affirming Scottie could be and how his current sorry state is her own fault. She’s willing to do almost anything to enjoy his love again, as she’s never experienced that protective, tender affection before. This transfers our attention onto her for the final half of the film, and we can truly grasp what a tragic role reversal the whole relationship has become. This way, at the tower finale when Judy tells Scottie she did all this because she loves him, we know for a fact she’s telling the truth rather than spinning a desperate lie to get away with her crime.

Some have also criticized the abrupt ending with the nun and asked “why would Judy jump?” I think it’s fitting because it shows that by this point Judy has started to drink her own kool-aid so to speak. She was forced into the Madeleine role twice, Scottie caused her to relive this darkest memory and psychologically tortured her for their entire relationship. This poor girl’s been so beaten down that she herself is starting to believe in the idea of possession and Carlotta’s legacy. This is the perfect ending to her character arc, the “eye for an eye” justice to her crime and another example of the “power of narrative/film” theme of the movie. It’s unclear whether Judy merely meant to back up a few paces and lost her balance or willfully jumped. Either would be believable, but I personally like to think it was intentional. She’s been so miserable for so long, and even if Scottie accepts her now, she’s had to give up so much for a guy she’s just learned is deeply unstable, who’s prone to the same malice and anger as Gavin. She’s had enough. It fits with the Carlotta story for it to have been deliberate suicide as well.

Judy’s first words outside the Madeleine disguise are a perfect role reversal of her first words within it, ascertaining what Scottie is doing in her residence rather than asking what she’s doing in his. Her final words are the first time she’s been completely honest with him, confessing her feelings and motivations of love, but he’s been put through the ringer so much he no longer believes her or cares.