Vertigo - Characters & Cast

Initially motivated by a sense of duty and curiosity, Scottie's primary motivation becomes an all-consuming obsession with the idealized image of Madeleine. He is driven by a desperate need to recapture the romantic fantasy he lost, a desire so powerful it makes him blind to the real woman in front of him and compels him to manipulate and control her.

Scottie begins as a sympathetic, intelligent man crippled by a psychological wound. His arc is a downward spiral from a man of the law to a man consumed by an obsessive, necrophilic fantasy. After Madeleine's death, he descends into clinical depression. Upon meeting Judy, his desire to resurrect his lost love transforms him from a victim into a cruel manipulator, ultimately leading to a second, even more devastating tragedy that leaves him, in the end, cured of his vertigo but utterly broken.

Judy's motivation is complex and shifts throughout the film. Initially, it is likely financial, as she is hired by Elster. However, she genuinely falls in love with Scottie. After they reconnect, her motivation is driven by this love and the desperate, tragic hope that Scottie will eventually love her for who she is, not for the phantom she portrayed.

Judy begins as a pawn in Gavin Elster's murder plot, playing the role of the sophisticated, haunted 'Madeleine'. As Madeleine, she is an alluring, mysterious object of desire. As Judy, her true, more common and vulnerable self is revealed. Her arc is tragic; she falls in love with Scottie but is trapped by her deception. She allows Scottie to transform her back into Madeleine out of a desperate hope for his love, losing her own identity in the process. Her journey ends in her accidental death, a victim of both Elster's and Scottie's manipulations.

Midge is motivated by her deep, unrequited love for Scottie and a genuine concern for his well-being. She wants to help him overcome his trauma and see the folly of his obsession, hoping he will return her affections and come back to reality.

Midge represents reality and pragmatism in contrast to Scottie's romantic delusions. She is Scottie's steadfast friend and former fiancée, who clearly still harbors love for him. Her arc is one of quiet heartbreak. She attempts to ground Scottie and offers him a mature, stable love, but she cannot compete with the intoxicating fantasy of Madeleine. She ultimately recognizes the depth of his obsession and fades from the narrative, a symbol of the real world that Scottie has abandoned.

Elster's motivation is greed. He wants to murder his wealthy wife and inherit her fortune. He creates the elaborate 'Madeleine' charade to provide a perfect, psychologically disturbed witness (Scottie) for what will appear to be a suicide, thereby securing his freedom and wealth.

Gavin Elster is the catalyst for the entire plot. He appears as a concerned old acquaintance who needs Scottie's help. His character does not have a significant arc within the film's runtime; he is revealed to be a cold, calculating murderer who devises an ingenious plot to kill his wife for her inheritance. He sets the tragedy in motion and then disappears from the narrative, his crime only fully understood in the latter half of the film.