In Vertigo, shipping magnate Gavin Elster, perhaps the only movie villain to be called Gavin, carries out a fiendish plan to murder his wife by throwing her from a church tower. In order to make it look like suicide, he has an impersonator (Kim Novak) play the part of his wife, and hires a detective (James Stewart) to follow her around, counting on the mans fear of heights to prevent him from pursuing her to the top of the tower.The plan is brilliant in its simplicity. Nothing left to chance. And it would have worked, too, if the detective had not fallen in love with the impersonator, then met her again after the scheme had been carried out, failed to recognise her as the same woman, but noted her resemblance and tried to make her over, before figuring it out and chasing her to her death up the same clock tower.Vertigo however is totally uninterested in Elster as a figure or a narrative agent. What matters is the uncanny way in which Scotty takes on Elsters identity and performs the same actions as he did. But what Elster wanted was money and power, what Scottie wants is passionate, deeply felt romantic love.The opening scene in his office(Bumsteads designs impressed Hitchcock so much he insisted that he recreate his office as a replica) is probably the most overt political subtext where Elster waxes nostalgia for the old days of San Francisco when men could do whatever they wanted as they had the money and the power then. Hitchcock however shows how a normal, average good guy destroys a woman. Show less «