Why Robert Downey Jr. Wants to Remake Vertigo

(aka ecarle.)

It is the summer of 2023 and right before the Actors Strike cut off the ability of the cast of Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" to give promotional interviews for the film, co-star Robert Downey Jr got to get a few quick interviews in.

In one of them, he was asked exactly why he -- in a producer capacity and perhaps as the star -- wants to remake Hitchcock's Vertigo, which, the world knows., won the Sight and Sound vote for 2012 through 2022 as "The Greatest Movie Ever Made." Who wants to remake the greatest movie ever made? Why?

In his interview -- to which I do not have a link but I think it can be found -- RDJ's answer actually made a lot of sense. If you think about Vertigo ONLY in terms of "vertigo."

Evidently, RDJ is one of those superrich stars who has taken up a daredevil hobby -- cliff climbing. And on some of those climbs, RDJ has EXPERIENCED massive vertigo (or acrophobia, or dizzyness) and he believes in a new era Vertigo , the audience can REALLY feel vertigo.

A few years back, I saw one of the newer Spider-Man movies on the big screen at a theater. It was the one where Peter Parker and his classmates went to Washington DC on a trip and Spider Man ended up sailing to the very TOP of the Washington Monument (how'd Hitchcock miss THAT monument? Well, you can't climb on it unless you are Spider Man.)

And there was a shot -- via CGI -- of the view STRAIGHT DOWN from the top of the monument to the ground and man, I personally felt --- vertigo. Acrophobia. Dizzyness.

And I remember thinking: "Now if only Vertigo could have shown Scottie's vertigo THIS way."

And it looks like that's what RDJ wants to do. I daresay he might not keep much of the famous romantic metaphysical psychological melodrama OF Vertigo(ie the plot.) But Spider-Man proves he CAN get the vertigo effect.

Which is too bad. Hitchcock, of course, invented the famous "Vertigo zoom-dolly POV shot" and while it is pretty visceral and wild -- it doesn't really create vertigo in the viewer. Rather, it is an expressionistic take on SCOTTIE'S vertigo -- accompanied by (of course) a great Bernard Herrmann motif.

We still don't know if "Robert Downey Jr's Vertigo" will become reality, but clearly if it does, it may not be the greatest movie of all time, but it will have GREAT vertigo.