Mean State

Some shots of locations appearing in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) as they existed in July of 2021.

Inspired by Northern California’s unique culture and mysterious past, the "Master of Suspense" filmed the majority of his film Vertigo in and around the San Francisco Bay Area in 1957 (Source: https://bit.ly/2SZu5Fp). Perhaps more than any other of his films, Vertigo demonstrates the importance the act of sightseeing played in the director's creative process. Receiving mixed reviews at the time of its release, the picture was later nominated by critics, programmers and curators from around the world as the greatest film of all time in Sight and Sound's 2012 worldwide opinion poll (conducted every ten years) - ending the 50-year reign of Citizen Kane (Source: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_X-w9JG1dI

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) | Filming Locations | GH5 Critics, programmers and curators from around the world nominated Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) as the greatest film of all time in 2012 in Sight and Sou...

Some shots of locations appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).

Alfred Hitchcock arrived in Northern California in 1961 during the writing stage of his next project The Birds to scout filming locations for its story in which villagers are attacked by murderous gulls (Source: https://www.bodegabay.com/the-birds/). He ultimately chose spots in San Francisco, Bodega and, in the main, Bodega Bay, the real remote Sonoma County coastal location where the majority of his fictional horror tale takes place.

https://youtu.be/CCpDDBbJEKk

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds Filming Locations (Bodega Bay, San Francisco) | GH5 | Lumix 12-35mm Some shots of locations appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). Alfred Hitchcock arrived in Northern California in 1961 to find a location for his ...

Neil Labute reads film reviews.