The scene I want to describe here is from the road film Alice in the Cities (Wim Wenders, 1974). The scene does not do much straightforward narrative work in this languid film, but provides an example of what I can only call ‘vertiginous cinema’, film that dislocates us both emotionally and physically by representing experience in a way we can’t fully explain, but are completely held in thrall by. This is not simply the dizziness we might feel watching a shot taken from inside a roller coaster, but rather an effect of film’s ability to transform everyday movement into something as exciting as a midway ride, and to register mundane encounters and exchanges in ways that reawaken us to their mystery.