Destiny Monroig
September 24, 2015
College Writing 110
Rough Draft
TITLE(?)
With voyeurism comes consequences. Just ask L.B. Jefferies, he’d know all about it. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 movie Rear Window depicts the struggles of photographer L.B. Jefferies as he’s forced to stay home in a wheelchair due to a leg injury. To deal with his frustration at being stuck home he takes to spying on his neighbors. With the use of techniques such as medium shots, close-up shots, pan shots and framing the opening scene in Rear Window evokes a strong sense of both voyeurism and isolation.
The films’ opening scene includes two important close-up shots. The opening begins
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with its first close-up shot showing the blinds on L.B. Jefferies’ window slowly raising to reveal the courtyard where he lives. This opening shot is much like the curtains raising at a theater to signal the start of the show. When taking into account the title of the film, this shot highlights the importance of the window. The next close-ups display a picture of a race car crash, a broken camera, another camera and a pair of binoculars. By deciding to make L.B. a photographer this reinforces the voyeuristic theme, especially when photographers are thought to be observers. With the first close-up portraying the window as a sort of movie screen and the following close-ups giving attention to L.B.’s cameras and binoculars, these shots create important foreshadowing of the main character’s voyeurism. Medium shots are used very often in this scene and are essential to creating the feel of voyeurism. Whenever there is a medium shot of one of L.B.’s neighbors, the camera gets closer to show what they are doing, but never close enough that the audience forgets they’re watching these people through their window. That feeling of being on the outside looking in does not go away. Hitchcock’s use of medium shots in this scene sometimes makes the viewer feel as if they are seeing things they shouldn’t. For example, in one medium shot a female dancer is shown taking off her bra and putting on another, with her being topless for a short time during the process. Normally this is something that would cause many people to look away for the sake of the person’s privacy, but instead this is disregarded and the audience is given full view of the dancer. A rather intimate action is being shown and it leaves the audience feeling like they are intruding on the woman’s privacy. Since framing is used to make the windows our access into the neighbors lives, framing also works together with medium shots to create the feeling of participating in the main characters voyeurism. Alfred Hitchcock displays skillful use of framing in just the opening scene alone.
Whenever the camera gets closer to any of the other windows, the framing and outline of the window always stays in the frame of the scene. It is also often centered. The windows are positioned to look like screens, which makes it seem as if we’re watching each neighbors’ everyday life as a movie. This coincides with the fact that spying on his neighbors is L.B.’s form of entertainment during his confinement. Framing the windows as movie screens reinforces the voyeuristic feel of the scene and also acts as a way to remind the audience that he is isolated away from the action as he is merely seeing everything through a screen, a screen that is represented by his …show more content…
window. The pan shots in this scene work together with the framing to contribute to the isolated feeling that both L.B.
and the audience experience. Often during the scene the camera pans horizontally to focus on the courtyard where the main character resides. While little details are given, such as that it is summer from the man and woman sleeping on the balcony and the number of people who have their windows open, there is also a very important detail that can almost be missed if not looking carefully. The panning shows an alleyway that gives us a small peak out onto a street busy with passers-by and cars. The distance of the shot makes the street appear far away and the pan shot is filmed from a high angle since L.B.’s window is providing the view out onto the courtyard and Hitchcock seems to want to make the viewers feel as if they are looking out the window. The street is also framed in a way where it’s evident that it is an important detail but it’s not the main focus of the shot since it fills such a small part of the screen. In some films there are scenarios where someone is desperately trying to reach a destination, and as the character looks out into the far distance, they see a small glimpse of where they hope to reach. Usually the audience sympathizes with the character when the film shows how far from their destination they are. This is similar to the feeling the panning of the courtyard evokes. The pan shots provide the audience with a glimpse of the street and
though the viewers yearn to get a closer look, that closer look is never given. Instead the viewer is stuck in the high up and far away perspective that L.B.’s window provides. This is when you first realize that the main character is trapped in his apartment. The panning in the films first adds to the feelings of being isolated and trapped experienced by both the viewers and L.B. Jefferies. The opening scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window contains skillful use of technique. Hitchcock’s use of close-up shots, medium shots, pans, and framing work together to create a scene that establishes the films themes of voyeurism and isolation.
This left Hitchcock films as some of her mother’s favorites. Pemberton, went to a Hitchcock festival as an adult, this time watching Rear Window, which she had not seen since she was a child with an objective examination, she found a scene that would shift both her and her mother’s perspective of this movie. As Jimmy Stewart’s character, Jefferies, realizes he is in danger, telephones his friend Wendell Corey, who was not at home, but he spoke with the baby-sitter who did not appear on screen, but was portrayed in a voice that would convey imagery of a “familiar black image.” Asking the inspiration for this essay “Do he have your number, Mr.
In the film Rear Window directed by Alfred Hitchcock, a significant shift of power is portrayed. This shift occurs between the protagonist of the film, L.B Jeffries and his romantic partner, Lisa Freemont. This shift also aids in outlining the main theme of the film, which is marriage, as all aspects of marriage are observed and taken into account by Jeffries. The change of dominance within Lisa and Jeffries relationship can be broken down into three stages, which develop and change throughout the film. At the beginning of the film Jeffries is shown to have the power within the relationship as he dictates the parameters of the relationship, however he is also intimidated by Lisa 's social standing. Towards the middle of the film the possession
Though complex and brilliantly written for its time, the plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Vertigo, is only half of the genius behind it. Alfred Hitchcock’s unique presence as an auteur is truly what sets his films apart. There is symmetry to his shots that give the film an artistic feel, as if each frame were a painting. Many times, within this symmetry, Hitchcock places the characters in the center of the frame; or if not centered, then balanced by whatever else is adding density to the shot. For example, as Madeline sits and looks at the painting in the museum, there is a balance within the frame. To counter-act her position to the right of the painting, Hitchcock puts a chair and another painting on the left side, which is visually pleasing to the eye of the audience. The use of red and green not only adds a visual effect as well, but later serves as a clue that Madeline is not actually dead, when the women who looks like her is wearing a green dress.
In conclusion in “Rear Window” Hitchcock is shown off as an auteur and realist though his modification and implementation of his own creative mind and as a realist by conveying reality and occurrences of everyday life respectively. He also used methods such as eye line matching, cinema as window and frame, and potentially character specific lighting to connect the audience with the characters and to give the main characters more individualized
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window is truly a masterpiece, as it uses fascinating cinematic elements to carry the story and also convey the meaning of voyeurism. Throughout the film we are in one room, yet that does not limit the story. This causes the viewer to feel trapped, similar to the main character, while also adding suspense to the detective story. The opening scene itself, draws the viewer in. In just five minutes and 27 shots, the viewer is given an introduction to the main character, his lifestyle, his condition, and his neighborhood. The lighting, the costumes, and the set are all presented in a way to catch the viewers eye, compelling them to crave more. Combining vivid lighting, edgy cinematography, and unique set design, Rear Window, proves why Hitchcock is still remembered as one of the greatest and most influential directors of all time.
The windows are barred, symbolizing the restrictive nature of the narrator’s mental condition. She is imprisoned within her mind. Her room was once a nursery, symbolizing that she is helpless and dependent on her husband’s care, similar to how a parent is reliant on the care of it’s parents, “… for the windows are barred for little children,” (Gilman 2). The narrator is not only trapped by her own mind and mental condition, but her husband’s wishes and expectations as well. The most significant symbol within the story is the yellow wallpaper. Initially, the narrator only views the wallpaper as something unpleasant, but over time she becomes fascinated with it’s formless pattern and tries to figure out how it’s organized. She discovers a sub-pattern within in it in which she distinguishes as a barred change with the heads of women that have attempted to escape the wallpaper like the woman she has been “seeing” moving within the wallpaper, “And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads” (Gilman 8). The yellow wallpaper is symbolic of a women’s place in society within the nineteenth century. It was not commonplace, or deemed acceptable, for women to be financially independent and/or engage in intellectual activity. The wallpaper is symbolic of those economic, intellectual, and social restrictions women were held to, as well as the domestic lives they were expected to lead. The narrator is so restricted by these social norms that her proper name is never given within the story, her only identity is “John’s wife”. At the climax of the story, the narrator identifies completely with the woman in the wallpaper and believes that by tearing the wallpaper, both she and the woman would be freed of their domestic prisons, “…there are so many of those
Rear Window and the works of Hopper are both required with confinement. Disregarding its blended utilize land setting, Early Sunday Morning does not pass on a warm, fluffy feeling of group. In like manner, in Rear Window, the inhabitants of the lofts are confined from each other. Apartment Houses is additionally for the most part viewed as another antecedent to Rear Window. Large portions of Hopper's night settings portray scenes from New York City and Night Windows is no special case. The lady in this work of art is totally unconscious of the stage she is on and the front line situate its eyewitness involves. Its semi-sexual story is resounded in Rear Window, and it catches strikingly the experience of living in New York: the a large number
The Tell Tale Heart, written by Edgar Allan Poe, and Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock were both formidable, revolutionary and horrifying creations to the audience’s of their times and to some extent, still are today. Hitchcock drew audiences in into his work by utilizing certain camera angles, mise-en-scene and diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. However, Edgar Allan Poe used a variety of literary techniques such as varying sentence structure, imagery and irony to draw his readers in. While these two masterpieces are unique in terms of content, both of them explore a prominent theme, fear.
As the credits roll we see the blinds of a three-pane window slowly being lifted up, after they finish the camera moves forward revealing to our gaze the reality on the other side of the open window. It faces the back of many other buildings, the courtyard they enclose, and a sliver view of the backstreet. More importantly, it faces many other windows just like it. Behind each one of those there are people, going about their day, doing mundane tasks, unaware of being observed. In his 1954 movie “Rear Window” Alfred Hitchcock invites us to engage in the guilt free observation of the lives of others. The main character, photographer L. B. Jefferies, is home stuck with a broken leg encased in a cast that goes all the way to his hip, providing the perfect excuse for him to amuse himself in this hot Manhattan summer by engaging in the seemly harmless act of looking into the many windows he can see from his back apartment. Casual, harmless, voyeurism has been part of the human behavior for ages but in the sixty years since the movie was released it has gained increasing traction. Reality television, Movies, TV shows, YouTube, blogging, Instagram and Facebook are examples of modern tools that allow us to engage in the observation of others while remaining protectively hidden from their returning gaze. In its essence the casual voyeuristic actions we engage in while observing others when using these new media tools follows the same pattern of behavior described in the movie, with the same positive and negative consequences. Casual voyeurism distinguishes itself from pathological voyeurism, which is characterized by a preference in obtaining sexual gratification only from spying others, by the removal of the sexual component from the equat...
As the paradigm in which this curiosity is exposed inhabit the human being, that voyeurism that uncounted of us have inside. Hitchcock is able to use this element to catch the spectator, building a devilish and fascinating tale of suspense set in a microcosm. In which there reflects the intimate and daily life of the current man, where the protagonist observes from his window. The viewer sees what Jeff (the protagonist) observes, has the sensation of being the protagonist, observing through his window.
Stam, Robert & Pearson, Robertson., ‘Hitchcock’s Rear Window: Refluxivity and the Critique of Voyeurism’ in Deutelbaum, Marshall & Poague, Leland A. ed., A Hitchcock Reader (John Wiley & Sons: 2009).
There are four crucial scenes of this film in which Hitchcock shows a change in perspective and identity through the mise-en-scène. Hitchcock’s signature motifs, style, and themes are conveyed through the mise-en-scène.
The director Roman Polanski likes to make a lot of scenes in his movies through doorways and windows, and the reason of that is simply because in that way, he creates a bigger sympathy with the audience, they get to see the films from the main characters o...
As a filmmaker, whose individual style and complete control over all elements of production, Alfred Hitchcock implied a great deal in the motion pictures that he made.
Regular among his works, Hitchcock opens the film with a hovering crane shot coasting over the setting of Phoenix, Arizona. Even without the mysterious, chilling soundtrack, the shot itself watched in silence evokes a timid passage into danger. In a long take it sweeps across the cityscape to build initial curiosity in the viewer, and then surpasses a curtain-drawn window into the presence of a hotel room’s trysting occupants. Immediately the viewer is called into confronting his/her discretion regarding those things we are not customarily meant to see, in such ideas as privacy and good taste. How far should the law step into a man’s world before he is discovered with reasonable certitude for engaging in illegal activities?