Alfred Hitchcock Rear Window Analysis

Rear Window, a 1954 romance/murder-mystery by the renowned golden age director Alfred Hitchcock, is a film that explores a multitude of themes and genres through the voyeuristic gaze of protagonist L.B. Jefferies. Jefferies, or ‘Jeff’ as he commonly known throughout the film, is a middle-aged bachelor recently hospitalised due to his high-risk career as a photojournalist. This hindered condition serves as an important foundation on which the movie is built upon as Jeff’s forced lifestyle being in a wheelchair causes an abrupt stop in his usual high intensity way of life and causes him to quench his boredom in other ways, predominantly watching the other residents in his apartment complex through the ‘rear window’ of his apartment. Observing the events that happen in the privacy of each of his neighbours’ apartments is certainly not minding one’s business but Jeff continues to do so anyway and ends up in all

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window has several themes. One major theme is relationships. The lead character, Jeff Jeffries, a photographer and committed bachelor, is involved in a relationship with Lisa Fremont, a model, although the relationship has some tension due to Jeff’s lack of commitment. When Jeff is confined to his apartment recovering from a broken leg, he begins spying through his rear window on his neighbors in a nearby apartment. Through her frequent visits, Lisa is drawn into this spying as well. In each of the apartments, lives are lived and relationships are being played out, and the dynamics of those relationships reflect back to aspects of Jeff’s and Lisa’s relationship and their anxieties and desires.

Alfred Hitchcock 's Rear Window explores the lives of those who feel isolated within society. The 1954 film, set in the tenements of Grenwich village, depicts those who are incapable of fitting into society 's expectations, as well as those who feel isolated from common interaction with others. Moreover, Hitchcock displays how its human nature to seek comfort and deeper connection even with those who are surrounded by others. Despite depicting characters as lonely, the progression of the film illustrates how individuals can be freed from isolation.

Mise-en-scéne is crucial to classical Hollywood as it defined an era ‘that in its primary sense and effect, shows us something; it is a means of display. ' (Martin 2014, p.XV). Billy Wilder 's Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 1950) will be analysed and explored with its techniques and styles of mise-en-scéne and how this aspect of filmmaking establishes together as a cohesive whole with the narrative themes as classical Hollywood storytelling. Features of the film 's sense of space and time, setting, motifs, characters, and character goals will be explored and how they affect the characterisation, structure, and three-act organisation.

Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock is a fillm full of symbolism and motifs that provides viewers with a bigger meaning. It shows these rhetorical appeals through Hitchcok’s eyes that would not be recognized if not analyzed. Through these appeals I have recognized the window as being a symbol and marriage and binoculars as motifs. After understanding much more than what the eye anitially sees when viewing this film there is a fine line between understanding what is going on in the film and observing what the protagonist Jeff is viewing.

Alfred Hitchcock is remembered as the "master of suspense", most notably in one of his cinemas, "Psycho".Hitchcock used a variety of sensory details, to shock moreover frighten his audience.Three sensory details that he used, is when we notice a cop following Marion, we see that Norman is stalking Marion, and when a shadowy figure shows up while Marion is taking a shower.

Both of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, North by Northwest and Rear Window, were great movies with lots of suspense. The suspense, however, would not have been created without the entire mise-en-scene of the movies. Hitchcock was a master at using the elements of lighting, sound, and cinematography to heighten the suspense in his movies.

Alfred Hitchcock once said, “If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.” This quote entirely sums up the reasons I loved Hitchcock’s movie Rear Window. Made in the 50s, this film revolves around L.B. Jefferies, an adventurous photographer who has broken his leg and is stuck in a wheelchair, watching his neighbours out his apartment window for entertainment. In his last housebound week, Jeff becomes convinced that a murder has taken place in the apartment across from him. This film is visually stunning: Alfred Hitchcock’s use of light and dark, the actors’ way of communicating feelings without words, and the costumes in the film are three reasons why this movie

In Laura Mulvey’s article, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” she writes about the relationship between voyeurism, cinema, and gender. She begins by describing the concept of scopophilia, which means to gain pleasure from looking. She writes that scopophilia is inherently active/masculine, and that pleasure is derived from looking at other people as mere objects. On the other hand, the passive/feminine is derived from the experience of being looked at (pg.188). Mulvey sees this binary relationship between viewer and object being viewed as a part of our culture, and the greatest example of this is found in cinema. She argues that the act of moviegoing satisfies these voyeuristic desires in people. She writes, “The mass of mainstream film portray a hermetically sealed world which unwinds magically, indifferent to the presence of the audience, producing for them a sense of separation and playing on their voyeuristic fantasy,” (pg. 186). In this essay, I will further discuss her viewpoints on cinema and voyeurism, and how it connects to the film Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock.

With Rear Window (1954), Alfred Hitchcock proved himself to be one of the best directors of suspense thrillers filled with mystery and humour. He himself called the film his most cinematic one because it was told only in visual terms (Morrow), but it was also a challenging “editing experiment” as the entire film was shot from one place, Jeff’s apartment that overlooked his backyard. The Film follows L.B. Jeffries “Jeff” (James Stewart), a photographer confined to a wheelchair in his apartment after breaking his leg at work. He spends his days watching his neighbours and eventually suspects that one of them killed his wife. His caretaker, his girlfriend Lisa and his detective friend, at first unconvinced of his suspicion, eventually join him in his voyeurism and help him to solve the crime. In this essay, I will discuss how the film is about film itself. The notions of gaze will also be analysed, through a discussion of voyeurism and Jeff and Lisa’s relationship.

For this week’s assignment, we were assigned to watch Hugo, which to me was very enjoyable. The film tells viewers about the life of an orphaned young boy named Hugo Cabret. In the movie, Hugo is on a quest for survival. Through this he learns valuable life lessons. Volger’s archetypes, the historical aspects of the narratives in the film, and actor portrayls all serve as a reflection of Hugo’s heroism.

Camera narration is crucial to the effect the movie has on its audience. It is noticed that the viewer rarely gets close to the apartments or characters across the courtyard. The viewpoint is mainly fixed to Jeff’s apartment, apart from a few occasions where the camera plunges out of the window. The fronts of the buildings facing the main street are never shown either; instead all of the action takes place within the mystery and secrecy of the backyard, hence the title name ‘Rear’ Window. Perhaps Hitchcock realised that many people would not behave the same way in their front facing windows. Whilst they may hide their deepest, darkest secrets behind drawn curtains in the front part of their home, they may be less cautious at the rear of the

Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) challenged traditional narrative and technical elements of classic Hollywood cinema through techniques in cinematography, mise-en-scene and lighting. The mise-en-scene build of Citizen Kane is the pivoting point of the narrative forthcoming and Welles uses every technical element encompassed in this build to span his narrative across 60 years of Charles Foster Kane, the main character 's life.

Once Alfred Hitchcock defined his film Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954), as the story of a man who cannot move and looks through a window, what he sees and how he reacts to it (Truffaut, 1986). For this reason, Hitchcock constructs the character of the protagonist of the film, Jeff (James Steward), not only by using cinematographic devices but also through Jeff´s interpretation of what he sees related his own life, showing a dichotomy between what he looks at and what he lives.

Meticulously directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo a film-noir psychological thriller has become the greatest movie of all times in America. A police detective John Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) gets crushed with vertigo and acrophobia after chasing a criminal on the rooftops of San Francisco, and watching his colleague fall to death. Criminal Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) places reliance on Scottie’s mental illness in order for the murder of his wife Madeleine ( Kim Novak) to appear as a suicide. Manipulation, obsession and guilt accompany Scottie during the pursuit of Madeleine.