Ethical Issues In Rear Window

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.

Q – ‘’Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window explores ways of seeing and spectatorship’’ The protagonist of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’ is trapped, stuck in a wheelchair with a broken leg and we share his pain, we are also trapped. In a different way of course. We are trapped in his point of view. As the successful photographer that is L.B Jeffries (Jeff to his fiancée), played by James Stewart, passes his long and limited days and nights sitting by his window and shamelessly keeping an eye on his neighbours around him, we too share this obsession.

The idea of similarities among all people, an underlying connection, is expressed by Hitchcock when Lisa in Rear Window argues with Jefferies, saying, “There can't be that much difference between people and the way they live! We all eat, talk, drink, laugh, sleep, wear clothes --“. When she says this, Lisa has a lamp light shining from the upper right side of the screen to indicate the truth of her argument. There is also an instance in Rear Window where the ability to understand a person sprouts empathy. Jefferies is sitting in the dark, after Lisa leaves angry, when the piano man comes home.

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.

“Six weeks sitting in a two bedroom apartment with nothing to do but look at the neighbors. ” You would think this would be a dull concept for a movie, sitting in a window watching people’s daily lives. But when your view is as limited as if you’re in another building, something much more entertaining is made. When photographer L. B. Jeffries is confined to his apartment for weeks with a broken leg in the film Rear Window, he spends his time looking out the window at his neighbors. With the summer heat meaning every window is open for Jeffries to peer into, he learns about everyone in his block.

With the help of their surviving children, the chirpy Ariel and the watchful, reserved Christy, they manage to charm their way past a suspicious immigration agent, who decides to believe that they are carefree vacationers rather than desperate migrants ( A.O. Scott). The family drive with wide-eyed wonder and awe, through the glistening lights in Times Square and arrive to a cavernous, battered walk-up apartment that is quickly spruced up with colourful paint and scavenged furniture. There is such a contrast to the idyllic images in The Quiet Man where we see Sean Thornton sat on a bridge admiring the gorgeous view of his native homeland as against the rough streets of New York. The neighbours appear to be ordinary folk, but most are addicts and hustlers. One, Mateo, who the girls meet one Halloween and befriends, seems to be dying of AIDS.

Alfred Hitchcock, director and producer of Rear Window, drew his idea for the film from Cornell Woolrich’s short story, “It Had to Be Murder.” He also drew inspiration from 1950s American culture, such as Americans’ suspicion of others during the Cold War era, the overall impending fear of communism, and women’s gender roles. Rear Window predominantly focuses on female objectification and the male gaze through the POV of the subjectively perverted L.B. Jeffries. Hitchcock opens up the movie with a pan shot, where the viewer is introduced to who will soon be called Ms.Torso and Ms.Lonelyhearts.

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. The director asserts the loneliness and struggle that comes from fitting into social mores.

Hitchcock uses Rear Window to examine the U.S.’s global Cold War strategy. The films use of many paranoia scenes such as when L.B. Jefferies discovered Thorwald making many late-night trips and noticing the missing wedding ring of Mrs. Thorwald encourages viewers to consider the post-war anxieties and personal surveillance of politics in the construction of the U.S’ s ideas about the world and possible consequences. In the film, L.B Jefferies, the protagonist, spies on the insides of many nearby apartments during a heat wave. L.B Jefferies observed people that were happy and jolly but he also saw sadness and loneliness in homes. For instance, in the film, there was a scene where a lady was having a romantic dinner with herself at night.

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.

After hearing that his younger brother, Sonny, has been put in jail due to drug use, he remembers his childhood, and how they both never did really get along. Both Sonny and the narrator feel a sense of “darkness outside”, and this “darkness” is what creates the miscommunication between the brothers (Baldwin 338). Sonny changed his normality due to not being noticed during his childhood, and the drastic change causes the older brother to feel uncomfortable seeing his brother, because Sonny told him that “he was dead as far as [he] was concerned” (351). Their struggles caused them to lose contact, and to slowly build that invisible barrier between their

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.

Hitchcock's perspective to the attitudes of the characters in Rear Window also

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.

Hitchcock has been described by many film reviewers as ‘a master of mystery, a connoisseur of compelling cryptic suspense”, however, the manner in which he depicted gender roles was concrete in its rigidity. Having directed and cast over 70 films, Hitchcock has himself admitted that women are often seen as objects and that the only reason they exist in his films is as a supporting role to the male actor. Rear Window’s main three female roles consist of the scantily clad Ms Torso, named only by a body part, and the glamourous Lisa and nurse Stella whose roles are limited to enabling Jeff to follow his pursuits. How can this be