Motifs In Alfred Hitchcock's Film Strangers On A Train

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.

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.

A very obvious convention that Dan Evans has manipulated into this play is the use of magical realism’s multiple role-playing. With only two actors and eight different characters, we watch Ray and Sylvie progressively lose their mind as they visit each

Edmond Rostand’s comedic play Cyrano de Bergerac recounts the tragic heartbreak of an unsightly French poet as he aids his handsome but dull cohort Christian in capturing the heart of the beautiful Roxane. Cyrano de Bergerac, a colossal-nosed man with a masterful talent for wielding both words and sword, battles self-doubt and insecurity as he contends with his own feelings of love for Roxane. Throughout the play, Rostand reveals a stark polarity between Cyrano and Christian, illuminating the gaping disparity between the characters’ appearance and intellect while portraying the men as foils for each other.

In “Aesthetic of Astonishment” essay, Gunning argues how people first saw cinema, and how they are amazed with the moving picture for the first time, and were not only amazed by the technological aspect, but also the experience of how the introduction of movies have changed the way people perceive the reality in a completely different way. Gunning states that “The astonishment derives from a magical metamorphosis rather than a seamless reproduction of reality”(118). He uses the myth of how the sacred audience run out the theater in terror when they first saw the Lumiere Brother Arrival of the train. However, Gunning does not really care how hysterical their reaction is, even saying that he have doubts on what actually happened that day, as for him it the significance lied on the incidence--that is, the triggering of the audience’s reaction and its subsequence results, and not the actual reactions and their extent. It is this incident, due to the confusion of the audience’s cognition caused by new technology, that serves as a significant milestone in film history which triggered in the industry and the fascination with film, which to this day allows cinema to manipulate and

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.

Film Noir is a genre filled with many interesting conventions. The films within Film Noir use narration, performance, lighting, and blocking in order to tell tales of murder, betrayal, and questionable morals. In this sense, Double Indemnity is a classic Film Noir film. It is a story of two ill-fated lovers lured by lust and greed to commit a heinous act: murder. The main focus of the film (and of this essay) is on Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson and how Phyllis uses Neff. Phyllis is painted in a sympathetic light at the beginning of the film but, by the end, her true natures of corruption are revealed to all. The things that tell the most about Neff and Phyllis are their performances, specifically how they react to either dialogue or sound, and their character blocking. Considering that Double Indemnity is focused around their relationship, it is through examining Neff and Phyllis that much meaning can be found. Double Indemnity’s use of both characters and sound contributes to the theme of a web of corruption spun by an evil temptress.

In 1973, the beloved children’s classic, Charlotte’s Web, made its first appearance onto the screen. Over 30 years later, a newer version of the classic hit the big screen. Since both were closely based on the original book written by E. B. White, the movies still hold true to the core values and overall plot. Between the two films, there arose many similarities, but there were still a few variations in the two films. This essay will compare and contrast the ways in which the original animated version of Charlotte’s Web in 1973 and the live-action version of Charlotte’s Web in 2006 on terms of character’s setting, personalities, and plot.

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.

After watching The 39 Steps (1935), I realized that Alfred Hitchcock really did have a talent for establishing suspense through films. Even though suspense was the primary focus, Hitchcock managed to effectively and intelligently mix humor, romance, and thriller. He uses a variety of techniques to convey these feelings to the audience. According, to some of his interviews with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock mentions his love for The 39 Steps, specifically about the techniques he uses to create a bewitching experience throughout the film. In this film, he uses a variety of themes that he continued to constantly use throughout his later films. Around 1935, “talkies” were just being released and The 39 Steps was one of the many first “talkies” that

Film director Alfred Hitchcock boards the train while lead character Haines gets off, at the beginning of Strangers on a Train, 1951

It can be quite easy to make assumptions about one’s character upon first glance or first encounter, but often these first assumptions are not a direct representation of a person’s true disposition. In the short story, “The Diary of a Madman” by Guy de Maupassant, an esteemed magistrate is being remembered for the model citizen he was, having lived a life that no one could subject to criticism. However, a notary uncovered his diary in a drawer in his home, in which he entailed his tendencies and cravings for murder that no one had expected of him. Within this text, the author uses the character of the magistrate to convey the theme that one’s true character cannot be decided from external appearance or actions.

Serial killing is a kind of macabre art perfected by psychopaths, who are either on a pleasure trip or a trial of revenge, who kills at least three victims one by one in a series of sequential murders, with a form of psychological gratification as the primary motive. There is a deep connection between the actions and the psychology of a serial killer. Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon (1981) is a crime thriller and features a serial killer whose cleft lip is the primary factor motivating his murderous behaviour. With particular attention to the image of the mirror, this assignment is concerned with offering a psychoanalytic reading of the novel, through the Lacanian concept of the mirror stage. It also aims to analyse the reasons and motives of the serial killer Francis Dolarhyde in the light of psychological theories like psychoanalysis and behavioural theory.