Symbols And Motifs In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
The Character Evolution Of Jeff and the Realizations he Faces
Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock is a film full of symbolism and motifs that provides viewers with a bigger meaning. It shows these rhetorical appeals through Hitchcock’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 initially 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. The film first starts out with the protagonist’s view of what is going on around him through the use of binoculars. Jeff is a photographer, so his natural instinct is to view others through a lenses. These binoculars act as his sight as Jeff is confined to a wheelchair due to breaking his leg from an accident. As he is
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The lack of communication has lead everyone in the community to struggle with relationships. Jeff himself is in a committed relationship with a woman named Lisa. The dilemma he faces is the idea or marriage. When he looks through the window at the unhappy couple my interpretation is that he feels as if it could be a strong representation of what Lisa and him could be in the future. Early on in the film Stella, Jeff’s nurse explains that “People nowadays look too deeply into relationships.” This concept that Stella explains relates to many of the neighbors as well. You have Mrs. Lonelyhart who instead of struggling with a current relationship, couldn’t find one to begin with. And because she kept over thinking the fact that she was lonely it drove her to almost commit suicide. You then have Jeff that fails to realize what a wonderful woman Lisa is. This is shown through Jeff’s conversation with his
Post-War Paranoia In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
339 Words | 2 Pages“We’ve become a nation of peeping toms,” states James Stewart’s nurse, played by Thelma Ritter, in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window. Ritter’s comment ironically foreshadows events later in the film, but simultaneously provides a critique of the voyeuristic nature of cinema itself. Rear Window’s marketing campaign and public reception both center on the notion of ‘peeping,’ but present differing standpoints on Hitchcock’s exhibition and apparent promotion of the morbid curiosity at the root of human nature during the era of post-war paranoia. A theme often apparent in Hitchcock films is the idea of lost identity, a concept that can easily contribute to obsessive fear, which was not an unfamiliar sensation for American citizens during
Symbolism And Motifs In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
672 Words | 3 PagesRear 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.
Social Isolation In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
1225 Words | 5 PagesThe film 's protagonist L.B Jefferies is characterised as a man who diverts himself from what is expected of him. His dislike for marriage and his desire to remain independent isolates him from the rest of society. When Stella is conversing with Jeff about his relationship with Lisa Freemont, Hitchcock exhibits the constraints of society 's expectations. The fact that Jefferies does 'not want to ' get married to Lisa is considered 'abnormal ' in Stella 's eyes, indicates the normalisation of marriage during 1954. Jefferies ' isolation from society 's view of marriage is utilised by Hitchcock in order to critique the way in which society pushes others to conform.
Pip And Trabb's Relationship
551 Words | 3 PagesThe anonymousness of the benefactor and the confusion or complications it brought into the story. The division and inhumanness of the division in classes of the character such as seen in the relationship between Pip (boy) and Estella, or Pip and Trabb’s boy. Focalization in cases of characters like Trabb’s boy and Orlick tend to make Pip seem somewhat of a snob, his ill treatment of Trabb’s boy throughout the book is hard to miss, especially since there was in reality very little difference between him and Trabb ’s boy. As far as the book goes, had Magwitch not met Pip as a child, Pip could have possibly ended up living a very similar life to that of Trabb’s boy.
Relationships In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
827 Words | 4 PagesAlfred 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.
John Steinbeck Chrysanthemums
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Psychological Themes In Alfred Hitchcock's Horror Film Psycho
774 Words | 4 PagesThese were explored by the use of the motifs of birds, eyes, hands and mirrors (Filmsite.org, n.d.). Hitchcock skilfully guides the audiences through a tale
Alfred Hitchcock's Use Of Symbolism In The Film Psycho
758 Words | 4 PagesAlfred Hitchcock used various symbols throughout the film Psycho to allow the viewer to get an insight of what is happening in the film. Symbolism is an exceptional way to entice the viewer as it creates suspense and makes it better to understand the film. Alfred uses paintings as a symbol, which can be seen in multiple scenes, to symbolize a certain character in the film to the painting and foreshadow events in the film. This allows the viewer to get more detail on the character’s personality and what is about to happen.
The History Of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
150 Words | 1 PagesIn 1953 Hitchcock signed a new deal with Paramount for several features, beginning with Rear Window (1954). Paramount introduced VistaVision process with White Christmas on October 14, 1954 ten weeks after the opening of Rear Window. VistaVision was introduced as an answer to the technical innovation of CinemaScope propriety to Twentieth Century-Fox and to entice audience to the theatre in the 1950s. The other films that borne out of Paramount deal were: To Catch a Thief (1955), The Trouble with Harry (1955), and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). Much of Hitchcock’s work in the 1940s scathingly criticises social proprieties and bourgeois sensibilities and in the 1950s took a softened tone when he worked for the big studios and kept in his
The Role Of Community In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
1132 Words | 5 PagesThe 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.
Film Analysis Of Alfred Hitchcock's Film Rear Window
774 Words | 4 PagesOnce 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. At the beginning of the film, a camera movement reveals Jeff´s profession and why he is immobilized in a wheel-chair. He is a photographer, interested in looking at other´s lives; consequently, he could be described as a voyeur.
Thomas Crown Affair Essay
653 Words | 3 Pages[a] Boorstin’s “Three Eye Theory” is the theory that the common viewer watches every film three different ways at the same time. These three “eyes” are called the Voyeur’s eye, the Vicarious eye, and the Visceral eye. The Voyeur’s eye is the observation of the film; it is own mind trying to understand and interpret what we see. It is logical and reflective. It “sees” the logic of the film.
Stephen Spielberg's Minority Report
2089 Words | 9 PagesImagine living in a world where precrime was a way of life and used to help decrease the number of crimes. Naturally, such an invention would cause a struggle with the citizens under effect of this creation. Stephen Spielberg's Minority Report uses cinematic elements such as sound, mise en scéne facial expressions, lighting, and symbolism to depict the theme of struggle between the characters. The scene that shows the characters in conflict with either each other, or themselves is where the main character struggles with himself and another character. Throughout the scene analyzed in this essay, the struggle between John, Agatha and Crow is highlighted by these effects.
Vertigo Analysis
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811 Words | 4 PagesIn many films, symbolism is an often-used tool that aide in making the viewing experience more profitable. One way the viewer is led to an in-depth understanding is to examine the scenes produced in the film that develop both firm and symbolic meanings. Studying what goes into the scene (Mise-en-Scene) in effect leads to this better understanding. In the film Vertigo, John Ferguson is asked to follow his friends’ wife, Madeleine Elster. As he follows her, there are intricate scenes that reveal essential details about the film.
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