Rear Window

This is a story about a door-to door jewelry salesman, Lars Thorwald and his extremely ill wife and a single man who is a traveling photographer, L. B. Jefferies, who spies on his neighbors due to his boredom while he is stuck in his apartment due to an accident which caused him to break his leg and now he is immobilized for a couple of months. While peering at several of his neighbors, he has memorized each of their daily routines and one particular couple peaks his interest. Although Jefferies…

The Role of Anonymity and the Justification of Voyeurism in the Apartment-Dwelling World of Rear Window voyeurism noun | voy•eur•ism | \ vwä-ˈyər-ˌi-zəm , vȯi-ˈər- \ a: the practice of obtaining sexual gratification from observing others b: the practice of taking pleasure in observing something private, sordid, or scandalous Do you know the person who lives next door to you? You probably saw them a couple of times in the elevator or the parking lot, maybe even chatted with them. What was…

Rear Window is a good movie. It is about a man’s determination to find out the reason one of his neighbors disappeared. This film is an adaption of a short story titled It Had to Be Murder. The camerawork is in this film is phenomenal. The way the camera was positioned in the shots makes it appear as if the audience is actually there. We get the view of what the characters see when looking out the window and looking through binoculars. Needless to say it is visually pleasing. The actors did an…

The brilliantly written Rear Window has drawn many insights from the analysis of the perception of the human mind and the hidden realism of everyday life. Set in the 1950 's we meet an active Photographer known as Jeff, that has been confined to his wheelchair because of a broken leg, which only always him move from his bed to the window. In doing this he notices the daily routine of his surrounding neighbors from their rear window. Nevertheless, the Rear Window was not only introduced as a…

Released in 1955, To Catch a Thief was one of three films director Alfred Hitchcock produced within an eighteenth month period and was the result of a collaboration with rising screenwriter John Michael Hayes, whom he had previously worked with on Rear Window. Quickly written and produced, the film is about retired cat-burglar John Robie, who after being framed for a ring of jewel thefts in the French Riviera, seeks to find the real culprit, while evading the police and the romantic advances of…

In order to interpret the gender dynamics in Rear Window, we have to read the film in the backdrop of tensions in 1950s American culture postwar. Each character and couple is representative of that decade. The opening of the film itself shows Jeff (James Stewart) as a typical 1950s American male, anxiety stricken about women in general “whose economic and sexual behaviour seemed to have changed dramatically (May 93). Jeff, legs in cast is immobile, so he feels emasculated when he sees Lisa…

Act Structure for the 1954 Rear Window. In this analysis, it will describe a break down of how this film is structured and what all theses structures mean in application to the audiences understanding. In order to understand what the Three-Act Structure this film provided, we will analyze the film as well as use reference to Module 1 of the Three Act Structure terminology. At the beginning of the film the first image, the audience is introduced with the rolling of window blinds going up, and…

In the classical Hollywood area and beyond there is a clear and obvious depiction of the male gaze in film and it has become particularly synonymous with the work of Alfred Hitchcock, most notably in his 1958 film Vertigo. In many of Hitchcock’s films the male gaze is not only evident but is what contributes largely to the storyline. It is used to highlight the importance of the men and objectify woman to only be seen as an object of male desire. This is successfully done in Vertigo through…

In the movie Seven directed by David Fincher in 1995, two detectives: William Somerset played by Morgan Freeman and David Mills played by Brad Pitt get called to solve a case of various murders representing the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath and envy. The personalities and personal struggles of both detectives begin to develop throughout the process of extensive investigating and high stresses of the case. The main take away from the movie is how the stressors and…

Welles used sound to establish and further enhance the viewer’s attention to the meanings of what is portrayed on screen. Another impressive use of sound in Citizen Kane is the sequence after the end of the newsreel announcing the death of Kane. We are exposed to a room, dimly lit and shallow (unlike the deep and wide banquet room), full of men. The camera focuses on Mr. Rawlston, who, while he speaks, performs a myriad of motions towards and against the camera – all of which are enhanced…