DOCSLIB.ORG

Rear Window 89

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Rear Window 89 Channeling Rear Window 89 Copyright © 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC DOI: 10.1080/01956051.2015.1103202 CHANNELING Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline. Rear Window com/vjpf. BY Sue Brower Rear Window (1954). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Shown: Raymond Burr. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures/Photofest. Abstract: Rear Window is usually IT’S 1954, and a man accustomed to life as a globetrotting interpreted as a metaphor for cinema and photojournalist finds himself laid up with a broken leg. His film spectatorship. However, the film’s domestic setting, plural spectacles, and Greenwich Village apartment is hot, and on the phone with his gendered spectators’ conversations could editor he complains of profound boredom. We see a stack of also refer to television, which at the time was sweeping the nation, and which copies of the magazine he works for, but there seem to be no Hitchcock was on the verge of exploring newspapers or books, no phonograph or radio, and no sign of creatively and financially. the newest form of home entertainment, television. What can Keywords: cinema apparatus, gendered L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, the central figure in Alfred Hitchcock’s spectator, Alfred Hitchcock, popular entertainment, television history Rear Window, do to while away the time? 90 JPF&T—Journal of Popular Film and Television THIS IMAGE MIGHT BETTER APPLY NOT TO THE SINGULAR SPECTACLE THAT IS CINEMA, BUT INSTEAD TO THE SIMULTANEOUS/COMPETING STORIES ON THE CHANNELS OF TELEVISION, TO WHICH THE SPECTATOR CAN TURN AS HE OR SHE WISHES. In 1954, the same year as the film’s what he sees, suggest he is both desir- windows just as a wife might chide a release, an estimated audience of forty- ous film spectator and “substitute direc- husband for falling asleep in front of three million watched the March 25 tele- tor/auteur” (Stam and Pearson 201). the television, something Hitchcock confessed to doing regularly. cast of the Oscars (Doherty, Hollywood’s In several analyses of the film, this One might also consider the timing Censor 2), and the Army-McCarthy interpretation has become the theoreti- of Rear Window. The film was made hearings were broadcast to twenty-two cal “given,” and is further developed in, in 1954, at the advent of the television million daytime viewers from April to for example, Mulvey’s feminist obser- era. It is plausible to see commentary June that same year (Doherty, “Army- vations on scopophilia and male domi- in the film on the way the voyeurism of the cinema was seeping into the McCarthy Hearings”). But like most nance in mainstream Hollywood films home, how America was entering an film directors in the 1950s, Hitchcock (719–29). Stam and Pearson base their era of even more intense and isolated kept the mise-en-scène of Rear Window discussion of the film on this premise, voyeurism. Hitchcock himself would devoid of television. Or did he? As Jef- but they also quote Foucault’s descrip- discover television as a resource for feries’ primary form of entertainment, tion of the panopticon to describe the marketing his brand of voyeurism the very next year when he would televise he gazes out of the window that critics spectacle Jefferies observes: “so many his Alfred Hitchcock Presents show. since the 1960s have interpreted as a cages, so many small theaters, in which Consciously or unconsciously, Rear metaphor for cinema. However, I would each actor is alone, perfectly individu- Window was made at a time when tele- suggest that the domestic setting, the alized and constantly visible” (203). vision was poised to do to millions of plural spectacles, and the interpretive This image might better apply not to American [sic] just what Jeff’s win- dows do to him: turn him into a Peep- conversations among the spectators in the singular spectacle that is cinema, ing Tom, who, as Stella says, needs to Jefferies’ apartment can be seen as a ref- but instead to the simultaneous/compet- take a good look inside for a change. erence to television, the mass medium ing stories on the channels of television, (130) that by the time of Rear Window’s pro- to which the spectator can turn as he or In proposing an interpretation of Jeff’s duction was sweeping the nation, and a she wishes. Jefferies, seated in his living activity as television watching rather medium which Hitchcock himself was room, is watching not one movie, but an than as a metaphor for cinema, Fawell on the verge of exploring creatively and array of small windows, each revealing identifies several elements to be dis- financially. little stories to which he switches at will. cussed in this article. But even in open- Only one writer has heretofore sug- ing up these possibilities, he limits his gested that the viewing activity in Jeff’s analysis to the standard critique of tele- Rear Window, apartment could be understood as some- vision (escapist, sleep-inducing, and Another Look thing other than cinematic. In Hitch- because of its low-art connotations then cock’s Rear Window: The Well-Made and until recently, a guilty pleasure). The accepted interpretation of Film (2001), John Fawell offers two Moreover, he makes no mention of Lisa Rear Window has evolved from Jean paragraphs, quoted here in their entirety or Stella as spectators. He then aban- Douchet’s observations in “Hitch and to be clear: dons this idea by the beginning of his His Public” (originally published in In fact, it may be more to the point to next chapter, reaffirming that the film is, 1960, translated into English in 1961), see Jeff as a television watcher rather among other things, “a commentary… which identifies Stewart/Jefferies as than a filmgoer. The set of Rear Win- on the nature of film going and film dow resembles a crude anticipation a spectator and a voyeur who “invents of the remote control, with Jeff going viewing” (135). his own cinema” (19). Douchet’s ob- back and forth from one story to an- However, Fawell’s mention of the servations have been elaborated using other. Jeff’s habits are similar to those film’s cultural and historical contexts Baudry’s concept of the cinematic appa- of someone watching television. Jeff in the above passage suggests the rel- ratus as the centerpiece, employing ide- uses the windows as an escape from his evance of a television-oriented inter- troubles. Twice after squabbles with ological and psychoanalytic approaches Lisa, the night she leaves angrily and pretation to our understanding of Hitch- to get at the role of the spectator in cin- the night she goes off, hurt, to prepare cock in 1950’s America as director and ema as he (note gender) makes sense of dinner, Jeff seems sincerely troubled producer. The following discussion will the spectacle. The rear window itself, by their fights. But within moments, draw from scholarship in cultural histo- some say, has the aspect ratio of wide- a cloud of guiltiness crosses over his ries of American media in the 1950s and face and his eyes sneak to the window. screen cinema (Curtis 28). The progres- Like a television viewer, he eats while theoretical work in media studies, as sively larger lenses Jefferies uses for watching the windows. Stella chides well as recent biographies of Hitchcock “close-ups,” and his interpretations of him for falling asleep in front of the and his contemporaries. Channeling Rear Window 91 The Context of Rear Window By the time Hitchcock was shooting Rear Window he was poised to assume a central place in the shifting media land- scape. As a result of his 1939 contract with producer David O. Selznick, the Selznick talent agency represented the director through the early 1940s. The agency was purchased by New York talent agent Leland Hayward,1 whose Hayward-Deverich agency was in turn bought by the Music Corporation of America in 1945, bringing along major stars, writers, and directors, including Hitchcock and James Stewart (McGil- ligan 407). Originally a talent agency for live music and radio, MCA had es- tablished a practice of obtaining “blan- ket waivers” with the musicians’ union (American Federation of Musicians), allowing the agency to both represent individual artists and produce the radio programs on which they would appear (Wasko 143). The practice continued as MCA moved into the film industry. Lew Wasserman, president of the company by 1946, became “the matchmaker be- tween Hitchcock and Stewart,” accord- ing to Hitchcock biographer Patrick Mc- Rear Window (1954). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures/ Gilligan (407). Wasserman negotiated Photofest. Stewart’s appearance in Hitchcock’s Rope in 1948, and eventually a nine-pic- by its subsidiary, Revue. Wasserman “If Hitchcock can do it, why can’t you?” ture deal between Hitchcock and Para- worked with stars such as Jack Benny (McDougal 252). mount, which would include Stewart’s and Errol Flynn, as well as Hitchcock, In the wake of the 1948 Paramount starring roles in Rear Window, The Man to create independent production com- decision, which had forced the studios Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo (see panies, “allowing [the stars] to mini- to eliminate long-term contracts with also McDougal 205). mize taxes while exploiting their star actors, writers, and directors, MCA By 1952, Wasserman oversaw the salaries and expanding their influence moved into the void and “became creation of Revue Productions, a new in movie production” (McDougal 252; known as ‘The Octopus’ because its subsidiary of MCA, based at Universal Anderson 262–64; Schatz, Genius 470– tentacles extended into every aspect of Studios (Schatz, Genius 484).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Silent Films of Alfred Hitchcock
    The Hitchcock 9 Silent Films of Alfred Hitchcock Justin Mckinney Presented at the National Gallery of Art The Lodger (British Film Institute) and the American Film Institute Silver Theatre Alfred Hitchcock’s work in the British film industry during the silent film era has generally been overshadowed by his numerous Hollywood triumphs including Psycho (1960), Vertigo (1958), and Rebecca (1940). Part of the reason for the critical and public neglect of Hitchcock’s earliest works has been the generally poor quality of the surviving materials for these early films, ranging from Hitchcock’s directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden (1925), to his final silent film, Blackmail (1929). Due in part to the passage of over eighty years, and to the deterioration and frequent copying and duplication of prints, much of the surviving footage for these films has become damaged and offers only a dismal representation of what 1920s filmgoers would have experienced. In 2010, the British Film Institute (BFI) and the National Film Archive launched a unique restoration campaign called “Rescue the Hitchcock 9” that aimed to preserve and restore Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent films — The Pleasure Garden (1925), The Lodger (1926), Downhill (1927), Easy Virtue (1927), The Ring (1927), Champagne (1928), The Farmer’s Wife (1928), The Manxman (1929), and Blackmail (1929) — to their former glory (sadly The Mountain Eagle of 1926 remains lost). The BFI called on the general public to donate money to fund the restoration project, which, at a projected cost of £2 million, would be the largest restoration project ever conducted by the organization. Thanks to public support and a $275,000 dona- tion from Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation in conjunction with The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the project was completed in 2012 to coincide with the London Olympics and Cultural Olympiad.
    [Show full text]
  • A Formal Analysis of Hitchcock and the Art of Suspense in "Rear Window" Kevin S
    Cinesthesia Volume 8 | Issue 1 Article 5 4-24-2018 Can I Have a Look?: A Formal Analysis of Hitchcock and the Art of Suspense in "Rear Window" Kevin S. Brennan Grand Valley State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cine Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Brennan, Kevin S. (2018) "Can I Have a Look?: A Formal Analysis of Hitchcock and the Art of Suspense in "Rear Window"," Cinesthesia: Vol. 8 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cine/vol8/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cinesthesia by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Brennan: Can I Have a Look?: Hitchcock, Suspense, and "Rear Window" Oscar Peterson was a jazz pianist active from the mid 1940s right up to when he died in 2007. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest and most influential pianists of all time. In Clint Eastwood’s documentary Piano Blues (Eastwood, 2003), produced by Martin Scorsese, Ray Charles is quoted saying “Oscar could play like a motherfucker!” A quick look at any one of a plethora of videos on the internet of him playing will illustrate just what Ray Charles meant in his colorfully insightful commentary on Oscar Peterson’s piano playing abilities; the man’s fingers truly were legendary. An observation of these famous fingers at work clearly displays the level of control one can have over the piano.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Rear Window' by British Director Alfred Hitchcock Was Released In
    Rear Window The film ‘Rear Window’ by British director Alfred Hitchcock was released in 1954 during the director’s golden years in Hollywood. The film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly and Raymond Burr. ‘Rear Window’ tells the story of L.B ‘Jeff’ Jeffries, a wheelchair bound photojournalist confined to his apartment. In an attempt to relieve his boredom he begins watching the actions of his neighbours. This mindless activity turns gruesome when he becomes suspicious of his neighbour Thorwald and suspects he has killed his wife. With the help of his girlfriend Lisa and his nurse Stella, they resolve the case of Mrs Thorwald’s murder. Using the theme of voyeurism and his directing talents, Hitchcock draws the audience in and proves there is a nosy busybody within all of us. The opening sequence of the film is very effective as through a combination of camera shots, camera movement, music and mise-en-scene, Hitchcock manages to skilfully establish a number of key pieces of information about the film. In the opening sequence of Rear Window the audience is presented to a static shot of a three paned window covered with blinds. As the credits play, each blind is opened. This slow reveal is very much like the raising of the curtains at the beginning of a theatre performance. It captures the audience’s attention and creates a desire to see what happens next. It also relates to the theme of voyeurism in the plot, displayed in Jeffries’ observation of his neighbours out of these windows. The non-diegetic music playing is jazz, upbeat but dislocated.
    [Show full text]
  • And Rear Window (1998)
    DISABLED BY DESIRE: BODY DOUBLES IN “REAR WINDOW” (1942), REAR WINDOW (1954), AND REAR WINDOW (1998). NANCY STEFFEN-FLUHR In the coded world of the classical Hol- free. It enables the fantasy that there is a lywood cinema, the figure of the ‘disabled’ posthuman escape from “the meat world,” body is always a double body. Especially as William Gibson has phrased it.1 In short, the disabled male body. Haunted by its if there were no disabled people, Holly- uncanny partner, the ‘normal’ body, it is wood would have to invent them (as, in- chained forever to its own doppelganger. deed, it has). Indeed, it is the very spectacle of the dis- Most of the pioneering work on disabil- abled body that creates the spectral ‘normal ity in the cinema has focused on the creation body’ in the first place, as negative space of stigmatizing stereotypes and the nega- creates form. The latter cannot exist with- tive relation of these stereotypes to the ac- out the former. tual life experiences of people who are es- The disabled body (as an abelist fan- pecially challenged by disabilities. (All of us tasy figure) is constructed by an act of have disabilities, but there is a difference in semiotic dismemberment. It is marked as an degree that is a difference in kind, socio- assembly of parts, each of which is vulner- politically.) For example, Martin Norden in able to failure or amputation—an assembly his 1994 book, The Cinema of Isolation, dis- being held together by fetish magic. This tinguishes ten specific disabled character marking and fetishizing creates a fictional types that have evolved over the years in un-marked able body which passes as a Hollywood films, from the Comic Mis- seamless whole.
    [Show full text]
  • Rear Window: Suspense in a Single Space Setting a Film in a Single Location Is a Staple of Cinema. While Intrinsically Restricti
    Rear Window: Suspense in a Single Space Setting a film in a single location is a staple of cinema. While intrinsically restricting, this choice can be used to serve a variety of interesting dramatic goals in a film. Classic films like 12 Angry Men use it as a method to explore the social dynamics that arise when conflicting personalities must work together to reach consensus. More recent films like Don’t Breathe use it to create a sense of claustrophobia and suspense, exploiting the fear of being trapped in a place with a dangerous entity. During his career, Alfred Hitchcock was no stranger to the single- location film, making at least 4 of them. Arguably, his most impressive is 1954’s Rear Window. In it, he creates tension by utilizing an enclosed space that is familiar and emphasizing small details as signs of danger. Rear Window borrows elements from some of Hitchcock’s earlier works, while also serving as an evolution of the concepts introduced in others. Many of Hitchcock’s films deal with the concept of “seeing bad” or the idea of previously unknown dangers being revealed to the protagonist. As Jeffries’ spying begins to reveal the sinister side of one of his neighbors, the relation to films such as Shadow of a Doubt are obvious. Rear Window was Hitchcock’s fourth attempt at a single-location film, with each of the films using these settings to stress the hopelessness of escape. Lifeboat, his first attempt juxtaposed a small, cramped boat with a massive ocean to strain the relationships of those aboard and.
    [Show full text]
  • Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
    Sacred Heart University Review Volume 24 Issue 1 Sacred Heart University Review, Volume XXIV, Article 4 Numbers 1 & 2, Fall 2006/ Spring 2007 2007 Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The leP asures and Dangers of Looking Sidney Gottlieb Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/shureview Recommended Citation Gottlieb, Sidney (2007) "Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The leP asures and Dangers of Looking," Sacred Heart University Review: Vol. 24 : Iss. 1 , Article 4. Available at: http://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/shureview/vol24/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the SHU Press Publications at DigitalCommons@SHU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sacred Heart University Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@SHU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The leP asures and Dangers of Looking Cover Page Footnote Sidney Gottlieb is Professor of Media Studies at Sacred Heart University. This is a slightly revised version of a talk delivered on March 1, 2006, at Sacred Heart University as the inaugural Honors Program Lecture. This article is available in Sacred Heart University Review: http://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/shureview/vol24/iss1/4 Gottlieb: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The Pleasures and Dangers of Look S IDNEY G OTTLIEB __________________ Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The Pleasures and Dangers of Looking When Walter Brooks invited me to be the first speaker in the newly-established Honors Program Lecture Series, I was extremely flattered and excited about this opportunity to speak about one of my favorite subjects.
    [Show full text]
  • The Representation of Disability in the Music of Alfred Hitchcock Films John T
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2016 The Representation of Disability in the Music of Alfred Hitchcock Films John T. Dunn Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Music Commons Recommended Citation Dunn, John T., "The Representation of Disability in the Music of Alfred Hitchcock Films" (2016). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 758. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/758 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE REPRESENTATION OF DISABILITY IN THE MUSIC OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK FILMS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The School of Music by John Timothy Dunn B.M., The Louisiana Scholars’ College at Northwestern State University, 1999 M.M., The University of North Texas, 2002 May 2016 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my family, especially my wife, Sara, and my parents, Tim and Elaine, for giving me the emotional, physical, and mental fortitude to become a student again after a pause of ten years. I also must acknowledge the family, friends, and colleagues who endured my crazy schedule, hours on the road, and elevated stress levels during the completion of this degree.
    [Show full text]
  • 64-71 Hitchcock.Qxp
    Master of SUSPENSE Alfred Hitchcock always said shooting was his least favorite part of the job. But you’d never know it to see him engaged in the process of directing in this series of rare set shots. FEATHERED FRIENDS: (left) Even the non-actors sit up and take direction along with the cast in The Birds (1963). Hitchcock disliked shooting on location and much of the film was shot in the studio. (above) Cary Grant is a gambler who may or may not be planning to kill his new wife Joan Fontaine in Suspicion (1941), Hitchcock’s first film as a director/producer. 64 dga quarterly Photos: (above) Universal/MPTV.net; (right) AMPAS dga quarterly 65 MURDER MOST FOUL: Staged around a dead body concealed in a trunk during a dinner party, Rope (1948) was shot as a series of four- to-ten-minute takes, with only two intentionally visible cuts. It was the director’s first color film. LISTEN UP: Hitchcock monitors the sound in Blackmail (1929), generally considered the first British talkie. Much of the picture was orig- inally filmed silent and then re-shot with the advent of sound. SUNBLOCK: Hitchcock seems out of place instructing Grace Kelly how to get a tan on the beach in Nice for the Riviera caper, To Catch a Thief (1955). Photos: (top and opposite) AMPAS; (bottom) DGA Archives 66 dga quarterly VOYEUR: Injured photographer JUST SO: Gregory Peck plays a Jimmy Stewart imagines a murder lawyer defending a woman accused plot while peering into the courtyard of murdering her husband in The of his building in Rear Window Paradine Case (1947).
    [Show full text]
  • Laura Mulvey, Rear Window, and Psycho
    Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Communication Honors Theses Department of Communication 5-11-2013 Hitchcock and the Material Politics of Looking: Laura Mulvey, Rear Window, and Psycho Tyler A. Theus Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_hontheses Recommended Citation Theus, Tyler A., "Hitchcock and the Material Politics of Looking: Laura Mulvey, Rear Window, and Psycho." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2013. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_hontheses/3 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Communication at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HITCHCOCK AND THE MATERIAL POLITICS OF LOOKING: LAURA MULVEY, REAR WINDOW, AND PSYCHO An Honors Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation with Undergraduate Research Honors Georgia State University 2012 by Tyler Theus Committee: _____________________________ Dr. Angelo Restivo, Honors Thesis Director ______________________________ Dr. Robert Sattelmeyer, Honors Program Director ______________________________ Date HITCHCOCK AND THE MATERIAL POLITICS OF LOOKING: LAURA MULVEY, REAR WINDOW, AND PSYCHO by TYLER THEUS Under the Direction of Dr. Angelo Restivo ABSTRACT In this essay, I argue that issues of voyeurism and scopophilia raised in Laura Mulvey‟s early essay, “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema,” are closely related to the social and economic shifts which occurred during the post-war period. Specifically, I argue that Mulvey‟s essay articulates a particular kind of formal technique associated with what she calls “non- narrative scopophilia,” a kind of long-take shot that is utilized to great effect by Alfred Hitchcock in two of his later films, Rear Window (1955) and Psycho (1960).
    [Show full text]
  • The Dynamics of Proximity : Hitchcock's Cinema of Claustrophobia
    University of the Pacific Scholarly Commons University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1988 The dynamics of proximity : Hitchcock's cinema of claustrophobia Scott Edward Peeler University of the Pacific Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds Part of the Film Production Commons, History Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons, and the Visual Studies Commons Recommended Citation Peeler, Scott Edward. (1988). The dynamics of proximity : Hitchcock's cinema of claustrophobia. University of the Pacific, Thesis. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/2151 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE DYNAMICS OF PROXIMITY: HITCHCOCK'S CINEMA OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA by Scott E. Peeler An Essay Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School University of the Pacific In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts February 1988 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my corr~ittee members, Drs. Louis H. Leiter, Diane M. Borden, and Robert T. Knighton, for devoting their valuable time, knowledge, and especially enthusiasm to the creation and revision of this essay and its critical perspective. I would also like to thank Judith Peeler and Bruce Crowell for their much needed encouragement. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii INTRODUCTION. 1 I. CLAUSTROM AS WORLD. 3 II. CLAUSTROM AS HOME 7 I I I. CLAUSTROM AS PSYCHE 12 IV.
    [Show full text]
  • What Is This Thing Called Film?
    What Is This Thing Called Film? What do Alfred Hitchcock Movies Disclose About the Nature of Film? Andreas Teuber I. Thinking about Hitchcock Obviously there are all sorts of things to notice and say about a movie, especially a movie as “constructed” as most of Hitchcock’s films were. Hitchcock’s films, whatever else might be said for or against them are “thoroughly made,” by which I mean Hitchcock thought about each and every detail, about what his actors were wearing, what furniture was in a room, what kind of flowers were in a vase, what “song” was playing, etc. We are in good hands, when it comes to a Hitchcock film. A Hitchcock film “bears” thinking about because Hitchcock thought about it, thought about every last detail; so if we wonder why this or that is “in” a Hitchcock film, we can be confident that Hitchcock thought about it, too, well before it even occurred to us to think. Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird are often twelve too many for most philosophers, but a great film, like works of literature to which we return again and again, works like Hamlet, Don Quixote, Pride and Prejudice or One Hundred Years of Solitude, may be viewed from a variety of perspectives, different angles of vision, each leading to the disclosure of another aspect of the work lurking in the work itself. Much the same can be said of a Hitchcock film. Some words on Hitchcock may be more helpful than others, just no final word. It’s often most conducive to noticing something, anything, anything at all, not to have too much in mind beforehand.
    [Show full text]
  • Rear Window Intro by Pamela Robertson Wojcik, University of Notre Dame
    Rear Window Intro By Pamela Robertson Wojcik, University of Notre Dame Tonight’s film is Alfred Hitchcock’sRear Window – likely the best known and most critically acclaimed Woolrich adaptation. As I suggested earlier today, its status as adaptation is complex. At a certain level, the film takes Woolrich’s basic premise and turns it into a narrative about not only window witnessing and murder, but also masculinity in crisis – or, put simply, a film in which a seemingly heterosexual man does not want to kiss Grace Kelly. Despite its inclusion here, the film is generally not viewed as noir. It is a thriller certainly, but the Hitchcockian elements seem more important than any genre designation – and that is true of Hitchcock films generally. James Naremore describes features of the Hitchcock canon that “make his films appear slightly alien to the noir universe” and ultimately argues that Hitchcock transcends the genre of noir even as he can be seen as “central to the larger, more broadly cultural history of noir.” Robin Wood describes it as a light comedy. It is a thriller, certainly, but lacks the existential despair, sense of doomed fate, and expressionistic style that characterizes noir. Usually discussed as an auteurist film,Rear Window stands as an exemplar of Hitchcock’s manipulation of point-of-view and sound; it contains numerous Hitchcock motifs, including his famous cameos, his use of handbags and jewelry, and a fall from a high place; it is one of his single set films, along withRope , Lifeboat, and Dial M for Murder; it is one of the Jimmy Stewart films, along withRope , Vertigo and The Man Who Knew Too Much; and one of the Grace Kelly films, sandwiched betweenDial M for Murder and To Catch a Thief.
    [Show full text]