Art history and theory overview

¶ … Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and focuses on one of the basic theme of the film, The act of Voyeurism. This paper through a viewer's point-of-view analyzes on how the main character of the film, Jeff commits voyeurism and eventually gets into trouble. This paper also highlights how other characters of the film also take part in Voyeurism.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

Alfred Hitchcock is an esteemed film director who is famous for combining art films with puissant reputation and great prominence among the audience. Throughout his career of filmmaking he has provided his audience with greater entertainment than they had ever imagined. It was Hitchcock, who assisted filmmaking to make a transformation from silent to sound, eliminate the eclipse of black and white movies with color cinema and supervised films which would be captivating not only to the general audience but also to film scholars and critics. Francois Truffaut said, "Hitchcock's oeuvre will live longer than that of anyone else because each of the films that compose it was made with such art and such care that it's able to rival the most attractive new work in movie houses and on television sets today" (Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Film Culture,

http://www.mysterynet.com/hitchcock/silet.shtml).

Rear window is one of Hitchcock's most brilliant piece of work. It reflects the obsessive nature of human curiosity and the act of voyeurism, which forms one of the basic themes of the film. The interesting fact about this movie is that the audience basically witnesses the entire movie through a voyeur's view. As a viewer of the film, it is observed that soon the gaze intimately associates with Jeff's due to the point-of-views shot by the director. Hitchcock has shot the film with such elevated level of cognitive subjectivity that soon the spectators' feel that they are in the director's chair through Jeff, who like the director sees via lenses and tell stories on the basis of pictures espied.

Jeff's desire to spy is not approved by his neighbors. At the beginning of the film two characters named, Stella and Lisa are introduced to the audience who castigate Jeff for his habitude. The viewers observe both these characters as clever, perspicacious and commendable. Unlike Jeff, they are both active and mobile. Even though both girls highly disregard Jeff's act at the beginning but eventually get swept away in this same action. Eventually Jeff's desire to spy lands him into problem. During one of the moments of this film, the killer seems to be looking straightly at Jeff and the audience. In this manner the audience is endangered in Jeff's crime of voyeurism.

Hitchcock cleverly gets his audience to believe that Jeff is going to pay for committing the crime of voyeurism but the film does not end in such a manner. He is left convalescent and continues to spy at others. It seems that throughout the movie there is not even one character that cannot prohibit himself/herself from the events happening in the courtyard. Even the police officer, Tom Doyle is convinced by Jeff's stories, which forms the basis of his whole investigation. Conceivably, the mere purpose of Hitchcock during the production of this film was to show the attributes, which make a filmmaker notable. The main idea which the director and the audience come to term with is that whether a crime or not, it is human instincts to spy on your neighbors (Tim Dirks. Rear Window).

In the movie it is quite apparent that Jeff and the director treat women differently. Jeff, identifies women based on their sexuality, i.e. he calls one Miss Lonelyhearts and the other Miss Torso. As a result the audience view women with different eyes i.e. men see women as sexual objects and they see men as colleagues. Despite this Hitchcock makes Lisa the protagonist who is edified, quick-witted and well endowed. Jeff does not become interested in her until she starts believing in his stories. The role played by her is deemed most exciting when she is an object of Jeff's gaze. This is seen when while, trespassing Thorwald's apartment Lisa is most gallant and invigorating whereas when Jeff sees her she appears to be masculine.