Free Example of "Rear Window" Essay

Rear Window film is the film title I have chosen. The film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock the movie was acted by L.B. Jeffries’ (James Stewart) and his model girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly). The movie was produced in the year 1954 and the film genre was Mystery and action thriller.

The action of this movie takes place on a special place set and constructed for the movie. The place is a Greenwich Village courtyard with low buildings surrounded by small and well kept gardens. It is also evident that the courtyard has a single lane of exit to the street. L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) recovers from a broken leg during the summer in New York. L.B. Jeffries is perceived to be living in a small apartment where he spends a lot of his time looking out into the courtyard of the building from the rear window. Through the rear window L.B. Jeffries is able to see and understand the lives of all his neighbors besides watching out their daily routines and duties. L.B. Jeffries also a photographer in one of common magazines uses a camera in which he sees all the action from the rear window which is looked at as a small studio. From the movie one can only see what L.B. Jeffries can see that is, his neighbors’ windows and balconies, the courtyard, and a sliver of street through the alley his own apartment.

The part of this story that I have chosen is when Jeffries pulls out his binoculars, and then a large telephoto lens to get a better look. L.B. Jeffries then watches his neighbor who goes into the kitchen and cleans a large knife.  The neighbor is seen to tying a large packing crate with heavy rope, and at the same time some men come to haul the crate away. As seen in the movie Stella who is also a nurse in a local health center ran around the front of the building to catch the name of the moving company in which the crates where packed, but she missed the truck. At the same time both are having the same thought where there is a tainted play taking place and that the lost wife had been killed by the salesman. At the same time Lisa Carol enters the room dressed in a stunning shinny dress. She looks very beautiful and above all she is in love with   L.B. Jeffries. When they checked the name of the salesman on the front building they establish that he is called Lars Thorwald. Dialogue gives a clear picture of what was happening in the scene. Acts associated with murder are evident in this part of the story. On the other hand dressing plays an important role in the movie, bringing a change of the mood of the film.

The film depicts a personality conflict of two people who love each other. Because the movie “rear window” takes place during a New York heat wave it acts more than a plot device which shows why everyone has their windows open. The heat as it is depicted in the film shows the existence of crisis which in this case can be seen to serves as a metaphor. As one watches the film keenly it has a tone of aplenty and at the same time it integrates a lot of suspense. Things like intuition and creativity in effect; heightened life can give us direct experience of ‘freedom’. In the film’s coda, as we listen to the song ‘Lisa’, freedom seems almost palpable for a moment, though the song’s lyrics hint that it may be just a dream. The film attempts to raise our consciousness this way. Other books establish that the movie delineates more precisely the minor effect of seeking and seen, the reversibility of exhibitionism and voyeurism in the scopic drive.

The film Rear Window can be read as an allegory of how film audiences watch a film. L.B. Jeffries represents us, the audience, and his 'projections' are representative of both ours and those of the filmmakers who try to give us what we want (our yearnings and flights of the imaginations). The people L.B. Jeffries watches over the rear window using the camera are a representative of the people-in-general, because film-going is at some level a communal experience and we want to re-establish contact with the people.

In the film one of cultural social lessons which can be learned is that women emerge smarter and stronger than men. The last scene has the hero L.B. Jeffries with his two legs in a cast and his lady love Lisa Carol switching reading material to what she prefers to read over. What the woman would prefer is to read, even though for the first time she has switched to wear trousers to humor her future husband's vision of his kind of wife he has.

The movie Rear Window addresses issues related to marriage which is a persistent theme in the Hitchcock films. L.B. Jefferies and Lisa Carol do not tie the knot but the end inferred this would eventually happen. But the switching of the reading material gives the viewer a clue who among the duo would rule the marriage. The other perspective on marriage, within the film a husband kills his wife. A wedding ring is stolen of all objects. Other perspectives in the film reflect on the sex in marriage and another looks at a woman dreaming of a virtual husband.

Apart from the two lessons reflected above rear window also captures photographers, photography and voyeurs. Only the photographer looks out of the window, when all have windows open, except when a dog or housebreak is involved. Since Hitchcock made the film it infers that the crime is in watching other people commit crime. The people watching and those who are been watched seem to turn over sides of other individuals or change their character.