Different Film Screen And Just As Jeff example essay topic

SCREEN. SCREAM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: AN INTRODUCTION TO FILM THEORY ASSIGNMENT 1 In! SSLooking Awry!" , Zizek states that Rear Window is! SS ultimately the story of a subject who eludes a sexual relation by transforming his effective impotence by means of the gaze, by means of secret observation. !" These literal voyeuristic methods employed by Hitchcock prompts the audience to examine his or herself. This essay seeks to examine the parallels between Jeff Jeffries (James Stewart); a photographer for a newspaper has a broken leg and is confined in a wheelchair to his apartment, and the audience.

In this! SS movie within the movie!" Jeff's neighbors! | lives become the subject for the plot. Each window represents a different film screen and just as Jeff identifies with the individuals within each apartment, the audience is trapped inside his point of view and is forced to identify with him. The second part of this essay will examine how the parallels between the relationship of Jeff and Lisa (Grace Kelly) and that of the neighbors further strengthen the audience-protagonist relationship. Psychoanalytic film theory sees the audience not as a person, but as an artificial construct, produced and activated by the cinematic apparatus (Kaplan 147). According to Belton, the set design in Rear Window reproduces these conditions of spectatorship.

Alfred Hitchcock manages to make the audience act as voyeurs, just as Jeff the main character is one. By making almost all the scenes shot from the same viewpoint, the audience sees the people Jeff sees, they also see them from the same distance and in the same way; what Jeff hears, the audience does. Whether they realize it or not, the audience usually tend to pay more attention to parts of a film which are more relevant to their own problems and lives, much in the same way that Jeff identifies with some of his neighbors. By putting, or rather, forcing the audience onto the wheelchair that Jeff is immobilized by, the audience shares his emotions. Often, without words, just by following Jeff's gaze on his neighbors, interestingly through the telephoto lenses just like a movie camera would, the audience thinks what Jeff thinks, and whatever suspicion is aroused in him will be transposed onto the audience as well. This position of the spectator in Rear Window is rather unique.

Stephen Heath states that, ! SSfilm is a regulation of movement, the individual as subject held in a shifting and placing of desire, energy, contradiction. !" In this film, the position of the spectator is fixed. The! SS shifting and placing of desire, energy contradiction!" is placed upon the neighbors that the protagonist watches through his lenses. The audience-protagonist relationship is strengthened by the parallels drawn between the motivation of an audience watching a film and that of Jeff watching his neighbors.

The different! SSfilm screens!" that Jeff spends his every waking hour watching relates to his own personal life, revolving around his relationship with Lisa. From the very beginning, a clear link is established between his spying on his neighbors and his relationship with Lisa. Jeff seems to use it as a coping mechanism to deal with his problems and fears with regard to this relationship.

He views Lisa's proposal for marriage as an encumbrance. Literally, he is escaping from his impotence due to his confinement to the wheelchair but what he is really escaping from is Lisa's proposal, a threat of impotence. Zizek argues that Jeff looks through the window to! SS see on display a multitude of imaginary solutions to his actual impasse.

!" His voyeurism serves as an escape and alternatives to his own problems. He witnesses both the anxieties associated with the beginning of a marriage and the heartache of relationships ending as well as the pain of loneliness. The plots that are played out before his eyes, often results in him renouncing the idea of marriage. Each window Jeff observes contains a plot, which portrays a different view of marriage. One initially positive plot is that of the newlyweds. At first, the newlyweds show a relationship full of joy and happiness with much hope for the future.

The husband is shown as he carries his bride over the threshold as they enjoy their first moments together in their new home. Then the blinds are pulled and thus sexual relations are implied. As time goes on his wife seems to whine and constantly want him to be with her in bed. Upon this observation, Jeff gains the perception of marriage as a physically and emotionally exhausting life, which he applies when dealing with his situation with Lisa. The main plot that grabbed Jeff's attention deals with the events occurring within the Thorwald apartment. In many ways the Thorwald! | marriage parallels Lisa and Jeff's relationship, except with a reversal in gender.

Lisa and Lars Thorwald, both mobile and healthy, strive to make their respective relationships work. There is a scene in which Thorwald brings his wife dinner in bed decorated with a rose. She only laughs at this gesture. On the other side, Lisa cannot even gain Jeffries attention by sitting in his lap. Mrs. Thorwald and Jeff, who are both physically restrained, only complain to their partners. The Thorwald apartment becomes of particular interest when Jeffries begins to suspect murder.

He believes that Thorwald finally became so tired of his nagging wife that he killed her. It is interesting how Lisa's role changes after Jeff managed to convince her of his accusation, which in turn adds another gazer to the rear window. This makes her more important to Jeff's in that he can now discuss what is going on with someone who will listen. She still does not obtain his full attention until she crosses over into the plot within the Thorwald apartment.

When Lisa becomes the subject of the gaze, then, and only then, is Jeff attracted to her. Laura Mulvey argues in! SSVisual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema!" that in virtually every visual text, the man represents the bearer of the gaze while the woman is the image or subject of the gaze. When, against Jeff's wishes, she ventures across to the apartment building in search of evidence that would incriminate Mr. Thorwald, she now becomes a character in a film of which Jeff is the spectator. This is arguably the most exciting scene of the movie. Only when she has inserted herself into his fantasy does he become sexually attracted to her, highlighted by the element of danger.

This also serves as an ingenious parallel between the protagonist and the audience. As argued by Mulvey, the presence of a woman in a narrative film is an indispensable element of spectacle, coded for strong visual and erotic impact. As Lisa becomes the subject of the gaze, she now is a character in a film of which Jeff is the spectator. To conclude, voyeurism is the key parallel between the spectator and the protagonist in that both are unaware of the connections between what they are watching and themselves. This distance between the surveil lant and surveilled, the watcher and the watched, allows the audience to view almost all of Rear Window from the voyeur's eyes. In some ways, the audience of voyeurs is in a "director's chair".

Like a director, Jeff sits in a chair, watches through lenses, and communicates stories based on the pictures viewed. As Francois Truffaut notes when interviewing Hitchcock about his intentions in Rear Window, ! SS We! |re all voyeurs to some extent! K and James Stewart is exactly in the position of a spectator looking at a movie. !"

Bibliography

X Mulvey, Laura.! SSVisual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. !" Narrative Apparatus Ideology. Ed. Philip Rosen, (New York: Columbia UP, 1986) "X Kaplan, E.
Ann.! SS Psychoanalysis and Cinema!" (AFI Film Readers) "X Zizek, Slav oj.! SSLooking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. !" (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991) "X The Society of " Rear Window" Ethics web "X Rear Window.
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. James Stewart, Grace Kelly. MCA. 1954.