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Rear Window

Rear Window. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954. Alfred Hitchcock. Studied at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar , London. he became a draftsman and advertising designer became intrigued by photography and started working in film production in London

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Rear Window

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  1. Rear Window • Alfred Hitchcock, 1954

  2. Alfred Hitchcock • Studied at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar, London. • he became a draftsman and advertising designer • became intrigued by photography and started working in film production in London • title-card designer (for silent movies) for the London branch of what would become Paramount Pictures. • In 5 years he became a director • The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) • The 39 Steps (1935), is often considered one of the best films from his early period.

  3. in 1939 he received a 7 year Hollywood movie contract and he moved to the USA • Rebecca, 1940 (Academy Award, Best Picture) • (Work was diverse in the 40’s) romantic comedy, courtroom drama, and Noir • In 1940, he moved to Scott’s Valley in the Santa Cruz mountains • Became producer/director and shot Suspicion there

  4. Spellbound, 1945 • Notorious, 1946 (plot included uranium which led to Hitchcock being under surveillance by the FBI • Rope, 1948

  5. Recurring Attributes • Gallows Humor • Suspense • Voyeurism (from subjective viewpoints) • Confined spaces: Rear Window, Lifeboat and Rope

  6. Elisabeth Weis: The Silent Scream - Alfred Hitchcock's Sound Track(1982) • a character—and the viewer for whom he is a surrogate—can misinterpret events according to his own preconceptions. • The most persuasive way of demonstrating the seductiveness of such misinterpretations is to let the viewer make the same mistake. Having been seduced into adopting a character's point of view that is later exposed as illusion • Rear Window (1954) is the film that quintessentially presents a subjective point of view within an apparently realistic style. The single obvious distortion is the overloud sound Thornwald.

  7. Mise en Scene • Shot on a very large sound stage • Takes place almost entirely in a single room • Francois Truffault in Cahiers du Cinema wrote about how the mise en scene in Rear Window is a metaphor for the cinema • Laura Mulvey in Visual Pleasure and narrative cinema (change in Jeff’s desire towards Lisa)

  8. Audio Deep Space • Diegetic vs. Non Diegetic Sound (Rear Window relies entirely on diegetic sound.) • Shot on a sound stage, but realism achieved through atmospheric audio • Aural references from multiple directions offscreen • Importance of offscreen space

  9. Fidelity vs Telephony • Fidelity: all aspects of an event are inherently significant • Telephony: intrinsic hierarchy • Walter Murch: sound design is “little lies that add up to the truth” • Post production sound is more realistic than production sound • Location sound: recording devices can’t record all frequencies of some sounds (like gunshots) • Distortion and Background Noise

  10. Sound Sources • Both realistic in source • Most asychronous • Visuals (restricted to apartment) • Audio Sources are seemingly unlimited • Hitchcock was a “proponent of asynchronous sound; he considered it redundant to show the source of dialogue or sound effects”

  11. His 40’s films had quite a bit of dialogue • His later films like Vertigo, Psycho and even Rear Window have long stretches with no dialogue • When characters speak the dialogue presents a new dimension to the story and is rarely redundant. • The neighbors being watched are rarely the source of the audio (less than 1/10 of the time) The soundtrack always makes the viewer aware of a “larger sphere of activity”

  12. the integration of audio goes against the editing and mise en scene which isolate the people in different apartments • Unity of sound and a multiplicity of spaces • (Irony) juxtaposition of one sound against various images with different meanings

  13. "Waiting for my true love to appear." • played at the party of the composer • Jeff, is waiting for his significant other • Miss Lonelyhearts, who eventually gives up "waiting" and goes to a restaurant to pick up a man

  14. Thorwald’s Approach • expressionistic “long, slow reverberated” • Conveys Jeff’s experience of being approached • Jeff’s apartment is no longer his place of protection, but of vulnerability • Up to that point the sounds become gradually more focused • Expressionistic, unrealistic sound just as Jeff is most threatened

  15. Elisabeth Weis: Final Paragraph • (Soon, we even see the results of Jeff's blinding flashes from Thorwald’s point of view.) The sudden shift to an expressionistic presentation of Jeff's subjectivity creates an emotional distance that encourages the viewer to judge Jeff's behavior and to recognize retrospectively the subjectivity (and therefore the culpability) of Jeff's earlier perceptions as well.”

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