rear window alfred hitchcock, 1954. alfred hitchcock studied at the london county council school of...
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Rear WindowAlfred 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
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.
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
Spellbound, 1945
Notorious, 1946 (plot included uranium which led to Hitchcock being under surveillance by the FBI
Rope, 1948
Recurring Attributes
Gallows Humor
Suspense
Voyeurism (from subjective viewpoints)
Confined spaces: Rear Window, Lifeboat and Rope
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.
Elisabeth Weis: The Silent Scream - Alfred Hitchcock's Sound Track (1982)
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)
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
Fidelity vs TelephonyFidelity: 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
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”
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”
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
played at the party of the composer
Jeff, is waiting for his fiancee who has not yet shown up for her evening visit
Miss Lonelyhearts, who eventually gives up "waiting" and goes to a restaurant to pick up a man
"Waiting for my true love to appear."
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
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.”