cinema final question 3

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Dec 6, 2023

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Johnny Smith 04/29/2022 Anna Talarico Question 3 Hitchcock’s film Rear Window was a cinematic masterpiece that broke new grounds in cinema yet held tightly to the up-and-coming Hollywood culture of films. The director beautifully intertwined an intriguing story of a man named Jeff who through being a peeping tom solved a murder mystery. Yet, what this film is truly about is the use of point-of-view filming. Hitchcock’s film was conducted with the use of the point of view shot throughout the whole story, oftentimes driving the storyline. A point of view shot is defined as three simple aspects: the shot of the character, the shot of what they see, shot of the reaction of the character to what they saw (Module 8.6, 4:02). In this film, these shots were used the whole time with a view exceptions through the character of Jeff. Being the viewer we are sutured into the film meaning, “inserted into a certain place in the film where the camera’s look seems to originate” which is a significant aspect of what point of view shots accomplish (Module 8.5,13:57). In this film, we are sutured into the eyes of Jeff who has a broken leg and is cooped up in his apartment. He is a man who lives on the edge of life, he wants to be full of action and we quickly gather this from an important shot. The film starts with us looking through his room, leading us to assume who he is and why he is there. This scene sets up what the film will all be about. We quickly understand once we enter the character of Jeff, through the point of view shot, he is making the same assumptions we made about others by just looking around the apartments around him (Module 8.5, 27:03). He looks at families bickering, the woman changing, a woman
dancing, people sleeping, tanning, and other normal daily things. Jeff becomes fascinated and obsessed with looking out of his window and detaches from his world when he concludes that his neighbor named Thornwold murdered his wife. We as the viewers begin to be the “assuming and paranoid figure that Jeff is” which is controlled and done by Hitchcock's use of point of view (Module 8.5, 33:50). Jeff eventually tries to convince his girlfriend and nurse that a murder did happen yet they will not believe him until he enters them into his point of view. A scene of Lisa looking into Thornwold's apartment is when she is convinced as we enter her point of view for a moment. In most films, the changing of view is completely invisible to the viewer however that is not the case in this film. Jeff is shown grabbing cameras and binoculars throughout the film and we enter into those objects enhancement of point of view. Through these techniques, the director is beginning to flip. “Rather than having Hitchcock be the director who mediates our look in this way this seems invisible, most of the time, we see Jeff mediate our look, he is a stand in for us and the director”(Module 8.6, 2:45). It seems that Jeff dictates where and what we see. The movie feels as if it is in Jeff’s hands rather than Hitchcock’s. The mise-en-scène provides the equipment by which the viewer and Jeff closely view the murder’s apartment instead of invisibly changing filming angles behind scenes (Module 8.6, 3:20) This again brings an intense emphasis on the use of point of view. Observing the breaks when the shot is taken away from Jeff’s pouting of view as well proves to be hidden clues to what will happen. When the viewer is sutured into Thornwold’s eyes it is trouble starts and the scene is no longer as calm as it was when the viewer was placed in Jeff’s point of view (Module 8.6, 33:25). Lastly point of view controls much of the story because when Lisa is out of Jeff’s obsessive point of view, the view
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