Participatory Arts In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

How can art make an audience listen? Sonny Assu sets a prime example of getting a viewer 's attention, in his piece “The Away Teams Beams Down to What Appears to be Unlimited Planet,”2016 displayed at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The following writing will talk about Sonny Assu as an artist and the social historical context of the work.

To see what they see, and compare our own thoughts with the evolution of the characters and the story. The dexterity of the images, and the impact that each scene has in portraying this theme, guide the viewer throughout the film with little use of dialogue and action. Our central character “Jeff,” is struggling with his casted imprisonment, his need for adventure is apparent as he watches outside his window. Conflicted with his girlfriend and conflicted with his theories, his character becomes more palpable, we begin to realize what is going on not only on the outside of him, but the inside of him as well. The aspects of the outside courtyard and the visual isolation of each apartment, help depict the humanity of each individual and sympathy for even the darkest characters. Hitchcock uses his camera, just as our protagonist does, to focus with him. The camera angles are depicted in a way to which we react with the character, rather than at the character, and eventually expose the minor elements of the story that bring to fruition the suspense of the movie and the thrills of discovery.

In Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, L.B. Jeffries, played by Jimmy Stewart, becomes completely obsessed with spending all of his waking hours watching his neighbors from his wheelchair. He even uses a camera to better his view and thus enhances his role as both a spectator and a voyeur. This contributes to the creation of a movie being played right outside Jeffries’ window. In this “movie within the movie” his neighbors’ lives become the subject for the plot. Each window represents a different film screen, each which is focused upon only when Jeffries directs his attention to it. He witnesses both the anxieties associated with the beginning of a marriage and the heartache of relationships ending. The

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window continues and expands on traditional themes of the Detective Fiction Genre. In 1841, Murder in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe broke the traditional character constraints of the Crime Fiction Genre, by introducing a new type of lead detective figure. The ideal detective figure encompassed traits of superiority, intelligence, wit and a keen sense for observation. The lead detective figure is a sophisticated character that is not bound to the constrictions and limitations of the Law and the exploration of this figure through the use of visual aid and techniques, provides contrast and variation on the common themes within the genre. Hitchcock provides an alternative approach through a new medium carving way

Cinematic perception can be understood using the metaphor of cinema as a window and frame.  Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is an concrete example of this metaphor from both a critical viewpoint as an audience member, and from the perspective of the protagonist, L.B. Jefferies.  Thomas Elsaesser believes that the cinema of the window offers a “special, ocular access to an event” and the screen is transformed from a two dimensional narrative into a three-dimensional environment within which the audience is absorbed (14). Because the plot contains an actual window and also involves L.B Jefferies looking through a window, Rear Window is an exemplary illustration of this metaphor. The two observation points are similar in that they are both ocular-specular,

The films Rear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and The Last Laugh, directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, both feature protagonists going through change, for better or for worse. Rear Window features L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies, a professional photographer who is stuck in his wheelchair, in his apartment, because of an accident he had while on the job. The Last Laugh features a hotel doorman that gets demoted to a lesser job, who then undergoes a psychological change. Both films use elements of mise-en-scene to show how the protagonists adapt and change to their confinement and isolation. The use of the set, framing, and motifs of doors and windows in both films emphasizes the idea of the protagonists dealing with change, from freedom to confinement and isolation.

Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) builds a distinct view of the world and how, in the director’s opinion, men and women fit in it. Through dialogue and mise-en-scene, Hitchcock’s always seems to be making a statement about how men and women should be viewed in his films. Rear Window pinpoints some recurring elements about men and women present in multiple Hitchcock films, where men are shown as damaged and needing help, while women are shown as care-givers. Men are always reluctant to take action, until the desire of the women to solve the mystery presses them into confrontation. Men think women are interested in money or status or success, while women are only interested in love. Love and marriage are also a recurring theme within Hitchcock’s works, and it can be explored through various lenses, but in this essay I will explore it through gender roles and voyeurism, specifically in Rear Window.

Art, whether it be film, television, visual art, theater and many other forms, many of times it is seen upon as purely as entertainment. However, these entertaining entities offer so much more than just entertainment. All of these different forms of entertainment provide a different insight of the

Hitchcock’s world however, was shot all on a lot. That being said, his use of backgrounds and an expansive set eludes to a much larger setting than it really is. Rear Window is a very edit heavy film, relying on shot choice and clever editing to explain character relevance. For example, a lot of the couples in the apartment complex exemplify the

.In Happenings and Other Acts, Mariellen R. Sandford - associate director of The Drama Review (TRD) since 1985 - has collected important essays, interviews and performance texts that help explain the complicated and intriguing nature of Happenings and Live Performance. The book itself is described as a collection of “invaluable documents from a period that radically changed our perception of the function of the artist, the role of the observer, and the relation between art and everyday life.” (Sandford, 1995)

Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic style contains an array of stylistic devices, notably the point-of-view shot. Using point of view editing, the audience “repeatedly [sees] events through the eyes of an individual character.” (Walker) The audience is privy to only what the character knows and likewise absorbs the character’s emotional journey. As the audience’s emotional investment/identification with the protagonist grows, so does the plot amplifying the audience’s empathy for the character’s heartache, longing, and anxiety, creating the perfect recipe for a suspenseful thriller. Hitchcock employs point-of-view editing in the films, Rear Window and Vertigo to exemplify the protagonist’s mindset and to control the amount of information the audience made be aware of.

Marina Abramovic is a great artist who has changed the way that we look at modern art. She has overcome many obstacles and made some choices that have caused conflicts in the world of modern art. Abramovic was known to cause conflicts among conversations when it came to topics in Art. She’s known to speak her mind which causes issues within the public. The Artist is Present is an HBO documentary that highlights some of Abramovic’s works. The documentary follows her journey in art and proved how she had managed to change the view of how people looked at performance art. She created unique performances that helped to show how humans respond to no boundaries, or how men and women interact. She is a daring artist and has created incredibly powerful

Since then the artist as a performer has stood against many of the acknowledged order of theatre and controversially changed our thoughts of what makes up visual art. While performance art is a comparatively recently developed region of art history, it has a base in experimental art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Resonating unworldly concepts of the period’s avant-garde, these primary instances found impact in theatrical and music performance, art, poetry, burlesque and other popular entertainment. Modern artists used live events to advance radical viewpoints, usually by virtue of intended provocation and attempts to offend middle-class flavour or assumptions.  In Italy, the insurgent group of Futurist artists insulted and yelled obscenity at their middle-class audiences in the aim of stirring up political action. Following World War II, performance appeared as a good way for people to look into analytical and mental questions about our own human existence. For previous generations like in the 1950’s, who have observed demolition sourced by the Holocaust and atomic bomb, the body provided a strong means of communication to transmit physical and emotional

Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller ‘Rear Window’ (Hitchcock, 1954) begins with the immediate use of mise-en-scène in order to establish a sense of atmosphere, equilibrium and the mundane, soon to be disrupted as the events of the film unfold and are observed through the eyes of the voyeuristic protagonist, Jeff. Setting, cinematography and various other expressive mise-en-scène techniques work together to influence the overall appearance of the film. Though, by taking a closer look, these techniques reveal the significance of the narrative and characters. In the opening sequence, Hitchcock’s original visual style provides signposts for the audience to recognize what will be significant in the future: instead of establishing what is only happening in the moment in time; mise-en-scène is used to suggest what is to come. This arrangement of the “Classical Hollywood” narrative - starting with the setting and characters in a state equilibrium - acts as a seemingly all-purpose, archetypal opening by establishing location and introducing character. Simultaneously we can see that this sequence is vastly different from the rest of the film: it is leading the viewer into a false sense of security – the calm before the storm – as Jeff soon happens to piece together information leading to the possibility that one of his neighbors murdered their wife. This sequence is one of the only moments in the film we see things the protagonist does not, thus this carefully constructed opening is preparing

It is interesting to think about the relationship between the audience and the performance/performer when it comes to watching a play. The borderline of what the audience is supposed to do and not do when watching a performance it depends on the type of the theater that spectator is watching. It is why some theaters establish a fourth wall, in order to show that the borderline between the audience and the performance and it is a borderline that helps to isolate the audience from the performance/performer. However, the idea of a fourth wall does not fulfill every spectator’s expectation of enjoying a performance in the theater. Therefore, there are different types of ways to approach theater. Three Dramatic theorists that reveal different visions in regard to the relationship between the audience and the performance are Emile Zola, Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal. In