Rear Window

Rear Window

April 9, 2014

Alfred Hitchcock was coined “The Master of Suspense” because he used everyday things, noise, animals and built suspension from these everyday, non-threating entities. The use of sound in Rear Window brings chills to the audience in Rear Window. Hitchcock builds tension with the noise of a ringing telephone. Hitchcock keeps the camera on the phone while the background is black, the phone is the only in the frame, until Jeffries picks up the phone and no one answers at the other end, the only thing the audience hears is heavy breathing. Something as simple and non-threating as footsteps signalizes a terrifying scene is about to happen. Hitchcock has no background music, no noise, no birds, no human voices, just the heavy footsteps that are slowly approaching Jeff’s front door. The room is pitch dark and Jeff is helpless in his wheelchair. The heavy footsteps get louder and louder till they are no more and a menacing Thorwald enters the room ready to destroy. Sometimes beauty is dangerous and things that seem innocent may not be innocent at all. In Rear Window, Hitchcock uses Thorwald’s flower bed as the flowerbed of death for Mrs. Thorwald. The flower bed is where Thorwald buried his rage and his hatred and evil thoughts for his wife. Throwald hacked up his wife and put her in the flowerbed. This juxtaposition is what Hitchcock was famous for, innocent, none-threating animals that can in the blink of the eye become threating, i.e. Hitchcock’s the Birds. In The Birds, Hitchcock uses something as non-life threating as a bird and they become the killers. Hitchcock uses the Birds to show that innocence is dangerous and that beauty can be deceiving. The idea of beauty being deceptive is evident with the character of Lisa in Rear Window. Jeff saw Lisa as beautiful but boring, even weak. In reality Jeff was the weak one, Lisa was the one that did all the hard work, while Jeff sat in his wheelchair and just observed. Lisa became the one in danger and proved that outward beauty can be dangerous. Rear Window is so much a classic that it has been intimidated through the years, examples of homages to this classic is found with the movies: Disturbia, Fright Night, Body Double, and the TV show Castle. 

A still from the TV show Castle. This episode was a homage to Rear Window.

Emma

Emma

April 9, 2014

This version of Emma is a comedy.  Just like Shakespeare’s A Midsummers Night’s Dream with Puke matching couples in a mischief way, Emma becomes a character like Puke when trying to match up Harriet with all the wrong people.  Puke and Emma create a comic relief at the cost of mix matching of couples that have disagreeable feelings for each other.  But then Emma also becomes a typical comedy with her love hate interest with Knightly.  How many movies and TV programs have we seen when the male and female characters bickers all the time, insults each other, and shows distain and hate for each, only to become lovers and then eventually marry in the end? Some love/ hate relationships that are featured in TV and movies are: Rhett and Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, Peter and Ellie in It Happened One Night, Tom and Laura in Legal Eagles, Richard Castle and Kate Beckett in Castle, Amanda Woodward and Peter Burns in Melrose Place. Can you name other love/hate relationships in TV and movies that ended in marriage? This version of Emma is a classic example of accident proneness being used as a tool of comedy. Emma is seen as a good archer, but not perfect. When Knightley and Emma are trying to outdo each other in archery Emma misses and comes close to shooting Knightley’s dogs, Knightley sarcastically says, please don’t shoot my dog. Emma also shows a comedy of manners and how ridiculous the rich can be when Emma and Harriet go to feed and look upon the poor. Emma gets down and feeds a poor elderly lady, while Harriet is scurrying in the corner running and bumping into everything and dropping things on the pets of the house. This scene shows the absurdity of the upper-class and how corrupt the upper-class can be, even though Harriet herself is of lower class origins. Emma also ties in comedic history with the use of classic Vaudeville techniques. Miss Bates is a woman always scurrying about and never stops talking. Miss Bates lives with her hard of hearing, perhaps on purpose, mother, Mrs. Bates. Mrs. Bates sits quietly while Miss Bates yells mundane words at her like: cake, letter…etc.  Miss Bates and Mrs. Bates are examples of the straight man and the buffoon, other examples of this is found in Abbot and Costello, Martin and Lewis, and to certain extent, The Three Stooges. The concept of the straight and buffoon character is found in comedic movies but two that stand out are, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and National Lampoon’s Vacation.  Where do you see other classic elements of comedy present in this movie?