Yesterday I spent pretty much of the day watching films suggested to me...I think they were suggested? I say that because I can't exactly remember who did suggest those films?? Anyway nevermind the important thing is I watched two Alfred Hitchcock films; Rear Window and Vertigo....I want to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window concentrate on 'Rear Window' which touches on the notion of the voyuerist, or perhaps more scopophilia, (yes) the pleasure of looking, but always maintaing a distance (links to warhol). briefly the story is about a professional photographer (played by James Stewart) who having a leg in plaster spends the summer looking out of his window onto a court yard and other apartments. The apartments he gazes into is key here...we see 'torso girl' (a dancer), 'lonely hearts' women (forever enacting romantic situations), a pianist, a young married couple (who spend most of the time with the blind down) , a couple with a dog and the a sales person and his ill wife (who stewart believes has murder his wife?). all can be seen as representing the veiwers own life. robin wood (hitchcock revisted p102) suggest that 'we tend to select from a film and stress, quite unconsciously those aspects that are most relevant to us, to our problems and our own attitude to life, and ignore the rest...he continues that we tend to use such id again, usually unconsciously as a means of working out our own problems in fantasy form. what is also interesting is that stewart (stella calls him ''a window shopper'')sees what he wants to see, that is, he is not interested in the happy family or the young couple, he is more interested what reflects his own life the fact that he is not happy in his relationship etc is viewed a parallel to that of the salesman and his murdered wife?. we as spectators from the outset of the film only see what he does, he is then in control...I guess this could link to being an impassive spectator living up to the expense of what the camera will allows us to see...center on the relationship between Jeff and the other side of the apartment block, seeing it as a symbolic relationship between spectator and screen. Film theorist Mary Ann Doane has made the argument that Jeff, representing the audience, becomes obsessed with the screen, where a collection of storylines are played out. This line of analysis has often followed a feminist approach to interpreting the film. Doane, who used Freudian analysis to claim women spectators of a film become "masculinized", pays close attention to how Jeff's rather passive attitude to romance with the elegant Lisa changes when she metaphorically crosses over from the spectator side to the screen: it is only when Lisa seeks out the wedding ring of Thorwald's murdered wife that Jeff shows real passion for her. In the climax, when he is pushed through the window (the screen), he has been forced to become part of the show.
Other issues such as voyeurism and feminism are analyzed in John Belton's book Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window".
Rear Window is a voyeuristic film. As Stella tells Jeff, "We've become a race of Peeping Toms." This applies equally to the cinema as well as to real life. Stella invokes the specifically sexual pleasures of looking that is identified as exemplary of classical Hollywood. The majority of the film is seen through Jeff's visual point of view and his mental perspective. Stella's words sum up Hitchcock's broader project as film maker, namely, to implicate us as spectators. While Jeff is watching the rear window people, we too are being "peeping toms" as we watch him, and the people he watches as well. As a voyeuristic society, we take personal pleasure in watching what is going on around us...
Vertigo
Vertigo also played by James Stewart is a story about an ex policeman who suffers from acrophobia. An old friend asks him to tail his wife, which he does but in the process falls in love with her.
The next day Scottie follows her to his house and they decide to spend the day together because Scottie fears Madeleine might commit suicide. The two travel to muir woods where Madeleine, embarrassed from confessing that her dreams sound mad, runs to the ocean and they kiss. Upon hearing the details of her nightmare Scottie identifies the setting as mission san Juan Bautista and takes Madeleine there where they proclaim their love for each other. Madeleine suddenly runs into the church and up the bell tower. Scottie, halted on the steps by vertigo and paralyzing fear, watches as Madeleine plunges to her death.
An inquest declares Madeleine's death a suicide but Scottie feels ashamed his weakness has rendered him incapable of preventing someone's death. Gavin does not fault Scottie but in the following weeks Scottie becomes depressed. While treated in a sanatorium, he becomes mute, haunted by vivid nightmares. Although Midge visits, his condition remains the same. After release, Scottie haunts the places that Madeleine visited, often imagining that he sees her. One day, he spots a woman who reminds him of Madeleine. Scottie follows the woman to her hotel room where she identifies herself as Judy Barton from Kansas. Though initially suspicious and defensive, Judy eventually agrees to join Scottie for dinner.
After Scottie leaves Judy has a flashback revealing she was, in fact, the woman known as "Madeleine," but she is not Gavin's wife. Judy writes a confession letter to Scottie explaining she was an accomplice to the real Madeleine Elster's murder by Gavin, and how Gavin had taken advantage of Scottie's acrophobia. She rips up the letter and decides to continue the charade because of her love for Scottie.
Scottie remains obsessed by his memory of "Madeleine" and their similarities. He transforms Judy until she once more resembles Madeleine. Judy agrees to change on the chance they may finally find happiness together. Scottie realizes the truth when Judy wears a unique necklace that he saw in the portrait of Carlotta Valdes. Instead of dinner, Scottie insists on taking Judy to the Mission San Juan Bautista.
There, he reveals that he wants to reenact the event that led to his madness, admitting that he now knows Madeleine and Judy are the same. Scottie forces her up the bell tower and angrily presses Judy to admit her deceit. Scottie reaches the top, conquering his acrophobia at last. Judy confesses that Gavin had hired her to pose as a possessed Madeleine; Gavin faked the suicide by tossing the body of his already-murdered wife from the bell tower.
Judy pleads to Scottie to forgive her because she loves him. The two embrace when a nun emerges from the trapdoor; startled, Judy steps backward and falls to her death. Scottie stands on the narrow ledge while the nun rings the mission bell.
After watching the films in particular 'Vertigo' I read a conversation between Bismuth and Michael Newman, who discussed how in films such as Bond movies, somebody always gets killed in the beginning and then the story unfolds to how that happened...this made me think about the how we see the final product as perhaps being 'The End' like in films, the creative process being the journey leading up to that end. ..I need to look up mark cousins who lectures on closure??? this is a 'superfluous' act, that is, there should never be a full stop, an ending not with a creative process, as it is temporal in that it is handed down over and over again...
later in the conversation Bismuth states' in most cases they (the consumerist) position themselves as cultural consumers, outside the creative process, whereas in fact they should consider themselves as the potential creator of the work'..
'the messenger or story is less important for the construction of a narrative than the way we look at things' Bismuth
to be continued...
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