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Jake Wilson: Film as Text: Rear Window

Session Info:

Confined to bed with a broken leg, a New York photographer (James Stewart) starts to speculate on the lives of the neighbours he can see from his window, ultimately uncovering evidence of a possible murder. This is the premise of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window, which like all of his masterpieces can be viewed on multiple levels: as a superb example of Hollywood craftsmanship, as an experiment with storytelling in a confined space, and as an exploration of what the act of watching from a distance implies, not least for us as members of the audience. This presentation offers an overview of these and other aspects of the film, with emphasis on the technical skill which earned Hitchcock the title of the Master of Suspense, and on the question of how far we as viewers are implicated in what we see. The presentation can be adjusted depending on audience needs.

Topics Covered:

  • Rear Window as Hollywood Entertainment
  • Hitchcock’s use of set design, editing, sound
  • The film as an allegory of the viewing experience
  • Relationships between men and women in the film
  • The film as a vision of life and the artist’s relation to it

Session Info

  • Audience: Senior Secondary/Teachers
  • Duration: 60-90 minutes
  • Requirements: A/V set-up to play film clips from DVD.

Other sessions:

  • Film as Text: All About Eve

    Writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was one of the most sophisticated wits in Hollywood, and the Oscar-winning 1950 comedy-drama All About Eve shows him at his peak.  This is not just a film about what happens in the theatre, but one where the characters are constantly playing roles onstage and off, calling into question what constitutes […]

  • Film as Text: Blade Runner

    A product of one of Hollywood’s science-fiction booms, Ridley Scott’s dystopian 1982 film noir puts a very different spin on the genre than, say, Star Wars or E.T.  Harrison Ford is at his least heroic as the “blade runner” of the title, chasing a group of runaway androids through a congested, polluted future Los Angeles,  […]

  • Film Criticism Now

    In an era when the Internet has increasingly taken over from traditional media, film criticism is changing almost as rapidly as film itself.  Can there be such a thing as an “objective” verdict on a film, and if not, what is the purpose of passing judgement?  Drawing on more than 15 years professional experience as […]

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