Rear Window Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Rear Window - Assignment Example The principal themes in Rear Window are voyeurism and the care for another person, in this case the person living in the apartment building opposite the rear window of James Stewarts place who got murdered. People should ideally not bother themselves with affairs of their neighbors and should mind only their own business but a broken leg left the principal actor played by James Stewart with nothing to do but sit the whole day in his apartment. There are three different analytical points (perspectives) to view this film and these are voyeurism, patriarchy, and feminist theory. Voyeurism is depicted by actor James Stewart as he spends all day watching his neighbors, in effect spying on them. A patriarchal approach is also a viable perspective because most of the human relationships shown in the film were about male and female relationship with the male always aiming for dominance. Feminism is also used because the women in the film were either mistreated or treated without respect at all or were generally put in a not flattering light for the movie audience. In the movie, the girlfriend of Stewart named Lisa was shown as a sexual object for the fantasy of male viewers; Lisa was obsessed with style and fashion to the point of narcissism (McCabe 25). The film maintained its ability to create fear and panic because the auteur Hitchcock understood very well the human psychology of the fear of getting murdered, the attractions of voyeurism, and the overall portrayal of most human relationships in everyday events. Its film director allowed the audience, in a sense, to know in advance what will happen next. A lack of special effects used in modern films allowed Rear Window to showcase the talents of a real auteur who can manage to bring a story to the audience without use of special effects. Sigmund Freud is mentioned frequently with Rear Window because of the meaning of his