Rear Window

SCREEN. SCREAM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS:
AN INTRODUCTION TO FILM THEORY
ASSIGNMENT 1

In ¡§Looking Awry¡¨, Zizek states that Rear Window is ¡§ultimately the story of a subject who eludes a sexual relation by transforming his effective impotence by means of the gaze, by means of secret observation.¡¨ These literal voyeuristic methods employed by Hitchcock prompts the audience to examine his or herself. This essay seeks to examine the parallels between Jeff Jeffries (James Stewart); a photographer for a newspaper has a broken leg and is confined in a wheelchair to his apartment, and the audience. In this ¡§movie within the movie¡¨ Jeff¡¦s neighbors¡¦ lives become the subject for the plot. Each window represents a different film screen and just as Jeff identifies with the individuals within each apartment, the audience is trapped inside his point of view and is forced to identify with him. The second part of this essay will examine how the parallels between the relationshi...