Rear Window: The Use of Angle and Selective Shoots Guides Audiences

     In Rear Window, the psychological activities of Jefferies in It Had to Be Murder is presented by various facial expressions and body gestures, his conversations with Stella and Lisa, and especially the selective long shot of his neighbors. The scenes of the ballet dancer, the Miss. Lonelyheart and the newly married couples, are all apparently biased and created sense of chaos and cynicism in this middle-class community. Then the focus of the camera has shifted to the Thorwalds which is the main line of the movie. In the novel, the stereotyped thoughts and imprudent judges of readers are guided by the thoughts and judgement of Jefferies; however, in the movie, the judges of audiences are directed by the swing of camera, the selective shoots and editing.

     Alfred Hitchcock has adapted It Had to be Murder to film Rear Window. In the movie, except the setting and the plot were kept, Alfred changed the name of characters, added new roles and story lines and established a new love story. In the original script, the story is straight and clear, it happens continuously in an inductive path; while in Alfred’s version, the story has more extents that filled by the lives of other neighbors and Jefferies’ s observation has expanded to the whole neighborhood. In both version, if at the end Jefferies has found his prediction is stereotyped and conspiratorial and Mr. Thorwald is innocent, the story will be an absurd.

Literary words to Visual scenes

The movie, directed by Hitchcock, adapted Woolrich’s novella “It Had To Be Murder” from literary words to vivid cinematic scenes. Similar to the novella, most shots was from Jeff’s eyes, and the camera and binocular he used to view his neighbor’s daily life. In movie, slightly different from the novel, the window’s of Jeff’s neighbors’ acts as mirrors revealing neighbor’s personalities. For example, the ballerina sits in the middle of her large square window and brushes her hair showing she is confident and likes attention. Ms. Lonely Hearts sits off to one side of her window, a less confident and confused woman missing her other half. The pianist’s windows unlike the other normal windows are framed differently and resemble piano keys. I In the movie, besides Jeff’s careful observation, the little cute dog is an another clue to foreshadow Mr. Thorwald’s crime. The dog acts as an important character. The camera gives the dog lots of close-up to imply its emphasis. At the beginning, it is lovely and active, playing around in the garden. But one day, suddenly, it is found to be dead with its neck broken. Such great change arises Jeff’s curiosity that there may be something buried in the garden. Without the dog, the finding of Thorwald’s crime can not be so quick and natural. In the end, owing to Mr. Thorwald pushes Jeff to the balcony, and Jeff was forced to fall down from the balcony to the first floor. The camera zooms in Jeff’s two legs cast on plaster. It is a contrast compared with his former situation in which just one leg of him with plaster. Even though Jeff had to sit on the wheelchair for longer time. But his mood is even better than before because he is filled with accomplishment to find a murder via his own careful observation.

In comparison to the text, Alfred Hitchock did a wonderful jon of creating the film in a way that would capture the attention of its audience the way the text did. They were a few changes that Hitchcock did to make this possible. One of the first things I noticed he changed was the names of the characters. In the text, the main character's name was Hal. Jeffries and was changed to L. B. Jefferies. Inspector Boyle was changed to Lieutenant Doyle. Camera angles and shots also played a major role in the product of translating the text to film. There was a consistent "watching" them of the main character analyzing the other characters to create the story. To help create Jefferies, would have several POV shots in the film for the audience to feel like they're seeing from his apartment. Shots used in this were Pan shots, which we really important to also follow what Jeffries appeared to be looking at.

Viewing Response: Rear Window - "It Had to Murder" Film Adaptation

After viewing Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock I was once again made aware of a new craft in film- adaptations. The retelling of a short story, or novel through a visual platform. It seems fairly simple on the surface, but when studied further, noticing the actual craft of bringing words written for reading to life on screen requires a more elaborate ability to work details, camera shots and most importantly point of view.

Although Rear Window was based off of the lengthly short story "It Had to be Murder" written by Cornell Woolwich it became a new story all on its own with new themes, cinematic tropes & alternate plot points. These new changes were accomplished by adding new characters.

For example, in "It Had to be Murder", Sam was Mr. Jeff's friends who was depicted as the 'flunky' who would put his life in danger for his dear friends Jeff. On film that type of character dynamic would have to be backed up with tons of background information in order for the viewer to believe it. Why would a man be that adamant about his friend, what is their history in depth? In order to avoid those viewing questions and also ignite an emotional connection between the film and its viewer, Hitchcock took Sam's devotion and introduced Lisa to the story. Lisa's character works to bring the love story plot forward. Something that was absent in the original text.

Through film adaptation, viewers are afforded the ability to get to know the characters more in depth. You get a larger back story on who they are, & what are their little quirks. This shows strong character development.

The cinematic technique of POV was greatly accomplished in this film. Camera shots focused in on specific details in the viewing perspective of the main character. Long shots from Mr. Jefferies window where smoothly zoomed in for close up shots on intricate details that moved the film forward. An example of this is shown when Mr. Jefferies was writing the letter to Mr. Thorwald. The camera shot swiftly transitions from the viewers POV of the room then above Jefferies head using a high angle shot using an aerial dolly to show the action of writing and then a close up shot of the letter and Jefferies hand. These camera shot transitions add to the dramatic element of the film.

-Ci

Slumdog Millionaire: Canted angles (aka: Oblique angles)

According to Wikipedia, "The Dutch  angle, also known as the Dutch tilt, canted angle, oblique angle or German angle, is a type of camera shot where the camera is set at an angle on its roll axis so that the shot is composed with vertical lines at an angle to the side of the frame, or so that the horizon line of the shot is not parallel with the bottom of the camera frame" ( "Dutch Angle" Wikipedia ) 

As these shots from Slumdog Millionaire show us, this produces an effect of distortion and disorientation.  

Matilda: camera angles/pov

Because of our conversations on angle and point of view, I thought this was a great example from a film that we all grew up with. You see a lot of angles being used. When the Principal is above the girl you can truly feel the intensity and see her looking up scared. You also see the principal looking down on the girl and that conveys the emotion of her having a higher power from the angle we see.



Another great part about this scene is that you see close up shots of all of the school kids emotions from their facial expressions. Aside from the entertainment aspect, this short clip shows several camera techniques that I picked up on from viewing this weekend and thought I'd share!