Fenestrate on court

Fenêtre on court ( Rear Window in the original version) is a American Film carried out by Alfred Hitchcock, left on the screens in 1954.

Synopsis

L.B. Jeffries, professional photograph, find themselves nailed in an armchair with a leg in the plaster. Little accustomed to a sedentary life, it misleads its trouble growing by observing the interior court since the window of its apartment. Gradually obsessed by the life of its neighbors, he suspects a sales agent of having made disappear his wife. After energetic reproaches concerning her behavior, LISA, her good friend and Stella, the nurse of insurance company help " Jeff" to solve this mysterious business…

Data sheet

Distribution

Around film

  • Caméo : with the 25e minute, Hitchcock is visible playing the part of a character who repairs the clock in one of the apartments facing that of Jeffries, while a person plays of the piano.

Comment

Analysis criticizes feminist

Pleasure scopophilic

Fenêtre on Court functions mainly on the model field/reverse shot. (… One) motionless man looks with the outside. It is a first piece of film. (One) second piece reveals what he sees and third shows its reaction. the subjective camera is consequently used throughout the history. It is only at the end that the camera in the court settles, according to a principle hitchcockien preferring to keep images holds some for the moment most dramatic. Space is then seen under several angles, becoming thus objective.

The film puts in scene voyeurism or, to take again the term used by Laura Mulvey, the glance Scopophilique (pleasure of looking at). It acts of a sexual instinct independent of the erotogenic zones where the individual seizes the other as object of pleasure which it subjects to his controlling glance. Immobilized by a plaster with the leg, one press photographer spends his time observing with the teleobjective its neighbors of opposite. It observes a catalog of behaviors there, stories having for common point the love.

Soon, it acquires the conviction that a man killed his wife and it announces his suspicion to his friend and a buddy detective. The continuation of the events gives him reason and, finally, the assassin crosses the court and comes to precipitate to defer it by his window. The first will be stopped, Jeff will draw some with a second leg in the plaster.

The man is the mediator of the glance of the spectator

In a article published in 1975, “ Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema ”, Laura Mulvey was based on the psychoanalysis to include/understand the distribution of the sexes in the Hollywood traditional cinema. “In a world controlled by the inequality of the sexes, the pleasure of looking at is divided between the man, active element, and the woman, passive element.” She added that the visual presence of the woman “tends to prevent the development of the intrigue, to suspend the course of the action in moments of erotic contemplation. ”

She defined two types of glance: first of all scopophilic, we already approached it higher, then narcissistic. This last corresponds to an identification: the screen becomes the reflection of oneself, more precisely of an ideal of oneself. Generally, the woman is introduced like object of the glance put in spectacle (pleasure scopophilic) and the man like carrier of this glance, to which the male spectator is identified (narcissistic pleasure).

Speaking about Window on Court , Laura Mulvey points out the analysis of Jean Douchet: this one sees film like a metaphor of the cinema. Jeffries is the public, the events which proceed in the apartment of opposite correspond to the screen. When it épie by the window, its glance, central element of the drama, acquires an erotic dimension of it. As long as there remained as regards spectator, his/her LISA friend annoyed it, he tested only one weak sexual desire in her connection. When it crosses the barrier between its room and the building of opposite, their relation finds an erotic dimension. (...) forced of Jeff nails it with its armchair like the spectator of cinema, and straightforwardly puts it in the fantasmatic position occupied by the public.

A woman higher than the hero

In chapter entirely devoted to film, Tania Modleski astonishes that “LISA Freemont is very safe without defense and incompetent, in spite of the characterization that gives Mulvey of it - passive image of plastic perfection - and it is there, adds Modleski, that the problem” It resides concedes that the judgment of Mulvey is based with reason on the fact that LISA maintains an obsession for clothing with the mode, and that it is put unceasingly in scene for Jeff. With the difference of Mulvey, it does not generalize, and is explained: " Raymond Bellour showed how, in the traditional narrative cinema, a binary opposition between the movement and stability generally function to establish the male superiority. In Window on court, however, it is the woman who is shown unceasingly like physically higher than the hero, not only by her movements, but also by her domination within the framework: it is drawn up above him in almost all the plans where they are together. "

Tania Modleski sees in this film, and more particularly in the scene of the ring to the finger, as “of oppressions of any kinds which the women undergo on behalf of the men. ” The film would reveal, according to Modleski, that “acceptable femininity is a construction of the male narcissistic desire”, as “the difference is necessary so that the cinema lives, that it can thus never be destroyed but only denied unceasingly. ” And to notice that it is in LISA that the film gives its last glance.

Lastly, Tania Modleski shows that the film stresses a double point of view, since in the reverse shots we find and LISA and Jeff in the window flanning observing the neighbors of opposite fixedly. It is thus possible, according to it, to hold LISA for representing of the spectator of cinema. In addition, Modleski notices that LISA and Jeff have interpretations very different from what they observe. There is no single male glance. The spectator sees indeed, out of subjective camera, through a multiplicity of glances. But those originate in the same point of view: the window of the apartment of Jeff. However each character - each spectator - does not see the same thing.

Passive man, active woman

“Division between spectacle and account consolidates the man in the active role of that which makes progress the history. ” The distribution of the roles is, we saw it, very clear at the beginning of film. The adventurous man and the model woman signal seem to accredit the dichotomy “man active passive woman” of Laura Mulvey. We quickly approached the nuance brought by Modleski. Let us see how the development of film will play with the theory of Laura Mulvey.

The history, from a traditional paternalism at the beginning, indeed will be in front of a dilemma: the man having to be active is wedged, the leg in the plaster. LISA is thus charged to act in its place. The distribution of the glances is some consequently modified. Who is identified with whom, which looks at who? LISA, object theoretically of the glance scopophilic of Jeff, will take the action. We thus have, us spectators, tendency to identify us with it. We carry the same narcissistic glance to him as that which we carry on the hero. A glance thus doubles on LISA: narcissistic and scopophilic.

Jeff, as for him, feels a very strong empathy when LISA is in the apartment of the murderer. In the particular context of Window on court, and after having noted the metaphor of Jean Douchet, we can say that Jeff also carries a narcissistic glance on it. In the position of a spectator of cinema, Jeff is identified in LISA. A preceding scene showed that it was identified there already: “We will frighten him once again”, ensures Jefferies LISA and Stella joined together at its sides. He adds: “When I say “us”, it is you who take the risks! ”

Let us note that he had previously denied any glance scopophilic on LISA. He made fun of her dresses with 1100 dollars and hesitated to marry, she being “too perfect”. It is only while being it that he likes it. It is besides at the time when it is identified with her that it symbolically passes the ring to him to the finger! It will succeed in being made marry. It is as the moment as the murderer chooses to turn the eyes towards Jeff. It had LISA, it will have that which was identified there.

A point of view, a out-field, an intrigue

Commun runs with all the characters are their single point of view fenestrates it and what they do not see. The importance of the multiplicity not only of the glances but also from the points of view is development. Because ubiquity is not of any help if it is looked at badly or that one cannot what look at. In the same way, the multiplication of the glances is useless if they target all the same thing.

Jeff had seen alliance, not its importance. LISA and Stella bring a new glance to him, indicating the value of the object: “I would have to be cut the finger for me to take it”, explains Stella. The object takes a different direction for which looks at, and becomes or not an index for the account. The glance of Jeff grows rich by the others, until finding necessary that of LISA, for finally accepting, all seems to indicate it, to marry it. There is thus an evolution of the increasingly inclined male glance to be interested in the other glances, here female.

The point of view, on the other hand, almost never changes: always the same window of Jeff. The camera wants to never follow LISA or Stella, to take their point of view out of the apartment. It is on this refusal that all the history is based: a multiplication of glances targeting the same thing, and thus the same out-field. It is the latter which indirectly carries out the account by the will of the characters to know it. The man does not have any more the traditional possibility to be alone to be able to know what the spectator does not see, and thus to act as function. He sees with the eyes of someone else, in fact here, of a woman.

A paternalist film

We saw how this film, of a very traditional beginning, gradually modifies the distribution of the roles for finally being able to be considered as emancipator. But to remain about it there would be to show naivety. Because this film takes place to be only in one patriarchal company. It is based entirely on the fact that a man who cannot more be driven acts via interposed people. That they are women who act explains that the point of view is restricted to remain fixed, faithful to the traditional distribution of the kinds. They can only be the object of the glance. LISA profits admittedly from a narcissistic glance, but it is a glance of shoddy goods. One profits from his point of view only when it is more or less comparable with that of Jeff. One does not see with his eyes when it is in the apartment of Lars Thorwald.

The principal point of view remains that of Jeff. Laura Mulvey was right partly: the man remains “the mediator of the glance of the spectator. ” But when there is no more man to look at, are we condemned to be blind? It is on this point that Fenêtre on Court watch the nonsense from the single point of view, but also the importance of this nonsense for the intrigue. Because the important thing is not what one sees, but what one does not see. The man does not have any more the traditional possibility to be alone to be able to know what the spectator does not see, supporting the identification. He is here in the same position as the spectator: he thinks what he will occur. It is clean suspense.

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