John Christie Research Paper

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10 Rillington House examines the domestic, public and private spaces of the crime and our perception of the boundaries these spaces represent and impose. John Christies crime in the city and in his home at 10 Rillington Place are experienced through urban/interior corridor paths from one scene to the next. The classical distinction between inside and outside, private and public, object and subject, becomes convoluted. In saying this though Christie and his murders are almost seen as one of the theatre. Question is what role does John Christie play, on stage where he controls his crowd or in the theatre box with superiority. Comfort in this theatre box space is related to both intimacy and control. He had complete control of his space, it was…show more content…
Christie claimed to have met Fuerst while she was soliciting clients in a snack bar in Ladbroke Grove. According to his own statements, he impulsively strangled her during sex at Rillington Place in August 1943. The diagram of the ground floor plan was used at Christies trial. “The manuscript annotation ‘gas pipe’ indicates the location of a disused fitting which Christie claimed to have unplugged and utilized as the source of gas with which to poison Ruth Fuerst and his last three victims.” He buried Fuerst's body in the back garden after initially hiding it beneath the floorboards of his front living room. In Privacy and Publicity, Colomina states “the sense of security is not achieved by simply turning ones back on the exterior and immersing oneself in a private box universe” This is heightened with Walter Benjamin’s metaphor “a box in a world theatre” In terms of 10 Rillington Place it is no longer the house that is the theatre box but there is a theatre box within the house, overlooking the internal spaces. The main inhabitant John Christie plays both the actor and also the spectator throughout the film by detaching himself from his own space, yet with superiority is able to watch his planned plots

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