Narrative Analysis Of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
1353 Words6 Pages
This film study will define the narrative theme of the psychological thriller in the auteur style of Alfred Hitchcock in the films Rebecca (1940) and Rear Window (1954). The premise of the auteur filmmaker will be examined through the stylistic narrative of Hitchcock’s storytelling technique in the genre of the psychological thriller. The film Rebecca defines the suspenseful undercurrent of Mrs. De Winter’s death and the tumultuous relationship between her husband, Maxim (Lawrence Olivier), and his current wife, the second Mrs. De Winter (Joan Fontaine). The second Mrs. De Winter defines the distrust and suspicion that mark Hitchcock’s psychological thriller, and the development of morbid plots surrounding a mystery. Rear Window (1954) also…show more content… For instance, Hitchcock developed the genre of the “psychological thriller” to expose the morbid underside of humanity through the narrative framework of a murder mystery formula. In this manner, Hitchcock directed and wrote the narrative structure of films, such as Rebecca, which defied this traditional murder mystery formula through the gothic morbidity to conjure darker allusions to human relationships: “The auteur was exactly that: a polemical position marking their views off from the main orthodox tradition” (Tudor 28). In this manner, the plot of Rebecca defines the morbid aspects of the deceased first Mrs. De Winter’s dark legacy over Maxim De Winter’s estate, which appears to haunt the place in which the second Mrs. De Winter must now live as his new wife. Hitchcock puts this dark and haunting twist to the murder mystery through the suspicion that Maxim murdered his first wife after an argument in the boathouse. Although Maxim is presumed to be the murderer of his first wife, the complexities of Hitchcock’s narrative a psychological murder mystery as a “thriller” that challenges the stereotype of the traditional suspect in a murder…show more content… In Rebecca, the use of maxim’s mansion as a type of haunted house adds to the setting of Hitchcock’s films as a “thriller” that expands the murder mystery genre into horror or gothic styles of narrative. To imagine the first Mrs. De Winter decomposing at the bottom of the lake near maxim’s home provides a disturbing and unique approach to the murder mystery through the context of maxim’s seemingly gentile attitude, and that he still lives on the same estate with his new wife. This is also true in Rear Window, as Jeffries almost views Thorwald’s murders as a form of entertainment that is causally pursued until he is actually attacked by the person his voyeuristically observing. Certainly, Hitchcock retains his auteur approach to filmmaking through the premise of the psychological thriller as an innovation of the murder mystery, as well as how certain aspects of the horror /gothic genre are interlaced into the characters and the narrative of the stories. In this manner, Rebecca and rear Window retain a connection over the span of 14 years in which Hitchcock was able to have control over the writing, narrative and filming of these films through the undercurrent of suspicion and murder as a foundation for the psychological thriller. Therefore, the premise of the auteur are