{"id":1178,"date":"2024-09-10T09:33:23","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T13:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2024-09-10T09:33:23","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T13:33:23","slug":"being-in-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/2024\/09\/10\/being-in-the-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"Being “in the dark”"},"content":{"rendered":"

This film brings to light the line between privacy and awareness, and how these two things work in partnership with one another while also being opposites. These two things are represented through the technique of lighting. For one, the film often shows characters that are suddenly \u201cenlightened\u201d \u2013 whether it be to ideas or information\u2013 by depicting them in key light. Oftentimes, their surrounding environment is dark to emphasize this enlightenment. On the other hand, it shows characters who are \u201cIn the dark\u201d– or in a state of unknown and mystery\u2013 depicted in darkness. An example of this is in 48:56-50:00. In the beginning of this scene, Lisa doesn\u2019t believe Jeff\u2019s theories about Thorwald committing a crime. She\u2019s depicted in low lighting while Jeff has overhead lighting directly on him. Then, as she sees Thorwald putting something in a suspicious box, she stands up and becomes enlightened to Jeff\u2019s theories. While she is standing up, she is stepping into the overhead light that is above Jeff. There is visual evidence that she goes from being \u201cIn the dark\u201d to becoming \u201cenlightened\u201d.\u00a0 This encourages readers to question what is means to be \u201cenlightened\u201d. At this point in the film, the viewer is still unaware of whether Thorwald committed the murder or not, but the change in visual lighting represents Lisa\u2019s perspective opening up for more possibilities. This shows that for Lisa\u2019s character, light represents awareness, and in turn can be translated to light representing safety and comfort. On the other hand, darkness \u2013 for Lisa\u2019s character\u2013 represented the unknown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This contrasts with how light represents different things for Jeff\u2019s character. After being conditioned to being a watcher, Jeff feels safer in the dark. In 39:28-40:00, Jeff steps out of the light to prevent himself from being seen by suspecting neighbors. At this point, darkness does not represent the unknown for his character but rather represents feeling secure. He hides in the dark because darkness provides privacy. This idea contrasts with the characters of the neighborhood residents. When the other characters are in their homes at night, their windows are dark. This leaves them unaware of anything happening right outside of their homes. They don\u2019t know anything about their neighbors and therefore are always \u201cin the dark\u201d about them. This idea is even emphasized when the neighborhood dog dies, and the owner blames it on the neighborhood’s lack of care for one another.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result, the viewer is made to question what it means to be aware. If darkness for one character is the unknown, but to another character is privacy, then what factors contribute to these differences in perspective? Through lighting, Hitchcock allows the viewer to feel either unsafe or safe depending on which characters are in certain lighting. He proves that the line between privacy and awareness is subjective. He shows the viewer the flaws of the two extremes: being unethically over aware and being completely unaware. He shows the extremes of this spectrum within Jeff\u2019s character and the neighbors\u2019 characters. Both sets of characters face their own internal issues that are only heightened by their opposing perspective of being aware.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This film brings to light the line between privacy and awareness, and how these two things work in partnership with one another while also being opposites. These two things are represented through the technique of lighting. For one, the film often shows characters that are suddenly \u201cenlightened\u201d \u2013 whether it be to ideas or information\u2013 … Continue reading Being “in the dark”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145914],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2024-blog-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}