{"id":1201,"date":"2024-09-14T17:49:36","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T21:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/?p=1201"},"modified":"2024-09-14T17:49:36","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T21:49:36","slug":"the-exposure-of-light-in-rear-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/2024\/09\/14\/the-exposure-of-light-in-rear-window\/","title":{"rendered":"The exposure of light in Rear Window"},"content":{"rendered":"

Light in the movie <\/span>Rear Window<\/span><\/i> is used in a very interesting way. The film starts and ends when it is light outside, but a majority of the action takes place at night. Mrs. Thorwald\u2019s murder, the discovery of the death of the dog, Lisa breaking into Mr. Thorwald\u2019s apartment, and the fight between Jefferies and Thorwald leading to Thorwald\u2019s arrest all happen while it is dark outside. There are also instances where unnatural lighting is used to either punctuate scenes, or to even save the protagonist’s life.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Lisa is first introduced in the movie, she states her full name and punctuates each separate name by turning on one of Jefferies\u2019 lights (16:58). In general, Jefferies keeps his lights off so that he cannot be seen through the window but it also means he cannot see as much within his own apartment. The light acts as a way for Lisa to either be seen or be ignored. Her turning on the lights in the beginning of the movie forces Jefferies to see her. If the lights are on, she is much harder to ignore. When he tells her to turn the lights off, she becomes essentially invisible to him because the people on the other side of his window are more important to him than the woman who feeds him and takes care of him. In Jefferies’ point of view, Lisa\u2019s light is a distraction from the more interesting goings ons of the people outside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jefferies also uses light as a way to distract and temporarily blind Thorwald. He uses the light bulb flashes from his camera as a sort of flash bang to try to buy him time before Thorwald can attack him (01:48:20). In this moment, Jefferies recognizes the importance of light and uses it to save his own life. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Light in the movie Rear Window is used in a very interesting way. The film starts and ends when it is light outside, but a majority of the action takes place at night. Mrs. Thorwald\u2019s murder, the discovery of the death of the dog, Lisa breaking into Mr. Thorwald\u2019s apartment, and the fight between Jefferies … Continue reading The exposure of light in Rear Window<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4823,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145914],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1201","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\/1201","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\/4823"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}