Download Alfred Hitchcock`s Rear Window asks audiences to consider how

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window asks audiences to consider how much privacy exists in their
own homes. It also forces audiences to weigh the value of someone else’s privacy compared to their
own security. After all, if Jeffries had never invaded the private worlds of his neighbors, how then would
the evil Mr. Thorwald and his crime be removed from the world? This allows one to debate the value of
personal privacy over the desire for public security. It also allows one to feel as though surveillance is
appropriate given the information watching provides. Peter Weir’s Truman Show creates a situation in
which audiences should be able to evaluate their own participation in the viewing of other’s lives. It uses
the television as its camera eye, both literally and symbolically, drawing upon the notion of picture
boxes created in Jeffries’s 1954 courtyard.
The construction of Truman’s space, one that resembles the portrayal of life in Hitchcock’s
thriller, allows the audience to consider their own addiction to entertainment and attraction to the
mediocrity of another’s life. What makes Truman so interesting to the general public? Nothing. There is
nothing about his character that draws people in to watch the show – one that airs 24 hours a day
without commercial interruption – except for the cinematic circumstance in which he lives. The only
attraction to The Truman Show is the social experiment that has become Truman’s life. Not until the
magic of television is revealed to the audience does there seems to be a sense of justice. Oddly enough,
the film requires the audience to desire justice for Truman as he becomes harder to contain inside his
bubble. When the strict construction of his world is revealed to the audience, Christoff implodes in the
fall of his creation. The natural desires to find authenticity in his life ultimately lead Truman to find
freedom and leave Christoff cast as an omnipotent creator who was abandoned by his creation. Sound
familiar? The implications from media worship and spiritual enlightenment through media is not only
satirized but exaggerated through the final scene’s hyperbolic drama.
Perhaps the defining feature of The Truman Show’s success is the live audience. The very notion
than millions of people abandon living their own life to immerse in Truman’s life suggests all audiences
give up some personal awareness when watching others. This is also the thread that ties all there
movies together but is best understood through O.J. Caruso’s Disturbia. Kale Brecht is faced with a
summer of personal reflection after a deep period of grief over the loss of his father. While the film has
been modernized, it follows the same premise as Hitchcock’s film: to watch is to learn. Unfortunately, as
Kale watches the world around him, he learns more about his neighbor than he would like to admit. He
is a serial killer from Austin, Texas. At the end of the film, the voyeuristic behavior Kale adopts to catch a
killer becomes a hobby for him and new girlfriend, Ashley. Ultimately allowing audiences to feel
appropriate in their own voyeurism of movie stars, television personalities, and neighbors, the film
modernizes the “race of Peeping Toms” mentioned by Stella in Hitchcock’s old classic.
In an ever changing technological world, the ability to watch others increases exponentially each
year. However, as these films suggest audience’s natural huger for voyeurism is more easily fed. While
this access to watch each other’s life suggests that audiences are equally as accepting of being watched
as they are with watching, it does not allow audiences to realize the exchange in terms of sacrifice. For
all the privacy audiences give up through their modern daily interactions, they fail to understand the
true sacrifice that surveillance, even when one actively participates in being watched, actually forces
from them; when audiences are so busy watching others, one will fail to watch their own life closely. In
the end, personal identity and self- actualization remain the only thing private.