But what active power does this man in "Rear Window" have? All his power seems to be just the power of seeing. His body and actions are severely restricted. When the salesman, the object he has been prying on, came to his room to kill him, he even Can't escape. On the contrary, his girlfriend, the heroine, is a very capable person. Not only did she share all the power of watching with the hero (she and the hero voyeurized the life of the salesman together, their subjective viewpoints were often overlapped). ), and she actively participated in this incident, not just satisfied with "watching", she and the male protagonist's female nurse excavated the corpse in the garden together, and sneaked into the salesman's room to search for evidence. These actions are not the actor's instructions, the actor has been opposed to her doing so, but she is obviously enjoying it.
According to Teacher Li Xun, the narrative of classic Hollywood is often two lines, one is career line and the other is emotional line. The two lines push each other and merge together at the climax of the film. In this film, there are obviously such two lines. The career line is the homicide detection of the hero and heroine, and the emotional line is the love between the hero and heroine.
The heroine and the heroine love each other, the women are even more proactive, while the men have been cowardly avoiding, because she feels that the heroine is too noble and is not the same person in his life. This kind of fear of professional women urges the heroine to become the female image he imagined in order to gain the love of the heroine.
The heroine didn't believe the hero's speculation about the murder at first, but when she saw the salesman packing the box, she suddenly completely believed the hero. Maybe she also had doubts, but I would rather think that she suddenly opened up, this is an opportunity, an opportunity to transform her into the ideal female image of the male protagonist. Since then, the heroine has actively participated in this event. When she went to the salesman’s garden and room in person, she also became the actor’s peeping object, and from the actor’s point of view, she became A female image full of adventurous spirit, wit, smart, and action. This image is what the male protagonist expects and appreciates. When he finds that the female protagonist possesses this image, he inevitably falls in love with the female protagonist.
At the end of the film, when the actor is asleep and he can no longer stare. The heroine put down the detective adventure novel in her hand and picked up the Harper’s fashion magazine that she really wanted to read. So we understand that all her actions are just to satisfy the gaze of the male protagonist and to cater to the male protagonist's imagination of the female image. She and Judy in "Dizziness" are actually the same, they are both in order to get the love of men, and they have built themselves into the image under the prying eyes of men.
Therefore, the heroine in "Rear Window" seems to be active, but in fact she is passive, because her behavior is to cater to the protagonist's prying eyes. The male protagonist seems passive, but as long as he has the power to see, as long as he acts as a gazer, he can manipulate women and change their image with his gaze. Maybe the salesman didn't kill his wife either? But in the stare of the male protagonist with doubts, the salesman is undoubtedly a murderer. This is the power of gaze.
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