Rear Window, By Alfred Hitchcock And The Last Laugh

The films Rear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and The Last Laugh, directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, both feature protagonists going through change, for better or for worse. Rear Window features L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies, a professional photographer who is stuck in his wheelchair, in his apartment, because of an accident he had while on the job. The Last Laugh features a hotel doorman that gets demoted to a lesser job, who then undergoes a psychological change. Both films use elements of mise-en-scene to show how the protagonists adapt and change to their confinement and isolation. The use of the set, framing, and motifs of doors and windows in both films emphasizes the idea of the protagonists dealing with change, from freedom to confinement and isolation. In Rear Window, the set is used show the freedom Jeff had before he was confined to his apartment. During the opening scene, the camera pans over and zooms out – through the window – from the other apartment onto Jeff. The opening scene is significant because it demonstrates how Jeff confines himself to his apartment; instead, he could be outside venturing in his wheelchair, despite his disability. Also, the set only consists of the apartment across from Jeff, and his own apartment, while there are several of buildings looming in the background. This segment of the setting, Jeff’s apartment and the one across from him, suggests that the set is very enclosed and restricted of freedom; for no other areas of theShow MoreRelatedLangston Hughes Research Paper25309 Words   |  102 Pagesseventy-nine. Carrie arrived from Topeka with her new husband, Homer Clark, and two-year-old son Gwyn, to arrange her mothers burial. For a brief time, the Clark family lived in Grand mother Marys house, and thirteen-year-old Langston hoped that he would, at last, have a mother, a father, and a brother. All went well until the mortgage payment came due, and the loan company foreclosed. Unemployed, the Clarks left for Chicago, and Langston went to live with James and Mary Reed, his grandmothers friends. Read MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagestwentieth century. And the reunification of Germany and the reemergence of international terrorism, which were powerfully symptomatic of the unprecedented reach and intensity of the processes of globalization on either side of the otherwise unremarkable last and first years of the old and new millennia, represented both a return to trends reminiscent of the opening decades of the twentieth century and a major break from the prevailing dynamics of the cold war. In addition to the problems posed for conceptualizing