Compare the use of studio sets to location filming in the depiction of Essay

Compare the use of studio sets to location filming in the depiction of the city and city life in film Rear Window (1952) and i - Essay Example Staging depends a lot on the scope of the movie’s story with respect to area. There are certain movies that move from place to place. There are even movies that move from country to country. For instance, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, moves from Budapest to Moscow. It further moves from Dubai to India. There are also movies that have such stories that action stays at one place. The recent movie, Carnage, is a good example of that. This essay compares the use of studio sets to location filming in the depiction of the city and city life in relation to two movies in particular i.e. Rear Window (1952) and On the Town (1949). The film, Rear Window, is a masterpiece by Alfred Hitchcock. He has a history of going at great lengths in order to make the audience feel exactly as he wanted it to feel. The plot of the movie is centered mainly in a small area of a neighborhood. The protagonist of the movie, L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies, played by James Stewart, is confined to his apartment as his leg is broken in a racetrack accident. He stays in his apartment and looks at the people in his neighborhood. He casually observes their behaviors as they go about their lives. He is occasionally visited by his girlfriend, Lisa Fremont, played by Grace Kelly. Jeff observes very suspicious behavior of one of his neighbors, Lars Thorwald. He assumes that Thorwald has murdered his wife. All through the movie, Jeff never leaves his apartment except at the end when he has to struggle with Thorwald, and is thrown down his window. As the action of Rear Window is confined to a small area, Hitchcock shot the whole movie on a set which was specifically built for the same. The movie explores the themes of voyeurism and masculinity in crisis. As far as voyeurism is concerned, Hitchcock has used the staging almost perfectly. It is important to note that it is highly unlikely that Hitchcock could have found a real location in which he could have shown what he wanted to show in the movie. He needed a very good vantage point for the protagonist. The movie opens up with a detailed view of the whole scene that the protagonist is able to look at. It is very interesting to notice how the director has crammed various aspects of New York’s urban life of that time in a closed space. In the background of the opening titles of the movie, the audience can see a window shutter moving upwards. Then the camera moves out of the window, and the scene proceeds to a brief view of all the flats and the lawn that can be seen from the window. After showing the protagonist’s sweating head and a high temperature on a thermometer—depicting the sickness—the scene proceeds to show the following: A man shaving and listening to the radio at the same time; The waking up of a couple that has spent the night on the balcony; A young lady changing her bra and preparing breakfast at the same time. Her movement makes it very safe to assume that she is a dancer; The arms of an unseen lady drying clothes out of the window—probably a housekeeper; The broken leg of the protagonist. His broken camera and the pictures of a racetrack accident explaining without words the reason for the protagonist’s condition. The portrait of a lady shows that he has a girlfriend. A deeper analysis shows that the city life, as it is shown in the movie, is very fast. The