Oh look at me, I look at people through windows....A discussion of Mulvey and Rear Window

Keith Garcia

In the first paragraph of Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" she talks about scopophilia and how people look at other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze. She relates this with Freuds view and how he said these people or "objects" resemble the activities of curious children who want to see the forbidden. Think of it as being a kid around the week of Christmas. You know you have presents under the tree, but you don't know what's inside. You also know that you are not allowed to open them until Christmas, but that curiousity is lingering. In this case the content inside the wrapping is forbidden and maybe leads to snagging a peep.

Readers may ask..."What does this present business have to do with this blog?" Well it's like I mentioned earlier, people are curious about what's going on and will try to snag a peep given the opportunity. This also relates to cinema because we are put in the situation wondering what is going to happen next. In Alfred Hitchcocks "Rear Window" the main character, L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries is confined to his apartment and passes time by watching the everday activities of his neighbors. These strangers then turn into objects who he watches on a day-to-day basis. This goes back to the talk about scopophilia and the voyeuristic pleasure which is inherent in the act of watching an unknowing subject.

So what does all this business have to do with cinema? When people watch movies they are drawn in, curious as to what will happen to the characters. The actors/actresses in the movie don't know we are watching them, just as the people across the window don't know Jeffries is spectating their actions. Mulvey talks about how Jeffries girlfriend is no longer a person when she snoops around the apartment across the way, but is then viewed as an intruder in a world through his binoculars. Jeffries girlfriend was a person he had somewhat to very little interest in, but once she was on the other side of his window she became an object of desire.

Why does this matter though, why did Hitchcock make the view outside Jeffries window the focal point? The guy has a broken leg so he takes up the simple pleasures in life and starts to people watch. Think of the view outside Jeffries window as a television screen. Every window could represent a different channel, if he doesn't like what he sees he can focus his view on the next window with his binoculars. Or he can look at multiple windows with his own eyes, which could be similar to a televisions picture in picture function. Ethics comes to mind when thinking about watching the actions of others. Personally one might know it's wrong to spy on their neighbors, but there's that lingering temptation. People might criticse these actions much like Jeffries maid Stella. She gives him a hard time about his actions but is later drawn in to the lives of the people in the window. Both characters become fixated on the strangers across the alley and produce obsessive voyeurs, turning them into "peeping toms" who obtain satisfaction from watching an objectified other.

Epileptic and Persepolis

Keith Garcia

Epileptic is a strange and interesting story by David B. The story focuses on Jean-Christophe's seizures, hence the title of the name, but main story is about Pierre-Francois who is the younger brother.

Persepolis is an autobiography by an Iranian woman, Marjane Satrapi, who tells the story of her life as a child in war torn Iran. This book does a great job of telling the story about the author's childhood and also incorporates historical elements.

One thing that I found interesting about both of these books are the illustrations that are used to describe moments in the story. Persepolis has more of a straight-forward approach to visuals and Epileptic has odd images to describe events. It is a common trait noticed in both works, which leaves one intrigued.

My question is, what is the significance of presenting self imagination in that manner? Both authors use these visuals to draw reader attention. In Persepolis there are images of Satrapi feeling lost in space because she shunned out God. The space and the planets around her gives off the sense that she is completely lost and also gives us, the reader, that same feeling. An example from Epileptic are panels of Jean-Christophe having an attack. In the panel there is a weird dragon biting his head and constricting around him. This does an awesome job of letting the reader imagine the battle Jean-Christophe is having from his attack. Anyone can illustrate these images and leave them blank but the authors take it a step further and use imagination to make the events more captive.

So if we can agree that they want us to visually imagine what the characters are feeling then why would they choose this form of expression? Well as said earlier in the semester White talks of the narrative and how it is a story told through someone's point of view. That is exactly what both authors are doing in these novels. The stories being told are through their point of view and how they perceive events and the world around them. This makes sense because we are not the ones who experienced the things they have so they are showing us through eccentric visuals to capture our attention. Marjane Satrapi's visuals help one to view her world as she saw it as a child and David B's depictions greatly express the struggle of dealing with illness, through the form of abstract creations that ensnare his brother's childhood. Both author's have created their narrative and thus help to greatly appreciate a tale from another person's point of view.

Sandman + McCloud

Keith Garcia

Sandman

I decided to focus on the picture above because it will help you get a better understanding of what I am going to talk about in this blog post. I will focus on what McCloud talks about in his reading and accompany it with the images and story from sandman. I will discuss what McCloud says about images and also what he says about frames.

In Sandman you see on page 21 that Sandman is being confined to the crystal ball . Well the point of view the reader is getting is from Sandman, which makes you feel like your in the crystal ball as well. On pages 24 and 31 you also experience his point of view as people are talking to him from the outside. My question is what is the purpose of this? Why would Neil Gaiman want you, the reader, to feel like you are also the one being captured? The reason could be because Gaiman wants the reader and the comic to be one. McCloud gives a good example of looking from this point of view on pages 34 and 35.

So what is the signifcance of having Sandman look at his captors from inside the crystal ball? What does this point of view do for the reader? Well, as you can see on page 21 of sandman he is being confined by those who want to capture death but instead ensnare her little brother. McCloud says that every act committed by the artist is aided and abetteed by a silent accomplic which is the reader. At the top of page 21 you see Sandman lying on the ground and he is not in the crystal ball yet. But the reader commited the crime of confining him to the ball. So according to McCloud everyone who read this book participated in Sandmans capture.

The way Gaiman brings the comic and the reader together helps draw the reader in. Like they too are part of this book which makes his way of storytelling very interesting.

Maus + White

Alright so this is my first official blog for kg's ill blog for the ages so any criticisms or comments will be most helpful so I may live up to my name. I would like to talk about Maus and it's interpretation of the holocaust through the point of view of mice or Jewish people for that matter. The Jewish people were viewed as vermin through the eyes of German Nazis who were portrayed as cats. Cats and Mice have a long history of not liking each other for example, Tom and Jerry. Tom always wanted to get rid of Jerry but could never succeed and the same thing went for the Jewish people.

To be more specific the story of the holocaust was told by Vladek Spiegalman so his son, Art, could do a comic illustration about the story. He goes into great detail about what he saw and the hardships his family had to overcome to survive.

White speaks of the narrative and how it is a story told through someone's point of view. This can be related to Maus because the story of events from the holocaust was interpreted by Vladek Spiegalman. This is subjective because he is the only one telling the story which makes it seem as if his story is accurate. However, others may have witnessed and experienced different things during this time. For example, Vladek's wife Anja wrote about the events in her journal but Vladek destroyed this documentation and no one knows what she had experienced. This goes to show that there is more than one story to be told other than Vladeks and thus another narrative would be born.

DeBord + Spectacle

As long as necessity is socially dreamed, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of a modern society in chains and ultimately expresses nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep.

How the picture relates to the spectacle is Freddy Kruger is basically the bad dream of modern society. He is chained to only the dream world where he has the power to make dreams a nightmare. His wish for sleep is the torturing of those who live on elm street because the people of that neighborhood decided to take conviction into their own hands