Rear Window Creative

My contemporary literary piece, that of a lonely heart, is based loosely off Alfred Hitchcock’s Oscar Nominated film, Rear Window. In Hitchcock’s film, he follows the reoccurring themes of voyeurism, modern marriage, detachment, morality and loneliness. He wields these themes to tap into society’s morbid curiosity about the lives of other people. Asking questions such as why people need voyeurism in their lives, what drives that curiosity about other people, and if we a community that cares about our neighbours or are we instead just busybodies? By recreating the story to fit the mould of the minor character, Miss ‘Lonleyheart’, some of the audience’s curiosity is eased, as a new storyline is intertwined into the ideas from Hitchcock’s film.

In Hitchcock’s film, one of his primary themes of loneliness is integrated into the plot via the character of Miss Lonleyheart. A woman with the prefix Miss attached to Jeff’s made-up name for her and the imaginary yet fitting surname Lonleyheart. The name itself is depressing due to Jeff’s voyeuristic tendencies showing him the sad life that ‘Miss Lonleyheart’ lives. She holds make-believe dinner parties for imaginary people and cries for half of her on screen time. My piece mimics these events but I recreate the story of Miss Lonleyheart for when she is not on screen.

Not only have I tried to incorporate Hitchcock’s original ideas and themes but I have also tried to emulate the dialect that was often used in 1950’s America, with the more sophisticated and cultured language often found in Lisa and Jeff’s conversations. Miss Lonleyheart’s suicide letter/memoir is wrote in a refined and educated style, in order to parallel with Hitchcock’s interpretation. I had purposely created her to be as a well-brought up character such as Lisa to mimic this, “When I was younger, you see, I lived a well-cultivated, cultured, and civilized life. “The three C’s that make up a woman” my mother would say.” By demonstrating a similar level of culture and education that assumedly influenced both of them in their youth, Miss Lonleyheart’s emotional state and lifestyle sharply contradicts the beautiful and successful Lisa. By contradicting these characters as an adult, the reader will understand that loneliness can plague even the most successful people, and that the voyeurism of Miss Lonleyheart as well as Jeff’s other neighbours, do not show the full scope of one’s life.

I assimilated ideas that tie back to Hitchcock’s original film in order to build up the plausibility and connection between the two pieces. Concepts such as the couple upstairs above Miss Lonleyheart consistently arguing (The Thorwald’s), “with the couple upstairs and their incessant nit picking and arguing at 3am, I was suddenly sharing their own marital problems without a husband of my own.” She too talks about her suspicions of the wife’s murder, but knew much like Detective Doyle that as a woman, her assumptions without any proof were not credible particularly without the backing of a man. The incessant paranoia this knowledge brings creates the uneasy feeling of always being watched, something she deems as evil and incessant but is instead truthful; the dramatic irony being that all of her assumptions had indeed been correct.