Rear Window Music Analysis

Rear Window Music Analysis Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 29 April 1980), was one of the greatest English filmmakers and producers who not only pioneered many techniques in the psychological thriller genre but also employed more musical styles and techniques than any other directors in history. Rear Window was his boldest experiment in popular music. Just like many of Hitchcocks films, the music is a crucial part of the narrative and one of the many keys of a Hitchcocks mystery thriller. But it was the unique way that he put the street sounds into the soundtrack and made it in and out of windows and the heros dream because of this, it is believed that he found a new role for music in a post-modernistic film set in a post-war era. In every one Hitchcocks films, song is intrinsic in opening Hitchcocks little black humour of human relationship. The song of Lisa is the heart of the musical narrative in the Rear Window. People can see the process of metamorphosis of Lisa by the nameless composer through the film. From tentative piano to gradual instrumentation, voice-piano tryouts, improvisation, gradual instrumentation and voice-piano improvisation the metamorphosis. Lisa often played against the emotion of the scene highlighting the progress of Lisas relationship with Jeff. In Rear Window, the window of the nameless composer is in the centre. It created an interesting contrast in the film between the romanticized figure of the tireless composer and the cold but intellectual Jeff. The music drift progressed through the windows, and became an alternate language, sounding the main characters unconscious thoughts, contradicting them and moving them forward and finally saving Miss Lonely hearts and Lisa from fear of losing love of living. The first time the composer played, Lisa was in a skeletal form as single piano note with Hitchcock when Lisa and Jeff had their first conflict. Lisa comments on the music claiming it was enchanting and seems written especially for them. The conversation was shut immediately by Jeffs crucial comments thats no wonder hes having so much trouble with love. It seems like composers creative block applied to Jeffs difficulties in love with Lisa. Because Lisa often played against the emotion of the scene, the second time Lisa was played out again is when Jeff took out his telephoto-lens to watch Thorwalds unpacking of knives and saws and empties jewelry from his wifes handbag. But at this time, the music style changes to Lisztian Cadenzas and it continues in a tentative orchestration where Lisa and Stella dig in the courtyard garden for evidence and Lisa bravely breaks into Thorwalds apartment. As the musician performed Lisa with his musician friends confidently in jazz-combo version, Lisa cried out Jeff! but Stella and Jeff could only watch helplessly as Thorwald attacked her in the dark. Till Lisa nearly finished in suavely orchestrated, camera leaved Thorwalds window, moved down and stocked into miss lonely hearts apartment. This is the most remarkable scene involving the courtyard digging, Jeff and Stella tensely watch her put down the suicide pill and stared upward thoughtfully, searching for the sources of the music. At the end of the film, the Lisa theme song begins to overpower the Rear Window finale; this popular song is triumphantly played through all of the windows; everyone had all kinds of reunions and romances. Miss Lonely Hearts is re-united with her life saving composer. Lisa and Jeff figure their situation out; even the heartbroken dog lovers had a new pet It is believed that what Miss Lonely Heart did emphasised the relationship between people and music. Although music did not have a source, it did have the first and only instant of an invisible score for life. None of us can adequately explain how strong the influence of music could do to us. Although music as a camera, can allow people to distrust language and to convey a meaning beyond words. As people could see Hitchcocks characters, like all of us cannot help using some language ,as Lisa said there is that song again. The song Lisa was more complex in structure and functioned differently when it was played in a different style and lyrics, it also offered more detail in Hitchcocks storytelling. Music is a force that keeps the films heroes and heroines in the present; Lisa is empowered by her song in progress. The music performance in this film is profoundly modern; each song is played out of the windows of people who need them to maintain their connection with life. The structure of Lisas work is fine as many other songs in Hitchcocks films, however Hitchcock did not appropriate. It may be because Hitchcock was a grudging romantic with the method of painstaking classicist and the Lisa was hard to show the audience the dramatized ambivalence in the conflict between main characters. Hence Hitchcock later argued Rear Windows the matic experiment of Lisa is a failure. In his letter to Truffaut, he explains what he thought of Waxmans composition , that he had a motion picture songwriter when he should have had a popular songwriter. This highlights that as passive viewers, Hitchcock seeking manipulation and needing the song strings pulled at just the right moments for maximum impact. According to Robin Wood, in Rear Window, every character is isolated. But music provides a mysterious connection with the relationship between people, especially for Lisa and Jeff. Rear Window has been referred to be Hitchcocks most intellectual film. It is a hard hitting, creative work of social comment which Hitchcock and many of his peers considered to be true horror. The music gained the film a great influence on mass culture on the post-war American society. Its an ode to the idea of the musical composer (and in turn the film director), especially when compared to Jeff, the embodiment of an increasingly wealthy and an indefinitely distracted society.