Profilmic Elements Of Mise-En-Scene In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

Through The Eyes of L.B. Jeffries

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”, utilizes elements of mise-en-scene to help the audience identify with the main characters. In this film specifically, we’re encouraged to identify with protagonist, L. B. Jeffries, a photographer living in New York who’s been confined to a wheelchair for the past few weeks and his only view of the world is through his rear window and into his back courtyard. Three profilmic elements of mise-en-scene that encourage identification is the set, the interaction among the actors, and the props presented on the screen. All three of these elements together support the sole identification with Jeffries throughout the film. The film has one main set and this aids to the audience’s exclusive identification with L. B. Jeffries. The set of the entire film is in Jeffries’ apartment, which creates a bias towards the character’s world. The only character, whose life we are actively inside of is that of L. B. Jeffries, and that’s evident because we are in his apartment looking outside of his window, and relating to his perceptions about what’s going on in the set around him. The set creates a restricted atmosphere to the world beyond Jeffries’ apartment and back courtyard. As an audience, the only pieces of the set

Because of the singular set, obvious props and presentation of them, and his interaction with the other characters in the film, it becomes apparent that the audience is meant to identify mostly with his character. We have no choice; this is the natural order of the film. Through the process of realizing our identification we first notice how we are seeing what the camera sees, and the camera is seeing what Jeffries sees, and what Jeffries sees he’s point out to the other characters to the point where everyone from the audience to Detective Doyle is all on the same page and identifying mostly with Jeffries