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Literature Film Quarterly (1987) - "Rear Window" and "Blow-up": Hitchcock's Straightforwardness vs. Antonioni's Ambiguity

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Abstract

Induced by boredom, Jefferies begins to impose fantasy on reality; he makes a game of his search for clues to prove that Lars Thorwald, the salesman across the way, did in fact murder his wife, all the while ignoring the dangerous personality traits - such as a penchant for voyeurism - which are emerging and overwhelming him in the process. While Antonioni is concerned with the intrinsic value of this issue, in Rear Window it is explored only in so far as it provides a means of producing conflicting accounts of the Thorwald story-thereby creating suspense when these are proven to be true or false (such as in Jefferies's telephone conversation to his detective friend Doyle just before Thorwald enters the apartment).