Laura Abreu

10/22/2020

Eng. 2400-OL552

Mid-term essay

Prof. Scanlan

“The rear window”

       written stories can be translated into films/movies which can be projected the same way it was written in eh book/novel or completely different and most of the time it stays the same but some extra details are added sometimes to make it easy to understand or to call the watchers attention, at least that’s what Linda chair tries to explain through the three types of translation (literal, Radical, Traditional). One of these types of translations can be seen in the 1954 film “The Rear Window” by Alfred Hitchcock who shows us the traditional translation of the 1942  story “It Had To Be a Murder”  by Cornell Woolrich, who tell us the history of a man who after broking his leg start to watch his neighbors through the rear window of his apartment and start to imagine things because of his boredom creating the idea that his neighbor, Mr. Thorwald had killed his wife.

Since the plot of the film The Rear Window is similar to the short story It Had To Be a Murder, the use of the same plot, setting, and extra details make the translation traditional, according to Linda’s Chair definitions. The film the rear window is a traditional translation because of three major reasons first the short story and the film share the same plot, second, the film talks more about the protagonist’s personal life, and Lastly the  different Perspective/narrative between the film and the story.

The film and the story share the same plot meaning that they both share the same main events, in the film and in the story the plot develops when Hal Jefferies(the protagonist) looks through his rear window and sees that his neighbor is acting weird which lead him to believe that MR. Thorwald, his neighbor had killed his wife. Although the film and the story share the same plot there are some differences between these two, one difference is that there are two new characters that are added in the film, Stela who is a nurse who takes the role of Sam a character in the written story and  Jefferies’s girlfriend Lisa, as a new character in this film, Stela’s purpose is to give us a better understanding of what’s Sam’s job in the written story, another difference is that in the story Jefferies only focus on what Mr. Thorwald is doing, while in the film does not only focus in the Mr. Thorwald but also in the other neighbors and Jefferies personal life.

Another difference between the film “The Rear Window” and the story “It Had To Be a Murder” is that the film gives us more details of Jefferies’s personal life. In the film we can see that Jefferies has a girlfriend named Lisa, who plays an important role in the film since she is the one who helps Jefferies to figure out what happened to Mrs. Thorwald by risking her life and freedom when she enters the Thorwald’s apartment when searching for a ring and that Jefferies works as a cameraman for a newspaper which can explain why he knows so much about detective work, this is not mentioned in the written story.

Compare to the written story the film gives the viewer a different perspective of the narrative because the story is narrated in first person which only gives the reader the narrator’s point of view, while in the film the viewer experienced the events from their own point of view. To catch the viewer attention and to help the viewer understand the film, Hitchcock use different types of effects and symbols like tension which is defined as mental or emotional strain, this can be seen in the film when Jefferies call Thorwald on the phone and stay quiet and hang up multiple times,  sound which is defined as music or sound added to a shot or scene to make it easy to understand, music can be diegetic(added or played while recording the shot or scene)or non-diegetic(added when the scene is being edited),  an example of non- diegetic sound is seen in the film when Lisa gets caught, camera work this is seen when Lisa shows that she found the ring an show it o Jefferies who is looking at her using binoculars through his window, in this scene the camera do a zoom to Lisa’s hand.

In conclusion, written stories can be translated into films and can be considered as literal, Radical, or traditional depending on the way the philmographers decides to express the plot or details of the written stories according to Cahir’s three types of translation. In this case, the film “The rear window” is a Traditional translation of the story “It Had to be a murder” because of three reasons which were explained in the paragraphs above. After reading and watching this story in two types of distribution, as film and as a book, I have witnessed two ways to share a very suspensive story which makes me think in some kind of lesson. Which are think before you act, mind your own business, trust your intuition, and be careful with your neighbors because you never know what they are thinking or who they really are.