Evgheni Melman

Prof. Sean Scanlan

English 2400, Section O552

October 20, 2020

Analysis of “Rear Window” translation style

The “Rear Window” (1954) film by Alfred Hitchcock is an adaption of the short story “It had to be Murder” (1942) written by Cornell Woolrich. According to Linda Cahir, there exist three types of translations for adapting a written work into a film: literal, traditional, and radical. In this essay, I will be analyzing which translation style did Hitchcock used in its adaptation of “It had to be Murder” and the implications of his choice on the story and viewer perception.

The plots of both the “It had to be Murder” and the “Rear Window” reveal the same story of a man named Jeffries. Both Jeffrieses are homestuck due to their leg injuries, both kill their time by peeping at their neighbors, and both get themselves involved into a neighboring homicide investigation thorough their peeping activities and prove that Mr. Thorwald is the culprit. This alone makes it hard to call the translation radical, so let`s explore the differences of both works in greater details to determine if it is a literal or traditional adaptation.

The most striking difference is in the characters surrounding Jeffrieses and helping them with outside activities that neither Jefferies can perform on their own. The “It had to be Murder” Jefferies has a male caretaker named Sam who is driven by a long spanning history with Jeffries and perhaps a paid servitude and is blindly obedient to any Jefferies’ request. The “Rear Window” Jefferies does not have a single “Sam”, instead Sam’s role is given jointly to his girlfriend Lisa and nurse Stella. Unlike written Sam, they are not just Jefferies captives and have a mind of their own with Lisa even becoming convinced that a murder was afoot and being excited about the prospect of helping to solve the case. Lisa even went to Thorwald’s apartment to search for the wedding ring completely on her own to Jefferies’ dismay. The inclusion of a girlfriend in general gives the viewer a better understanding of the protagonist’s personality (the written story mentioned nothing about Jefferies love life) while both Lisa and Stella add an element of women intuition to the whole story.

Another difference in the film version that lets the viewer understand Jefferies more is the inclusion of information about his professional occupation. In the “Rear Window” it is explained clearly that Jeffries is a photographer, while the written story does not place any emphasis on what he does for a living. This information gives us an insight about his personality and lets us understand why he is good at observing his surroundings and picking up what most wouldn’t, it is literally his job. In the story, on the other hand, his description left us guessing on whether he was a detective, a private investigator, or just a weirdo stalking his neighbors. Additionally, in the story, Jefferies observations are described from the first person, giving the reader the insight into his thoughts, while each time the “Rear Window”’s Jefferies observes his neighbors through his camera lens, we are presented with a point of view shot of exactly what he sees as if we are looking through his camera lens ourselves. This direct view, while lacking the Jefferies’ though process details, lets the viewer reexperience the Jeffries’ perspective and construct their own thought about observed scene while increasing the tension at the same time.

An obvious addition to the movie compared to the written story is sound. The “Rear Window” employs only diegetic sound for the most part. Diegetic sound is the sound that is natural to the scene, whether on-screen or off-screen, coming from actual objects or from implied ones. Non-diegetic sound in contrast is not natural to the scene, it could not be heard on scene in the real word. Non-diegetic sounds include sounds like narration, voice over, or sound effects. While non-diegetic sounds are often used to increase the suspense or add a more dramatic effect, Hitchcock managed to do all that with excellence with only diegetic sounds. Throughout the film we only hear sounds that naturally occur in the scene, like the sound of cars passing by and their honks now and then that not only distract the viewer, but the characters as well adding that final bit of additional suspense to already suspenseful scenes. Most sounds that we hear are also presented from Jeffries perspective like the heavily muffled conversations from the other apartments during the observation scene. This not only adds the dramatic effect, but also further locks the viewer into the Jeffries point of observing.

In conclusion, after this analysis we can clearly see that the translation of the “Rear Window” is traditional since there are not insignificant changes introduced into the film to aid in viewer’s perception. At the end of the day, this type of translation let Hitchcock take an already great “It had to be Murder” and turn it into a classic masterpiece that we know.