Professor Scanlan's OpenLab Course Site

Midterm first draft.

 

“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 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 the rear window 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 image 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 point of view/narrative between the film and the short story.

    The film and the story share the same plot meaning that they both share the same main events, in the film in and in the short story the plot develops when Hal Jefferies(the protagonist) sees through his rear window that his neighbor acting weird which lead him to believe that his MR. Thorwald, his neighbor had killed his wife. Although the film and the short history share the same plot the are some differences between this 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, another difference is that in the story Jefferies only focus on what Mr. Thorwald is doing, while in the film does not only focus on the neighbors 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 and that he works as a cartographer for a newspaper which is not mentioned in the written story.

 

1 Comment

  1. Professor Sean Scanlan

    Laura,
    Thanks for sharing your draft. It is a strong beginning. The method and key arguments are clearly outlined. As you refine and revise the essay, pay attention to:
    -Add direct quotes to support you ideas; this will help move past listing and summarizing.
    -Go beyond listing the differences—answer the question: what do these difference mean in terms of viewer understanding of the main themes?
    -The level of proofreading requires a great deal of attention. This is a draft, but it is still a formal academic essay. Use capitalizations, italics, punctuation, and verb structures at the highest level.
    Best,
    Prof. Scanlan

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *