Alfred Hitchcock's Read Window (1954) " Miss Lonely Heart- Dinner for Two"

 Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

Miss Lonely Heart- Dinner for two

 

The dinner scene of Miss Lonely Hearts is viewed by protagonist L.B Jeffries “Jeff,” played by James Stewert in Alfred Hitchcock’s (1954) Rear Window. Miss. Lonely Hearts dinner scene is framed by the window, which creates a focus on her activities. She is being subjected to the male gaze by the voyeur Jeff. You are watching through his eyes. The establishing shot starts with her getting ready in the bathroom. I first thought she had a hot date or some social event, but as there is a “knock” on her door, you are presented with the sad reality of an imaginary person. The scene is seen from a canted angle where the viewer is viewing from slightly above the subject. This is also a long shot, with the issue being in the distance, so they are smaller. The viewer is watching from a distance, detached from the scene, unable to do anything but watch. Mrs. Lonely Hearts transitions from the bathroom and moves into the dining room, which shows a setup from a romantic dinner for two. She lights a candle and grabs a bottle of wine. You see her respond to what seems to be a knock on the door, and you see her transition to the door to let in whoever knocked on the door. She walks away, talking to someone outside the scene, and moves back into the dining room, and then we realize that there is no one there. She is having an imaginary romantic dinner. She sits down and pours wine into both cups while appearing to have a conversation and takes a sip of wine, then slumps over and appears to be in despair. This suspenseful continuous scene is meant to keep the viewer wondering who this potential date may be. It creates anxiety and a view into the castrated female subject and potential displeasure. 

Laura Mulvey (1975) argues that :

The male unconscious has two avenues of escape from castration anxiety: preoccupation of the treatment of the original trauma (investigating the woman, de-mystifying her mystery), counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment or saving the guilty object (an avenue typified by the concerns of film  noir); or else complete disavowal of castration by the substitution of a fetish object or by turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous ( hence overvaluation, cult of the female star )( p 64).

 Jeff is a peeping tom.  Confined to his apartment, he views the outside through his window. Miss Lonely Heart is a victim of Scopophilia and has become objectified in her loneliness and her castration complex. She so wants to have a man so that she will feel happy and complete. Jeff views the subject and wants to demystify her mystery. Mulvey (1975) argues that “Desire, born with language, allows the possibility of transcending the instinctual and imaginary, but its point of reference continually returns to the traumatic moment of its birth: the castration complex” (pp 61-62). The woman feels the lack of phallic energy, and the scene shows her so desperate for it that she creates an elaborate but imaginary romantic scenario. Jeff invades her life with his active male gaze while she is a passive spectacle. The scene is erotic at the start, with hints of sex with the application of the red lipstick and the elaborate diner setup for two. When she answers the imaginary knock at the door, the viewer is presented with the castrated female—her phallocentric needs strokes at the male ego. Jeff has power from being the male observer. With Jeff being the male protagonist, the whole movie is centered around the male view of the world and how everything interacts with them. Starring from slightly above and from a distance from the subject, Jeff is at an elevated view as he views the spectacle. This is beneath him and just a curiosity. He has the power to watch, and she can't do anything about it.

My initial thoughts were sadness when I first viewed this scene. I love being alone and can’t relate to the woman so engulfed in the castration complex. Perhaps, it is because of my queer and feminist ideologies. Even so, I feel the male gaze as a woman. Every day, I am looked at as an object, and to see this woman intruded in her sorrow by the male gaze is disheartening. The woman feels a loss of the phallic, and this scene tries to enforce that while empowering the male protagonist. He exhibits his male ego by allowing his voyeurism to intrude upon others. The suspenseful scene mimics the anxiety of the male observing the castrated female. The woman is viewed as a sexual object. The observer is presented with displeasure, the reminder of castration, and the forlorn woman at the end. His feelings contradict and create anxiety in the scene. There is a sense of guilt in viewing such a sad and intimate moment, but he still watches from a place of power that she is just an object to be observed and demystified.

References

Hitchcock, A. (Director). (1954). Rear Window [Film]. Patron Inc.

Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In: Visual and Other Pleasures.                 Language, Discourse, Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-  19798-9_3