Three Looks: If Only it Were That Simple

A concept central to several of this week's readings, the idea of "three looks" in cinema has become an accepted tenet of modern media studies. Yet as the related screenings show in two dramatically different ways, the structure of cinema-audience relationships is rarely that simple: the dynamics of repression associated with the first two looks have especially in recent years been manipulated in ways that build upon these complexities, dramatically altering the central assumptions of film as spectacle. The two films, Rear Window and King Kong, approach the idea of the look in ways that are diametrically opposed, one building upon and strengthening the accepted hierarchy of sight while the other cuts out its foundation. Yet both approach the idea of looking from a unique perspective that undermines the universality of the audience response to film.

First, there is King Kong, a film in which the making of film is a central aspect. It would seem as if this explicit portrayal of the process would serve as a distancing factor, reminding the audience at every turn that what they are experiencing was created for their amusement by similar means, and yet the opposite becomes true: rather than force the viewer to an informed distance, the film within a film creates an interior layer of identification and looking that draws the audience deeper into the narrative. The catalyst by which this is accomplished is certainly Anne, an admitted "pretty face" for the movie audience as well, of course, as the audience of King Kong itself. The role she plays within Denham's film is identical to that which she plays for us on the silver screen, and in this a natural association between the viewer and Denham's camera, both looking with greedy eyes, falls into place as if naturally. The fictional camera merely becomes another set of eyes through which we regard these filmed images, in effect investing us in the film on a deeper level than if merely watching from outside the screen. The appearance of the camera on screen does not counteract the denial of the first look, that of the real camera that captures Denham as he films; rather, it helps us to, through identification, forget that this other, more tangible camera exists behind the scenes, creating these images for our reception. It doubles down on the original structure, creating a microcosm of the audience's enthrallment within the film itself.

Hitchcock's Rear Window, in contrast, while it does not contain similar scenes of the actual filming of a movie, sets the stage for more modern Hollywood films centered upon the creation of the film or another artistic work in its playful, unsettling manipulations of the three looks. Where King Kong uses a clever half-admission of its unreality to subvert audience doubt and detachment, Hitchcock seems determined to maximize their awareness and discomfort. As Jeff, to his nurse's chagrin, peers across the courtyard into the lives of his unsuspecting neighbors, the implication for the audience, doing much the same with regard to Jeff's fictional world, is stark and more than a bit critical. In King Kong, the audience was made to feel a part of the creative process; here, they are invested, willingly or not, in its deconstruction and analysis. The parallels only become clearer as Jeff bolsters his limited eyesight with binoculars and, ultimately, a deeply symbolic telephoto lens. He now has at his disposal the potential to zoom in on faraway scenes, objects and people, the same technique that allows the audience to see everything that is necessary to understand the film. It is only with a sense of unease that we are forced to identify with Jeff the secret watcher, himself being secretly watched by us, the audience. Again, we encounter an expansion of the standard architecture to include a second level, but this time rather than digging deeper, the new layer of focus is directed and pointed outward, into the realm of awareness. Where in a standard model we, the audience, are encouraged to forget the reality of the camera behind the frame, here we are challenged to see all: the walls of the theater, the gaze of the camera. Yet even as he gleefully indicts the viewer as as much a voyeur as the characters at whom he looks, Hitchcock is not content to leave him with such a simple conclusion: even as voyeurism is condemned as perverse, its usefulness or even necessity is clearly established through the justice it singlehandedly enables. There are no easy answers here; we identify with Jeff even as we are repulsed by his unashamed invasions into private lives. How much of the unrepentant voyeur is within us is a question that follows us out of the cinema door and into the sunlight.

The vast potential of these "looks" and the structures they sustain is evident in the two dramatically different techniques in the above films, perhaps most clearly revealed through their respective scopes. In King Kong, the viewer enters directly into the film through a shared, identifying objectification of Anne, forgetting entirely the possibility of distance or detachment from the spectacle. In Rear Window, the journey is in the opposite direction: through an unsettling parallel that passes judgment on both the characters and, by virtue of their identification with those characters, the viewer as well, the audience is forced so far out of the now-artificial frame that their view must be turned into themselves.