Comparing Arlington Road and Rear Window

Some say that Arlington Road can be compared to Rear Window because it effectively used Hitchcock’s elements in the film. In my opinion, Arlington Road does not live up to its Hitchcockian roots. Although I believe Arlington Road does not prevail as a Hitchcock worthy film, there are many similarities in the thematic and stylistic elements between the two films. One of Hitchcock’s repetitive elements is that the villains in the films are appealing. In Rear Window, Thorwald is a normal looking fellow.

That concept is used to induce more fear into the audience through a more realistic plot. Another famous element of a Hitchcock film is the use of an enigmatic villain. Hitchcock was one of the first directors to ... ... middle of paper ... ...ese films to categorize Arlington Road as a classic thriller. I believe the few changes that were made only enhance the film. For example, the tasteless perfect ending is eliminated and replaced with an unconventional one which only adds more suspense to the film.

The end result is a new type of film that reaches beyond the established confines of the gangster genre. As with Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, the radical innovations included in Pulp Fiction make it hard to situate the film within mainstream cinema; it is, as John Cawelti would agree, "difficult to know what to call this type of film". While Penn's film and Tarantino's Pulp Fiction clearly acknowledge the conventions of the gangster genre, it is only as a point of departure. Tarantino introduces enigmatic characters and complex incongruities which combine to successfully remove his film from the "conventions of a traditional popular genre" (Cawelti 505). Cawelti describes the myth within the gangster film as "affirm[ing] the limits of individual aggression and violence ... show[ing] how violence evokes its own inevitable doom" (Cawelti 516).

In the end of Arlington Road, the villain gets his way and moral order is never reinstated which is unlike Rear Window. Also in one film the villain is charismatic and in the other he is most definitely not. Lastly the editing in the two movies are very different, one is simplistic and realistic while the other is erratic and very fast paced. For these reasons and more, the movie Arlington Road does not live up to the standards of a Hitchcock movie.

The Ripper, the center character in the novel, does not have as large a role in this treatment; the story is mostly told from Abberline's point of view. B. Hollywood's tradition to have a happy ending story. Conclusion: In the end, From Hell straddles that fine line between fact and fiction so often found in Hollywood's "historical epics." While the Hughes brothers are to be commended in capturing much of the authenticity of the times, location and the case, the film should certainly not be viewed as an authentic representation of the Ripper crimes as a whole. Those interested in the real facts of the case are urged to pick up Sugden's Complete History of Jack the Ripper or Rumbelow's The Complete Jack the Ripper.

With that said, The Big Lebowski, is a tribute to the themes of classic film noirs. The inspiration of other classic noir films is apparent in the Big Lebowski. The Big Lebowski doesn’t only parallel The Big Sleep but other classic film noirs. For example, a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock is reflected in the themes of the movie. The beginning plot of The Big Lebowski is inspired by Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, “in which the wrong man is involved in intrigue through a case of mistaken identity and must rise to the task.”(Tyree, Walters 46) The Big Lebowski also mocks, “the technique used in Hitchcock’s film to expose impressions of previous writing on pads of paper.”(Tyree, Walters 46) This mocks Hitchcock, because what appears is not a clue but a pornographic doodle.

It is a concurrent agreement in the film industry that Alfred Hitchcock is nothing less than a legend when it comes to the suspense and thriller genres of film. That being said, many filmmakers unsurprisingly aspire to adopt his style in more recent films. Movie critique Andrew O’Hehir suspects that this is the case with Mark Pellington’s production, Arlington Road, which follows the story of a man taken with the idea that his neighbors are terrorists. Although Pellington’s production possesses distinctively Hitchcock-styled qualities in its editing, storyline, and themes, O’Hehir argues that it is “…ultimately just another maddeningly ill-conceived tribute placed at [Hitchcock’s] feet.” However, it cannot be determined if Pellington meant for Arlington Road to be a tribute at all. The film may have a multitude of resemblances to Hitchcock film, but its finale fundamentally distinguishes itself unique to O’Hehir’s assumption.

His movies gave rise to a new sort of film- thriller. Hitchcock devised two principles in his movies. The first being the use of famous landmarks as a backdrop for the suspense scenes and the second is his appearance in the movie. All of this just proves Hitchcock is not only a genius-in its true meaning- but that he mastered the art of cinemaaccording to Wordpress. I would like to inform you about the reasons of his ascention to the title Master of Suspense.

Not only does the storyline’s heavy subject matter and typical character structure suggest the film noir style, but also Wilder’s techniques of photography and empty, worn-down settings make for a perfect backdrop for this dark approach at filmmaking. Often, films made in the style of film noir present audiences with a rugged, cynical, and disillusioned protagonist. While Joe Gillis of Sunset Boulevard does not necessarily match up to this persona at the beginning of the film, the arc of his character eventually molds him into such traits through his hopeless situation and building encounter with Norma. At the start of his story, Joe is depicted by a desperation intense enough that he is willing to give up his own dignity and respect by first lying to bill collectors and fleeing them in his unpaid car, then proceeding to beg for a Hollywood producer to buy his trite stories, and upon the failure of that attempt, stoops so low as to ask this same producer for money. It is this series of actions which eventually lead Joe up to the doorstep of this film’s femme fatale—a frequ... ... middle of paper ... ... undoubtedly makes for a more somber tone to any scene.

David Fincher’s 1999 noir film Fight Club, managed to shatter the barriers between reality and fantasy; while simultaneously expressing ideas against the massive consumer culture. The lack of this barrier allowed the film to maintain a psychotic uncertainty for both the characters in the film and the spectators. Fincher achieved the psychotic theme through noir thematic and stylistic devices such as the narration and disorientation of the film. These devices allow the film to be classified as noir. Fincher established a “nemesis trope” by figuratively expressing the inescapable agent of the unnamed narrator’s downfall through another character, Tyler Durden.