Everyone’s daily life somehow reflects the society or the social system they are in. By portraying a space, which composed of direction, velocities and time variables, films construct an environment to understand a place, to understand the system there. Michel de Certeau fully explains this opinion by analyzing three films including Rear Window, a film that tells a story of a mysterious murder in NY of the 1950s through the eyes of a voyeur. Rooms, windows, count yard are all the places where stories happen. By discribing these , characters and experience of figures, relationship of couples, lifestyles and social environment are conveyed. All are somewhat reality at that time. According to Michel de Certeau(1984), through the window frame, camera lens or the screen, the virtual form calls forth the real world, serving as a referent to the physical.
Name: Gao Ningling
UID: 3035638894
Reference:
De Certeau, M. (1984). “Walking in the City.” In The Practice of Everyday Life (pp. 91-110), translated by Steven Randall. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Good point about how one’s daily life and routines reflect the society they live in. How do you think film “calls forth the real world, serving as a referent to the physical”? How does this tie to his notion of walkers? If, according to de Certeau, the walker at street level moves in ways that are tactical and never fully determined by the plans of organizing bodies (governments, institutions, corporations etc.), taking shortcuts in spite of the strategic grid of the streets, how can film makers or viewers be walkers?
In my opinion, the choice of the street, space, is not made randomly. In contrast, it is delicately selected for the sake of showing the most representative characters of a city. Even the walkers themselves, are part of the macro-system, which shows how a city is with or without consciousness. The film shows this system by portraying these.