From the lens and camera, we can observe people’s behaviors in daily life and voyeurism can even replace real interaction by visual interaction. In Rear Window, Jeff is distant from social interaction while the open courtyard enables Jeff to voyeur neighbor’s life and involved in their experience without real interaction. In Silver, surveillance allows Zeke to know neighbors’ secrets behind the door in his private room. In The End of Violence, Ray can observe the life of Mike in the control room which reduces his distance to the rich class and class division.
The lens helps people engage in a new life and have other people’s experience without face-to-face interaction, which reduces social distance.
Meanwhile, with modernization, the attitude towards the voyeurism seems to differ. In the earliest film Rear Window, Jeff helps find the murderer through voyeurism which implies the positive side of voyeurism by helping solve a crime. As the technology develops, in the film Silver Zeke can use surveillance to monitor his neighbor’s real life behind the surface friendliness for entertainments, but he also fails to reveal the criminal of murder. It reveals the seamy side of voyeurism and people’s expectation of privacy.The End of Violence shows the intention of government to end the violence through the surveillance system. However, violence is used to protect the power of surveillance. The audience will also have a suspicious attitude that whether surveillance can really end the violence.
The films start to reflect the problem of surveillance. In the real life, surveillance exists everywhere and surveillance nows does not represent people’s desire to voyeur other people’s lives but protect social security. Nowadays, more people start to debate about the trade-off between privacy and security. We still need to consider whether we should sacrifice privacy for social security.
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Appreciate that you tried to discuss the broader issue of public attitudes towards surveillance through the examples in the film. It is indeed a controversial and complex issue. The aspect of technology is also worth considering, as a pair of binoculars is quite different from surveillance cameras. Also, can you clarify how voyeurism or surveillance reduces ‘distance’? Do also take note not to exceed the word count excessively.