Unit should take approx two & 1/2 weeks
217 minutes total movie time ~ 20 min discussion & mini-lesson; 20 min watching each day

Day One: Introduce unit
Guiding Questions:
  • What are the characteristics of a thriller?
  • How does each director use dialogue, setting, camera angles, lighting, and music to convey an emotionally tense atmosphere?
  • If each of these movies hinges on watching surreptitiously, how are we the audience implicated in the act of voyeurism?
  • Did the director of Disturbia commit copyright infringement of Rear Window?

Thrillers
  • captivate through use of tension and suspense
  • include menacing situations with unlikely escape
  • feature a hero(ine) who must uncover and thwart the plot of the enemy (or reveal mystery to help catch villain)
  • psychological thrillers are affected by the characters’ own motivations, fears, experiences; in other words, what s/he sees is guided by who s/he is

Rear Window. Alfred Hitchcock. 1954. Paramount Pictures, 2005. DVD.
Neat trivia about Rear Window: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047396/trivia (share some of it only after viewing because there are spoilers)






Day One questions (watch through scene 4):
Part I: Exposition
1. What is wrong with Jeffries?
2. What has happened?
3. Why would this situation be particularly hard for him?
4. Why is the heat a factor in the action?
5. What is the focus of his “neighbor watching”?
6. What are his worries about marriage?

Fill out chart on characters:
external image moz-screenshot-9.pngexternal image moz-screenshot-10.pngexternal image moz-screenshot-11.pngexternal image moz-screenshot-12.png








Course case article: decision: http://entertainment.newsplurk.com/2010/09/disturbia-did-not-steal-rear-window.html
http://www.filmnight.org/rear.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/secondary/english/assets/pdf/psycho.pdf
http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/rear-window/25112
http://bztv.typepad.com/moviessquared/2007/04/disturbia2007vs.html