Miles Menasion, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window:

I noticed a general lack of explicit thriller themes in the official rear window posters, so I made mine as over the top and blood splatter-ey as possible. I also wanted to convey themes of spectatorship, voyeurism, violence, and reflect various scenes from the movie in the poster. Starting with the top panel, we see the silhouettes of a group of people, watching the scene shown in the middle two panels. I also have a little quote from the movie that I added for the cool mysterious aesthetic. I had a scene in mind when I made this panel. When the lady across from Jeff’s dog is killed, she loudly accuses her neighbors of apathy, while they watch from their respective places. I feel as if this scene represents the theme of spectatorship quite well, as we have Jeff confronted with the nature of his curiosity, his intentions questioned. Is Jeff a seeker of justice, willing to go to any lengths to see it be served, or a voyeur, merely interested in satisfying his boredom? This is where our title comes in. Scrutiny! Which we will get back to later. Next is the middle left panel, where we have a pool of blood with flowers sprouting out. This is in reference to the flowers in which Lars Thorwald buried a piece of his wife’s body. We have bloody footprints leading away from the flowers, which is just a stylistic choice that references a mystery cliche, and leads our eyes to the next panel. The footprints take us inside the window, behind Jeff, who has his camera out. We see a silhouette behind Jeff, as well as a flash that references the scene where Thorwald invades his home, and Jeff defends himself using a camera flash. I wanted to tell a bit of a story here, implying that the murderer was sneaking up on Jeff, though this doesn’t happen in the movie, I thought it would be cool to have some motion within my poster. Then, boom! Bottom panel! Title! Scrutiny! As viewers, we are tasked with scrutinizing the actions of Jeff and the others on a scale, deciding where and when the line between curiosity and voyeurism gets crossed. It’s a bit of a “do the means justify the ends” kind of situation. Ultimately, Jeff is vindicated, as Lars Thorwald is revealed to be the murderer, but the moral ambiguity of his actions are thought provoking, and (in my opinion) the main focus of the movie.