Briefly explain thematic (montage) editing, and give an example of how Alfred Hitchcock used it in his film Rear Window to develop the character of the photographer played by Jimmy Stewart

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. In thematic montage, the continuity of the cuts is no longer physical, or even psychological, but conceptual—that is, thematic. Thematic montage argues a thesis—the shots are connected in a relatively subjective manner. It is the connection of shots that matter, not the shots themselves. Through the juxtaposition of shots, new meanings can be created. The meanings, then, are in the juxtapositions, not in one shot alone.
2. Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller centers on a photographic journalist (James Stewart) who is confined to his apartment because of a broken leg. Out of boredom, he begins to observe the lives of his neighbors, who live in the apartment building just behind his own.
3. Each neighbor’s window symbolizes a fragment of Stewart’s own problems: They are projections of his own anxieties and desires, which center on love, career, and marriage. Each window suggests a different option for the hero.
4. By cutting from shots of the spying hero to shots of the neighbors’ windows, Hitchcock dramatizes the thoughts going through Stewart’s mind. The audience is moved by the editing style rather than by the material per se or even by the actors’ performances.
5. Such editing techniques represent a form of characterization. This idea was demonstrated in the famous editing experiments of Soviet montage theoretician Lev Kuleshov.
6. Actors sometimes complained that Hitchcock didn’t allow them to act. But he believed that people don’t always express what they are thinking or feeling, and hence the director must communicate these ideas through the editing. The actor, in short, provides only a part of the characterization. The rest is provided by Hitchcock’s thematically linked shots: The audience creates the meaning.