Optical Instruments in the Service of Cinematic Découpage - Text 6
While our interest in the fate of the murdered wife in Hitchcock’s film becomes greater than our interest in the scantily-clad dancer, the boundary remains thin between the young protagonists in Dario Argento’s Do You Like Hitchcock? (Ti piace Hitchcock?, 2005), D.J. Caruso’s Disturbia (2007) and Krzysztof Kieślowski’s A Short Film about Love (Krótki film o miłości, 1988). Whereas the first protagonist limits himself to binoculars which occupy his natural vision completely, and the second makes use of digital camcorders, the young Polish man swaps his opera glasses for a telescope, providing him with the opportunity to observe reality with the naked eye at the same time, making good use of an “alternating découpage” sequence. Thus as the young voyeur observes his neighbour having sex with a lover he can simultaneously keep his eye on the gas company employees approaching the apartment in response to the false alarm that he himself called in.