Film Review: Rear Window (1954)

Fig. 1 Rear Window (1954) Film Poster

Alfred Hitchcocks 1954 American suspense film Rear Window based on the Cornell Woolrich short story It Had to Be Murder follows character L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) Jeff for the duration of the film- take the notion of prying into anothers business to an all new level, a level that wouldnt be wrong to describe as an obsession. Jeff is confided to his apartment after an accident which leaves him confided to a wheelchair while his leg heels up and to pass the time Jeff resorts to spying on the neighbours in the surrounding windows. Jeff cannot even be dragged away from his window seat from his girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) being so transfixed by the scene that lays in front of him like free theatre that he wants more, wants something even more exciting to happen and so starts to suspect salesman Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) of wrong doing when he can no longer spy his wife in the window. But what if what could only be described as the acts of a peeping tom were not as crazy as it seems It wouldnt be wrong to be reminded of Edward Hoppers characteristic paintings of window settings peering into the inhabitants lives when we are placed through the lens of Jeffs eyes. Just like Hoppers work we see regular people getting on with their routines, we can guess what they are doing but cannot know for sure and just like his work in Rear Window we cannot help but watch with vicarious pleasure no matter how awkward some scenes may be or how guilty they make us feel. Just take the scenes with who Jeff nicknames Miss Lonelyheart; her enactments of dates coming to wine and dine with her are extremely uncomfortable to watch yet this doesnt stop us instead quite disturbingly it encourages us and so it is quite fitting that Jeff himself gets his comeuppance of ending up being confided to the wheelchair for even longer by the end of the film. CPea for Timeout shares his beliefs on Hitchcocks voyeuristic approach to filmmaking during Rear Window. What this relentless monomaniac witnesses is everyones dirty linen: suicide, broken dreams, and cheap death. Quite aside from the violation of intimacy, which is shocking enough, Hitchcock has nowhere else come so close to pure misanthropy, nor given us so disturbing a definition of what it is to watch the silent film of other peoples livesno wonder the sensual puritan in him punishes Stewart by breaking his other leg. (CPea: Unknown) Hitchcock makes us

become Jeff both through the point of view shots throughout the film but also through making us also become obsessed with this voyeuristic thrill peering out Jeffs window allows us. It is discussed that Hitchcock uses Jeff and his actions as a metaphor for watching movies. We sit there watching Hitchcocks film vicariously while Jeff does something very similar to his neighbours, instead his binoculars and telephoto lens act as the screen.

Fig. 2 Miss Lonelyhearts awkward sadness.

There is however, another form of voyeurism present throughout the film and that comes in the shape of Lisa herself. The scene of her introduction is a key example of this, the way the camera tracks her process across the room, switching on each of the lights and further illuminating her beauty is something Hitchcock gifts the audience with and follows Laura Mulveys theory on the male gaze. The camera cannot take its eyes off her but this isnt the camera of which we sit as part of Jeffs eyes, this is every camera but this one. Instead Jeff doesnt seem interested, more fixated by the scene across the courtyard than a stunning woman who is willing to give him all her attention. Jeff is perceived as someone unwilling to give up his adolescent world of a boys book adventure, his lens is his toy which allows him on this adventure unlike Lisa who is close to him and Jeff doesnt want this closeness, instead he is the full photographer who spends all their time viewing from a distance waiting for that special shot which in Jeffs case is the opportunity to investigate a possible murder. What Hitchcock seems to suggest through Lisa ironically being distanced while the distancing through Jeffs lens becomes a closer part of him is that watching unknown is like a disease, you alone know what you are doing and there is something thrilling about it but while you are in this reality the real world around you suffers from being isolated. Reviewer Roger Ebert fittingly describes what Hitchcock injects his audience with when Jeff ignores his suggestively perfect girlfriend. There is one shot partly a point-of-view closeup, in which she leans over him to kiss him, and the camera succumbs to her sexuality even if Jeff doesnt; its as if shes begging the audience to end its obsession with what Jeff is watching, and consider instead what he should be drinking in with his eyes- her beauty. (Ebert: 2000)

Fig. 3 Lisas ignored gaze.

Lisas gaze seems to have been transferred on to something else; Jeff has found more pleasure in gazing into others lives and their unhappiness. He seems to be avoiding the happiness that looms in front of him, perhaps hes scared of commitment but there sure is something he isnt scared of which Charles Taylor of salon.com picks up on. He isnt horrified or frightened, or motivated by a sense of justice or outrage over a womans death; hes turned on, which is made a bit too obvious by his use of a huge, phallic zoom lens to do his peeping. (Taylor: 2000) He is aroused through his camera which seems to have taken over his mind, he even seeks to use it to escape from Thorwald at the end and keeps it close to his heart when he sees Lisa is in danger, this is just one voyeuristic experience gone out of hand.

Bibliography
CPea, (Unknown) Timeout.com http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/76472/rear_window.html (Accessed 16/02/2012) Ebert, Roger, (2000) Rogerebert.com http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000220/REVIEWS08/2200301/1023 (Accessed 16/02/2012) Taylor, Charles, (2000) Salon.com http://www.salon.com/2000/01/21/rear_window/ (Accessed 16/02/2012)

List of Illustrations
Fig. 1. Rear Window (1954) Film Poster From: Rear Window Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock. [film poster] On moveposter.com http://uk.movieposter.com/poster/b70-15938/Rear_Window.html (Accessed 16/02/2012) Fig. 2. Miss Lonelyhearts awkward sadness (1954) From: Rear Window Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock. [film still] On thefilmspectrum.com http://thefilmspectrum.com/wpcontent/uploads/2011/07/Picture-214.png (Accessed 16/02/2012) Fig. 2. Lisas ignored gaze (1954) From: Rear Window Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock. [film still] On chud.com http://www.chud.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Screen-shot-2011-07-17-at-3.54.12PM.png (Accessed 16/02/2012)