Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is a brilliant social commentary on the moviegoer's experience and the dangers of obsessing over lives that are not your own.
By Alex Richard
Jeff Jefferies (played by James Stewart), the protagonist of the movie, is stuck in his two-bedroom apartment due to an accident he had and his entertainment is just looking out the window watching his neighbors. Jeff can live vicariously through his neighbors, watching their lives. He begins to care about these people and the stories that he has given each of them, empathic for the sadness that he feels each person is feeling. When a potential murder takes place across the street, he becomes obsessed and it is all he can think about.
Jeff's journeys throughout the film reflect the journey that a viewer of any film goes through. He watches things happen to his neighborhood and his opinion on them will change, like a viewer watching a movie has the twists and turns happen.
Hitchcock blurs the lines between the audience and the character, making us seem like the voyeurs. One way he does this is by using subjective point-of-view shots. Hitchcock uses this shot in multiple different ways; when Jeff is using the binoculars/camera, when he is simply looking outside and the camera moves with his eyeline, and when Mr. Thorwald is blinded by the camera flashbulbs.
Hitchcock adds mattes on certain scenes to create the illusion of the viewer secretly watching these people through binoculars, just as Jeff does.
The audience is the main character of the film, and the neighborhood that is constantly being watched is the world of media. It can prove as a great escape and provide a way to escape from our everyday lives. But it can also cause heavy isolation and at worse, cause someone to try and choke you and you fall out of a window.
Rear Window is clearly a film about film, but it is interesting to think about where Hitchcock lands on the conversation of is being obsessive about film is a good or bad thing. I think that Hitchcock is playing both sides of the fence. Clearly, there are many hints at showing the dangers, but then it all works out in the end and the obsessive one is right and ends up better off for it. There is not a clear answer or favoritism on what side is right or wrong, that is up for discussion and the viewer to reach on their own, Hitchcock just lays the groundwork for the conversation.
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