The poster for Rear Window (1954) could not be a better representation of this film's dynamics of watching — or, indeed, of the dynamics of the male gaze in cinema. J. B. "Jeff" Jeffries' (James Stewart) view of the apartments and courtyard provide him with the ultimate adult male 'Choose Your Own Adventure' vista: exposed female bodies and their vulnerabilities and real men using various methods to handle their relationships with women. Jeff can ogle, approve, chuckle, or sit in judgment. No matter, these lives on display bring him pleasure of various sorts but none of the mess. It is a virtual reality.
More accurately, it's voyeurism. As Jeff watches, his girlfriend Lisa Fremont (the impossibly perfect — and beautiful — Grace Kelly), his visiting home-care provider Stella (Thelma Ritter), and his friend Det. Doyle (Wendell Corey) watch him and, at first, sit in judgment. They are the audience. We agree with them that voyeurism is childish at best, at worst a violation of the privacy of the person(s) watched, the very privacy we insist on preserving for ourselves when in our homes.
Even as we agree, we must confess that we are all guilty of indulging in it, if only fleetingly, more often than we care to admit. In fact, it occurs to me that our collective acculturation to the experience of being invisible to the people we see in films and on television, media's framed quality so strongly evocative of actual windows, makes us perhaps more prone to voyeurism. Or at least more desensitized and thus less self-conscious as we engage in it than we once might have been. (The mere existence of shows like Jerry Springer simultaneously cater to our inclination toward voyeurism and force us to face the reality of our enjoyment in watching the private. In essence, they are the definition of 'guilty pleasure'.) Even Rear Window's main title sequence, with the slowly rising window shades in Jeff's apartment resembling old movie theatres with their drapes that would part or rise when the feature began, suggests that connection.
Article comments
1 - larry
great movie!! i enjoy watching it again and again.good suspense thriller. i beleive that was raymond burrs first movie role. he was good. then he became a good guy lawyer on tv. bravo!!!
2 - Howard Dratch
Another Hitchcock masterpiece. It is why he is the master. Everything fits, moves along, explains itself and grips you hard enough once in a while to realize that he has realized suspense and emotional responses to the characters. We fall in love with Grace Kelly, admire our Jimmy Stewart-voyeur, enjoy Thelma Ritter's wise-cracks and get into the other lives and the evil of Raymond Burr (who had been playing the heavy even earlier) just as Hitch planned for us. But, then, he planned every second and every twitch.
We watched Dial M for Murder yet again tonight and it amazes each time as new scenes are remembered, new plot-pieces are uncovered and each twitch of a mustache (the chief-inspector) is perfectly planned and executed.
3 - John B.
Thanks to both of you for stopping by and reading.
Along the lines of "everything fitting": In my blog's version of this piece, I have some things to say about the use of the song "Mona Lisa" playing in the background of the scene between Doyle, Lisa and Jeff. If you're interested, I hope you'll have a look.
4 - Brent
Hardly Raymond Burr's first movie role Larry. He'd been around Hollywood for almost 15 years when he did Rear Window, mostly doing supporting roles or playing heavies. The same year he did Rear Window he also appeared opposite Bob Hope in Casanova's Big Night so he was becoming fairly well known. I do think that Rear Window was undoubtedly his best film role before he got completely sucked into doing television, although I suspect he'll always be known for doing those bits that were cut into Gojira to make it comprehensible to Americans as Godzilla.