Alfred Hitchcock had directed many masterpieces, among them, this one might have made him the envy of the other movie makers. Shot in one location, few characters confined to an apartment, and that’s all you have to make the 42nd greatest movie on the American Film Institute’s 100 years 100 movies list. Premiered in 1954, its legacy holds fresh even to this day. When recent call recording controversy shocked Sri Lanka, I was thinking, ‘Oh Rear Window is the window to see through the appearance of truth’.
Jeff, a photographer who’s recovering from a broken leg lives in an apartment, most of the time on the bed and the wheelchair. Utterly bored with his confinement, he has got used to observing the apartments across the courtyard. He suspects Thorwald, one of his neighbours has committed a murder. Nobody, including his girlfriend Lisa, detective Doyle, believes in him. Jeff becomes obsessed with seeking evidence against Thorwald. And the story goes on.
As Hitchcock had shown in his whole career that he’s the master of detective, horror, crime and thriller genre with a fine psychological subtext, Rear Window was sculpted masterfully to a genre-defining standard. As mentioned earlier, the whole drama happens inside an apartment, and the camera’s visual range rarely moves beyond what Jeff sees from his rear window. To create a convincing thriller without losing the viewers’ grip on suspense under such limitations, an innovative and skillfully prepared screenplay is a must. John Michael Hayes, who had collaborated with Hitchcock in four movies, wrote the screenplay based on a short story It Had to Be Murder by Cornell Woolrich. In spite of the medium, when a story is told in a focused and not-too-much-not-too-less manner, we call it a tight story with optimum build-up. John’s screenplay is a good example for his technical prowess; 3 Act Structure is the common template Hollywood uses to achieve technical perfection in storytelling, but mostly the output is generic. John’s screenplay was based on an unusual premise, highly unlikely in defining according to the 3 Act Structure. Against all the odds it came out as a masterpiece nevertheless.
This movie was shot in a studio, the courtyard was a huge indoor set. When you shoot inside an apartment from another apartment across the yard, it’s an ordeal for the set designers, lighting unit and cinematographer. And they have done it, though the advance post-production systems we have today were a dream in 1954.
James Stewarts, who played the role of Jeff, is considered as one of the greatest actors of all time. His ultra-realistic acting helps Rear Window to portray a realistic and believable story, making the movie more engaging to the audience. The more you perceive the realism in what you see, the more horror you experience when the reality shatters. Gorgeous ‘Hitchcock blonde’ Grace Kelly as Lisa made them a matching couple on-screen though their real age difference did not.
Hitchcock’s movies have never failed to get academics’ and critics’ attention. Putting all the technical features aside, psychoanalysts and psychologists were interested in understanding what this movie is about. Many concepts have been discussed, we’ll focus on one; Voyeurism.
Voyeurism can be interpreted as one’s sexual desire in watching other people engaged in intimate activities. It could be the direct sexual pleasure of seeing, or layers upon layers a complex process of one’s attempt to seek satisfaction. For example; ‘Leaked’ photo/video scandals are common in this information age. It’s also a form of voyeurism, despite the fact that victims are not in the act while the voyeur watches. Voyeur’s pleasure isn’t as simple as enjoying others’ body parts, it’s a sinister self-satisfaction
of witnessing how the victims’ lives had been devastated. Voyeur feels better of him/herself compared to the unfortunate, our socio-psychological self-image is always a comparison to the other.
So, Jeff acts the voyeur. He finds himself satisfied by evading from his own bad fate watching others’ miserable private lives. Voyeurism is a guilty pleasure, which comes at a price. Jeff’s nurse expresses her disapproval to Jeff since being indifferent to Jeff’s habits is also a sin. And she advises Jeff to find a better life by marrying Lisa. But Jeff is not ready to settle down.
Human desire is mysterious, with Lisa’s presence some light can be shed upon the desire’s behaviour. Jeff’s reluctance signs that he doesn’t desire Lisa wholeheartedly. Lisa loves him, and subconsciously she knows the fact that Jeff’s desire’s structure is none other than his voyeurism’s structure. Material manipulation of his voyeuristic structure is, in fact, the apartments of the courtyard. What should she have to do to evoke his desire upon her? By reconstituting herself in his male gaze. Where does his gaze fix upon? Apartments, especially in the murder suspect’s apartment.
So she sneaks into his apartment as Jeff watches. Tension builds upon the murder mystery’s upper layer, and beneath, in the subtext, it’s the moment Jeff and Lisa finally find themselves in love.
Climax is when Jeff is threatened to pay the price for his guilty pleasure. Thorwald, now knowing that Jeff has found the evidence for his crime and attempts to kill him. The final encounter was intelligently executed by Hitchcock where Jeff tries to defend himself by setting off flashbulbs of his camera. It’s such a strong metaphor, which shows again and again that his voyeuristic gaze is what he had always; Flashers signify the blindingly strong gaze.
What I want to think is; neither was Thorwald a murderer nor was there a crime, the final scenes are just Jeff’s fantasy in order to justify his conscience from guilt. Jeff is morally correct, only if Thorwald was a murderer.
The recent call-recording scandal in Sri Lanka was a two-stage act of voyeurism. One looked into others’ lives, and the whole of Sri Lanka looked into their lives. Since a deeper analysis of that incident is out of the context, let’s say; Rear Window is not done yet, it revisits us from time to time.