Rear
Window Interpretive Claim
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film, Rear Window, is essentially about a magazine photographer who has
been subjected to house arrest due to his broken leg, and takes to spying on
his neighbors through his back window as a hobby. However, his spying turns
quite serious when the main character, Jeffries, observes what could be a
possible crime, and becomes obsessed with cracking the case. Through point of
view shots out of the rear window, the viewer is given Jeffries’ perspective on
his neighbors, and is therefore given his interpretation of their actions. The
whole movie takes place in one setting, so the perspectives of any of the
neighbors are never really taken into account, leaving the viewers to take on
Jeffries’ perspective as their own. Hitchcock’s unique method of narrowing the
viewer’s viewpoint, and creating suspense in the spying sequences creates an
interesting commentary on voyeurism and the faults of perspective in regards to
one man’s analysis of social action.
Throughout the movie, it is learned through his
encounters with Lisa that Jeffries is someone who is accustomed to thrill and
an adventurous lifestyle due to his job. Putting him in a domestic setting on
bed rest, with nothing to do, is then essentially placing Jeffries completely
out of his element. So, Jeffries improvises the thrill he is missing from his
every day life by spying on his neighbors through his rear window, and seeing
things that would otherwise be considered forbidden. The still shot for
analysis is a shot from Jeffries’ point of view, looking out that back window
at the neighbors. The still perfectly demonstrates the main idea of the film, being
from Jeffries’ perspective, and focusing on the different lives of the
neighbors who are framed through their windows. By simply looking at the still,
it immediately makes one want to interpret what is going on in the picture, and
create a story of their own, which is what Jeffries does in the film. The heavy
use of vertical lines and scale in the shot parallels the rest of the movie, showing
that Jeffries has a large perspective on these people by making the image
broader. There is a plethora of framing by windows in the shot showing the
different lifestyles of people in the neighborhood as well as in the time
period of the 1950’s in which the film is shot. Each frame shows a different
story, which further emphasized the themes of voyeurism and perspective in the
film. The still also moves the viewer’s eye from window to window, in a motion
much like Jeffries would have been making in his own field of vision. There are
the people kissing on the left side of the photo, which shows a sense of love
and affection, the naked ballerina in the middle of the photo, which really
emphasizes the theme of voyeurism by letting the viewer in on a seemingly
intimate moment, and finally, Mr. Thorwald working in his garden in the bottom
left of the still, which ends up being a main interest of Jeffries. The scene
as a whole demonstrates what Jeffries is seeing and paying attention to, which
in turn emphasizes the theme of perspective in the plot of the film.
