Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) is a voyeuristic suspense film that places the audience in the temporarily immobile position of LB Jefferies (James Stewart). Hitchcock plays out a romance between Jefferies and Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) amid the mystery of murder in a small apartment community.
I feel that Hitchcock's film succeeds on account of it's astounding cinematography in which we, the audience, feel like the ones sitting in Stewart's wheelchair looking through his binoculars instead of Stewart. We find the same voyeuristic excitement and pleasure as Stewart's character does watching the people around him and are mesmerized by the murder mystery that unfolds throughout the film. I was intrigued by the way the confrontation between Jefferies and Lars Thorwald was depicted. We not only see Thorwald get blinded by the flashbulbs on Jefferies' camera but feel his sense of impaired vision as a flare appears on the film and slowly dissipates. I found this to be a wonderful use of effect for the time in which the movie was made.
Rear Window is a masterpiece not simply because of Hitchcock's ability to create a tantalizing story and deliver it teaming with suspense, but because we are all fascinated by the idea of voyeurism. Voyeurism is the reason we watch any movie really, so that we can look in upon other people's lives as a silent spectator. Hitchcock feeds on this love of voyeurism which all movie-goers posses and amplifies it by creating a film about watching others. We are now voyeurs of a voyeur, makes your head spin in some ways.
