Rear Window

My first Hitchcock film–and undoubtedly not my last. What happens when watching turns into obsession? Rear Window perfectly depicts humans’ morbid curiosity, compulsion, intrusion, and obsession. From the beginning, Jeffries was the photographer who had no issues putting his life on the line for the perfect image. An instinct that gradually developed into him peering his eyes where they don’t belong, and behind curtains he’s not meant to open. The magic of Rear Window lies in how manufactured to our liking the windows of the neighbours started to feel. As if the lives behind them exist solely for our entertainment, stripping these people from their own life and agencies, eventually assigning them our own stories. The core of this to me, beyond Jeffries nosiness and curiosity, is his state of boredom and isolation. The place he was physically confined in can only render a human claustrophobic, with only one thing accessible that can pass the time; the uncomfortably close buildings he can look at from his huge windows. We, the same as Jeffries, get immensely caught up in the allure of the narratives our brains can craft about these people that we forget to assign them the simple most basic sign of an identity and being—a name of their own. Like how the ballerina was called Miss Torso, the single woman was called Miss Lonelyhearts. The image we create of them is more enticing anyways; what’s the use of knowing their actual names and self if what we see–from afar–is way more tempting? It’s the desire to know but not get too close to know the truth that might not suit us. Assigning people our own presumptions is where the excitement and thrills lie. You are presented with not one set of eyes (Jeffries’) watching the windows, but two, and three, and four—and soon, a million. Soon, we don’t just see through Jeffries’ eyes, we emulate him. The windows are open for you and for everyone to have a look at. Observation spreads like infection, to his nurse, to his girlfriend, to his detective friend, something so sheltered–a private life–has turned into a public exhibition. Which hints towards the nature of cinema and its voyeuristic tendencies. The other thing I noticed was his camera’s enormous lens. It’s intimidating, intrusive, and zooms to lengths the human eye can’t reach on its own. It becomes an entity that operates as a symbol of surveillance, one that turns into a weapon, and one that shifts observation into something predatory. Which can only frighten a normal human being. The idea that you can be at the comfort of your own house, yet spied on from afar. Again, humans are curious beings who sometimes get too obsessed with their own craft rather than what is really in front of them. Which is another aspect I enjoyed seeing the movie uncover. Then we ask ourselves, where does the ethical line between the boundaries you are allowed to view and the ones you shouldn’t view stop? Rear Window forces us to ask ourselves why we crave these observations. Is it justice, curiosity, or perhaps obsession? And in the end, if Jeffries’ suspicions are validated, does that make his gaze justified?