Conflict In Rear Window

Q – ‘’Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window explores ways of seeing and spectatorship’’

The protagonist of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’ is trapped, stuck in a wheelchair with a broken leg and we share his pain, we are also trapped. In a different way of course. We are trapped in his point of view. As the successful photographer that is L.B Jeffries (Jeff to his fiancée), played by James Stewart, passes his long and limited days and nights sitting by his window and shamelessly keeping an eye on his neighbours around him, we too share this obsession. The fact that Jeff has no chose but to sit and stare out the window, he cannot stop looking into this inviting and every changing view. We are like Jeff in the way that once we sit down in a cinema we too can only look at what is put in front of us. Patrick Stewart’s character symbolises all cinema goers, a human being brazenly watching the life of an alien. One of the first shots we see in the film is the opening of Jeff’s curtains by his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter). This

We are then first introduced to Jeff when the camera turns to him, while he sleeps in his wheelchair, fashioning a full length leg cast. It is here in this room we see Jeff sit for the majority of the film, with only one scene we see him leave his apartment and that is when he is pushed out his own window. We are introduced to the minor but vital characters including Miss Torso the dancer who entertains serval men at the one time, Miss Lonely-Hearts whose name speaks for itself, a couple who struggle with the death of their dog and a composer whose career is going nowhere. The most interesting of Jeff’s own personal entertaining cast is Mr. Thorwald, played by Raymond Burr, whose wife spends her days in bed, miserable of the life they have. It is while watching the married couple that Jeff believes he is a witness to a murder as we later find out, Mr. Thorwald has killed his