"We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known." While this is probably the most technically beautiful movie I can remember seeing, to talk at length about Hitchcock’s camerawork would be like going to the Antarctic and reporting on how very, very cold it was. If you’ve been there you know and it can obscure its subtler features, like the native subcutaneous parasites. For the sake of everyone’s hypothalamus gland, this would be a mistake.
By confining us to Stewart’s perspective, Rear Window does not only implicate us in his voyeurism, it also invests us in its world. Loneliness and isolation are as major a part of the feel of the film as the guilty delight in watching, especially since its sounds are mostly ambient. It is not until the dog is killed that the leads act on the plot directly, meaning it is the killer who first breaks the neighborhood’s silent taboo. While the broach of privacy isn’t portrayed as less moral than the wife’s murder, it is the one that provokes an interaction. Compare the dog-owner’s denouncement of her neighbor’s indifference to Mrs. Thorwald’s scream the night of the murder. Every window turns to hear the dog-speech, but even our hero, who is watching the Thorwalds when the scream happens, responds by falling asleep.
Situated in this narrative world, Stewart and Kelly’s relationship is what I find most interesting. Even before anything is afoot, we witness Stewart’s neuroses over his “too perfect” relationship. The film’s discomfort with intimacy seems to stand in as their real problem, especially since Stewart’s version of the problem is inconsistent (he tells his nurse she’s too good while telling Kelly they’re too different). She’s a career-minded socialite; he’s a free-spirited adventurer who can’t be tied down; these would be the hallmarks of romance if they weren’t presented by complete absence. Unlike how a romantic comedy tends to show characters struggling to find a balance between their public and private lives, Rear Window ignores the public side and obsesses with the private while its lead characters begin the film by doing just the reverse. The mean, weird indifference of love is overcome by their engagement in the plot. If the two have nothing else in common they’ve found someone to share their perverse fascinations, which is, I think, as good a definition of happiness as any.
Stewart’s confrontation with Thorwald is remarkable, and Halloween-appropriate. While the film tends to confront the morality of voyeurism by having the characters flatly ask each other about it, this scene is probably the most useful to the discussion. It has signifiers of horror- the heavy steps up the stairs, Throwald’s now-obscured and surprisingly large figure looming in the doorway. While the terror of the scene is mostly based on our identification with Stewart’s character, Thorwald’s reaction is interesting. Upon entering to find a seated silhouette of a man Thorwald says, “Say something… anything,” before advancing. We are offered only the slightest glimpse of the murder’s terror: confronting a faceless man after days of being privately observed, to all appearances calm enough to stay in his chair when a murderer breaks into his door. A reversal made all the more chilling by its transience.
By confining us to Stewart’s perspective, Rear Window does not only implicate us in his voyeurism, it also invests us in its world. Loneliness and isolation are as major a part of the feel of the film as the guilty delight in watching, especially since its sounds are mostly ambient. It is not until the dog is killed that the leads act on the plot directly, meaning it is the killer who first breaks the neighborhood’s silent taboo. While the broach of privacy isn’t portrayed as less moral than the wife’s murder, it is the one that provokes an interaction. Compare the dog-owner’s denouncement of her neighbor’s indifference to Mrs. Thorwald’s scream the night of the murder. Every window turns to hear the dog-speech, but even our hero, who is watching the Thorwalds when the scream happens, responds by falling asleep.
Situated in this narrative world, Stewart and Kelly’s relationship is what I find most interesting. Even before anything is afoot, we witness Stewart’s neuroses over his “too perfect” relationship. The film’s discomfort with intimacy seems to stand in as their real problem, especially since Stewart’s version of the problem is inconsistent (he tells his nurse she’s too good while telling Kelly they’re too different). She’s a career-minded socialite; he’s a free-spirited adventurer who can’t be tied down; these would be the hallmarks of romance if they weren’t presented by complete absence. Unlike how a romantic comedy tends to show characters struggling to find a balance between their public and private lives, Rear Window ignores the public side and obsesses with the private while its lead characters begin the film by doing just the reverse. The mean, weird indifference of love is overcome by their engagement in the plot. If the two have nothing else in common they’ve found someone to share their perverse fascinations, which is, I think, as good a definition of happiness as any.
Stewart’s confrontation with Thorwald is remarkable, and Halloween-appropriate. While the film tends to confront the morality of voyeurism by having the characters flatly ask each other about it, this scene is probably the most useful to the discussion. It has signifiers of horror- the heavy steps up the stairs, Throwald’s now-obscured and surprisingly large figure looming in the doorway. While the terror of the scene is mostly based on our identification with Stewart’s character, Thorwald’s reaction is interesting. Upon entering to find a seated silhouette of a man Thorwald says, “Say something… anything,” before advancing. We are offered only the slightest glimpse of the murder’s terror: confronting a faceless man after days of being privately observed, to all appearances calm enough to stay in his chair when a murderer breaks into his door. A reversal made all the more chilling by its transience.
1 comment:
I'm so glad you reviewed this movie as it is one of my favorites. It's not just a horror movie, but a love letter to voyeurism. L.B. can't bring himself to desire Lisa until she participates in his fantasy--leaving his apartment and displaying herself in the windows across the courtyard. The movie implies that Lisa adapts to L.B.'s life by toning down her fashion sense and adopting a life of occasional adventure, but it seems the compromise she actually makes is psycho-sexual: she accepts that best he has to offer comes through the fantasy of the gaze, not the reality of their shared apartment.
It's a fitting subject for Hitchcock, who was rumored to be so fussy in life and yet who so effortless won our love once he was outfitted with a camera. Maybe I should review every episode of Hitchcock presents? You know, since my chapter is due next week.
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