The opening sequence says so much while saying nothing at all. The camera pans around the windows of a typical looking urban New York apartment complex. Various people are shown going about their daily routines and living fairly normal lives. There is a presumably married couple though the wife is bedridden, another married couple who are obviously newlyweds as the man is shown carrying the woman through the entryway, a ballerina, a conspicuously alone (divorced/widowed?) woman, a young man who is always seated at a piano (a stereotypical starving artist) and another married couple who are sleeping on the fire escape and will be seen several times lowering their small dog into the courtyard in a sort of crude basket and rope elevator.
The shot then pans across the courtyard to an apartment directly across from the first one and zeroes in on a leg in a cast propped up in a wheelchair. The cast contains a sarcastically written eulogy to L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, the man wearing the cast played by Jimmy Stewart. Since it is not signed it is a good assumption that Jeff himself wrote it, indicating both traces of a dark sense of humor as well as some degree of self-pity. A little bit of backstory informs us that Jeff is an award-winning photojournalist who was injured on an assignment. Hitchcock does an ingenious job of showing that Jeff is well traveled by having his apartment adorned with various pieces of décor that appear to be from several different continents.
Banter between Jeff and his home-health care nurse Thelma (Thelma Ritter) makes for some of the best dialogue in the picture. The two have funny back-and-forth with Thelma serving as both a support system and a snarky voice of reason. She is always quick with a comeback to take Jeff down a peg but never maliciously. More important to their chemistry though is the fact that they clearly have a platonic relationship- something that is rarely seen in films even today, especially one as mutually understood as theirs. So many times in movies a person who opens up to someone either does so out of admiration for them or the person who is the sounding board puts up with their drama because they are in love with them; a perfect example being the Midge character in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.”
Maybe to reinforce the harmlessness of Jeff and Thelma’s friendship or maybe just because the film needed another principal character, Jeff’s gorgeous and seemingly much younger socialite girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) enters the picture. Her initial dialogue immediately distinguishes her as a deep and caring person rather than the typical detached and flighty heiress sort of character, as she reminds Jeff that he is closing in on his final days in his dreaded cast. She also expresses an interest in seeing Jeff give up his dangerous job that keeps him away from home; hoping for a less hectic life in the city. Jeff loathes this idea as he feels his identity is entirely in his work. In most other films a wealthy blonde love interest would be more obsessed with the prestige and traveling that accompany Jeff’s lifestyle but Lisa is exactly the opposite. In fact her desire to see Jeff settle down is one of the major conflicts in the film; so much so that Jeff intends to break up with her because of their difference in character.
Conversations Jeff has with both the women in his life always seem to focus on the relatively dull events of the people across the courtyard Jeff observes from his window. The people in the apartment across the street are combating a summer heatwave and all have their windows open for Jeff to peer in from a distance. They are all blithely unaware of his voyeurism, giving Jeff a pretty unfiltered glimpse at their lives. I love, love LOVE the fact that the various vignettes occurring in the opposing apartments give the feel of a TV show- and Jeff treats his view as such. He gets bored with what is going on in one apartment and “switches” to the next. Despite having many other options for entertainment (books, magazines and television) he elects to devote his interest to the primitive reality show going on across the courtyard.
In very Seinfeldian terms he explains what he thinks the other people are doing and even assigns them nicknames based on his own shallow observations. The ballerina is “The Torso,” the single woman on the lower level is “Ms. Lonelyhearts” and the young man at the piano is “The Songwriter.” Ms. Lonelyhearts in particular has some of the most interesting activity in the film, once shown bringing a younger man home in total desperation before kicking him out for aggressively forcing himself on her and later she attempts suicide, which Jeff callously ignores.
”Jeff, you know if someone came in here they wouldn't believe what they'd see. You and me with long faces plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known!” (Lisa Freemont, “Rear Window”)
Perhaps because he sees too much or perhaps because he needs some excitement and drama in his routine, Jeff believes he sees the man in the apartment most directly across from his (Raymond Burr) kill his bedridden wife. Numerous pieces of circumstantial evidence start piling up; the man leaves with heavy boxes at odd hours, the sudden absence of his wife and liquidation of her belongings and Jeff seeing him carrying around a butcher knife and a hacksaw. The sudden fear that the man has done the unthinkable appeals to two very primal human fears: the feeling of powerlessness as he is unable to intervene and the ability to relate to a victim. A convincing case can be made that Jeff sees the woman as an extension of himself as he is also an invalid and very much relies on the care of others.
The subsequent involving of Thelma and Lisa in Jeff’s armchair investigation not only enhances the TV show concept, particularly when they ask him for updates on what they missed, but also provides the true suspense of the movie. The two women are generally dismissive of Jeff’s obsession with his neighbors’ activities, yet once the murder mystery aspect comes into play the two go from skeptics to willing participants- implying there just may be enough compelling evidence to give credence to Jeff’s fears. After lots of deduction and snooping the mystery is solved and in an almost comedic twist, Jeff ends up breaking BOTH his legs, rendering himself helpless all over again. Despite the dark and intense subject matter, the conclusion is actually quite amusing and lighthearted. There is also some excellent reversal of gender-roles in the relationship between Jeff and Lisa in his reliance on her, physical almost working as a metaphor for emotional and economic.
Harkening back to the beginning of the film, the epilogue scrolls through the activity of the various occupants of the apartments again, this time showing us their “real” lives. The idealized newlywed couple has what seems like the first of many fights, the ballerina he assumes is promiscuous greets her husband who has just come home from the military and Ms. Lonelyhearts appears to be with The Songwriter, thus providing a happy ending for seemingly the two most tragic of the sub-characters.
“Rear Window” is one of those films that somehow manages to perfectly balance content and presentation. So many films have excellent cinematography but either abstract or plots devoid of depth or a fantastic, well written story that doesn’t translate effectively to the screen when set to action. In just about every great movie there is one cinematic aspect that stands out above the others, however I feel in the case of “Rear Window” the visuals and set design, the filming style, the dialogue, the balance of humor and psychology and the performances are all evenly matched. But I still can’t stand Jimmy Stewart’s voice!
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