Rear window

Alfred Hitchcock's voyeuristic nature of film.

The film is shot through the window of the main character, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound from some sort of an accident. He views, and we also by eyeline match, the windows of the apartments across and adjacent to his.

He's shown to be a photographer, which clues us into the themes of voyeurism which will be present throughout.

Each of these little windows unfold a small sort of movie in itself, self-contained pieces which the protagonist, Jeff, looks at. These act as a clear stand-in for the audience looking at the film itself, or film in general.

A key point of psychoanalytic film theory is that of Identification and Suture. The idea that we watch and derive pleasure from films through identifying with the characters and deriving narcissistic scopophilic pleasure - the pleasure of viewing the Other or the Self without being seen.

One especially poignant character in Rear Window (1954) is that of Miss Lonelyhearts, the isolated woman who lives on the bottom floor of the apartment across Jeff's.

During the course of Jeff's first night looking out, he sees Miss Lonelyhearts prepare a full dinner for two, and the proceed to pretend to be both people in a make-believe dinner party.

She raises her glass toasting to her nonexistent guest, and has a drink.

In this moment, the camera is back on Jeff who raises his glass as well in a sort of parasocial cheers 🥂.

Indeed, it is Jeff in this moment who Identifies with Miss Lonelyhearts, her window providing all three layers of collapse so that he, from his voyeur position, may feel the suture of that image.

Then we, looking through our own screen of illusion, meta-identify with Jeff identifying to Miss Lonelyhearts, as all the shots are from his point of view, and give us the feel of his isolation felt through Miss Lonelyhearts' isolation. Image upon image collapsing, turning us into the voyeur's voyeur.

And perhaps we too raise a glass in another parasocial cheers 🥂.

Importance in feminist film theory

In her famous essay Moudy explains how in Rear Window the females are made to be objects to be looked upon, and that when Lisa is on the looker's side (and not being voyeuristicaly looked upon) Jeff, is seemingly disinterested in her. But when she makes the jump to the other side, where Jeff has been looking at the objects in his rear window, she is suddenly interesting.