Hitchin' a ride through the camera lens of L.B. Jeffries

Rating: Null/10 (3 April 2001)

Like "Taxi Driver" and "Citizen Kane", "Read Window" is and will always be a film that draws endless debate & discussion. Is the film an examination of voyeurism or feminism? Both themes appear strongly throughout. As L.B. Jeffries, a wheelchair-bound photo-journalist with a broken leg, James Stewart delivers a carefully nuanced performance of a man whose morbid fantasy comes to life only to haunt him. Whereas we all usually enter peoples homes through the front door to coat racks, arranged book cases and coffee tables, Jeffries looks out the rear window of his living room to witness the "private" worlds, full of negative energy, at the apartment complex across the courtyard. Here we see Miss Torso, a young, curvaceous ballerina thwarting off the advances of young men. Miss Lonelyhearts, a spinster in search of that special guy. A frisky newlywed couple and a middle-aged musician are among the other neighbors. Raymond Burr, as Lars Thornwald, draws Jeffries' attention the most. Jeffries suspects that his neighbor Thornwald may have killed his nagging but invalid wife.
Playing audience to Jeffries' impressions is his girlfriend Lisa - played by Grace Kelly in her usually elegant Ice Queen mode. Lisa at first is put off by Jeffries' homicidal theory, hoping rather to focus on a potential marriage between the two. Lisa, an urbane socialite, doesn't consider any possible lifestyle clash that Jeffries, the nomadic adventurer, fears will happen. Lisa is soon convinced by Jeffries ideas and becomes just as obsessed as he does with the neighbors across the courtyard. Lisa & Jeffries conspire, mostly at night under dim lamp light, to solve the mystery, despite the warnings of Jeffries' stern detective friend as well as his nurse.
While considered to be more commercially inclined than the much more revered "Psycho" and "Vertigo", "Rear Window" is still equally adept at sizing up the private passions of its protagonist. Another facet of the film that escapes many minds is Hitchcock's subtle but perverse use of claustrophobia. "Rope", the much overlooked 1948 experimental film that serves as the the first Hitchcock-Stewart collaboration, also makes use of the inherent tension of dangerous situations occuring in close quarters. The entire film takes place in one room with only 5 major characters! Yet, you're never bored for a minute. How many filmmakers can accomplish this? The claustrophobia serves as a quiet catalyst to justify Jeffries' efforts - in his "plaster cocoon" - to spy on his neighbors, becoming a sleuth and a snoop through sheer voyeurism. Hitchcock never judges Jeffries' for spying on his neighbors (by association he would be judging the audience too). Hitchcock knows it's much more fun & interesting to abandon any taboo of Jeffries' actions and just let us all spy in on a man whose spying on everyone else.
Hitchcock's great gift in this film are the buried themes of feminism; virtually all of the female characters in this film are oppressed by men in some fashion (Miss Torso's randy guests, Miss Lonelyhearts' one futile date, Lisa's unheard pleas for marriage & stability, a helicopter hovering over nude sunbathers in the opening credits). All of the women prevail in the end, but by interesting means. In an odd move towards role reversals, the men are the creatures who spend the duration of the film analyzing & questioning everything, unsure of how to play the game; while the women are unusually aggressive. Another fact that supports the feminism slant is, given the obvious phallic symbolism of Jeffries' telephoto lens, it could be interpreted that Jeffries spends the entire film seeing & thinking with his penis. The feminism of the film exists slyly because it's never conscientiously examined by any of its characters. The film is also testament that blood & guts or cats jumping into frame from nowhere are not the best ways to scare people. I still get chills toward the end when Jeffries' stares at the sliver of light from the bottom of his front door and he can hear those footsteps coming towards him - that soon stop, to unscrew the light bulb in the hallway, and then proceed slowly towards his front door. Whoo! By 1954, Hitchcock still had plenty of steam & fire left in him, but by then he had already created his greatest masterpiece. A spooky, scary movie.