What Film Teaches Us About Human Nature: Rear Window
"Curiosity is the lust of the mind," as once quoted by the great English Philosopher Thomas Hobbs. It is natural for humans to be naturally curious about the unknown and what is presented in front of us with no context. In modern society, one always wants to be in touch with what is happening around oneself. When a scandal occurs, it is human nature that we are curious to know why something happened. Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film Rear Window presents a classic example of the oldest known type of curiosity in modern society-- how much do we know about our neighbors?
Rear Window has become a revered film of the 20th century. The film tells the story of L.B "Jeff" Jefferis (played by James Stewart), a renowned photographer who is wheelchair-bound following a tragic fall during one of his assignments. While bound to his New York City apartment, Jefferies spends much of his time looking out his apartment window upon his neighbors. With the film set during the dog days of summer, all of the surrounding neighbors, including Jefferies, have their windows open for all the world to see. Throughout the film, viewers are introduced to Jefferis and his neighbors. There is a young married couple, a musician who spends much of his time at his piano, a young dancer, a middle-aged couple and their dog, an older woman who enjoys the suns, a young woman unlucky in love-- who becomes known as "Miss Lonelyhearts," and the Thorwalds, a middle-aged man, left to look after his bedridden wife. The film emphasizes these neighbors and their role in the communal area in which they all live. The events of the film hone in on the Thorwald's following the "disappearance" of Lars Thorwalds' wife. Jefferies becomes interested in the Thorwald's and is determined to figure out what happened to Mrs. Thorwald, all while wheelchair-bound.
Aside from the film's central mystery, it focuses on the relationship between Jefferies and his socialite partner Lisa Carol Fremont. Played by Grace Kelly, the socialite looks after Jefferis while also fixating on the neighbors and the Thorwald mystery. Fremont takes the role of caregiver and second opinion to Jefferies and his motivations.
In Classic Hitchcock fashion, Rear Window presents its story and symbols through various film techniques that further emphasize the distinctions between neighbors. The first and critical example is how Hitchock's shots of the neighbor's windows are split with separate windows and a drain pipe slicing between windows. Hitchcock uses shadows and set design to his advantage to separate characters both literally and symbolically. We see separate windows and the drain pipe predominantly with Thorwald's window. Two separate windows split the living room and Thorwald's room with the drainpipe down the middle of the Jefferies window across the complex.
The second example of Hitchcock's use of portraying symbolism in Rear Window is through the isolation of events happening all in and near the commune where Jefferies and the neighbors all live. While we see the neighbors come and go for various reasons, the driving action of the film is all occurring at the same place. This example is a strong film choice because it demonstrates how the film does not need to roam to different places to secure stability. To drive external information that happens in the film, Hitchcock promotes certain information through dialogue, movement, and foreshadowing.
The theme of curiosity is presented through Hitchcock's methods and the characteristics known of the characters, the driving force behind the film's central conflict. L.B Jefferis is a photographer who uses his resources, connections, and observation skills to piece together the Thorwald mystery. Jefferis is often seen using his camera with either a wide-angle lens or a telephoto lens. According to Crafting Pixels, the lens that Jefferies could have used at the time was a Kilfitt Fern-Kilar f/5.6 400mm telephoto lens. Such a lens is often used for extreme or far away angles. The lens used in the film makes sense for plot convenience. However, the clarity point-of-view at certain times in the film when Jefferies looks through the lens to spy on his neighbors would not have been as detailed due to the nature of photography's technology at the time.
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