Rear Window (1954)

I’m not much on rear window ethics.

THE SUMMARY: An injured photographer passes recovery time by watching his neighbors through his apartment window, suspects a man has murdered his wife, and nearly gets himself and his girlfriend killed in the process of cracking the case. The entire movie is a setup for a twist and a fairy tale that never come. It’s a mystery with no actual mystery.

FROM MOVIE-PICKER TOM N: Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 hit thriller starring Jimmy Stewart tells the story of a man who is confined to his apartment after suffering an injury that leaves him immobile. Out of boredom, he begins to spy on his neighbors and learns some life-threatening details about them. This film is one of Hitchcock's best and is unique because the entire movie is shot in a single room.

THE BEST:

• Based Stella: Jeff’s nurse Stella has the best lines in the show, not just because they’re concise, but because they’re wise. ‘Intelligence - nothing has caused the human race more trouble,’ she says in response to Jeff’s over-analysis of marriage. ‘Once it was see somebody, get excited, get married - now, it's read books, fence with four syllable words, psychoanalyze each other until you can't tell a petting party from a civil service exam,’ she adds.

  Of course, it’s also true that our intelligence is the reason for our advancement over all other earthly species, but Stella’s point stands. Many of life’s most basic elements need not be overthought, and certainly marriage is one such context. Obviously you have to find someone of baseline compatibility and values, but that’s Stella’s point - when you find someone suitable, stop hesitating.

  Every year we spend waiting for the perfect person or the perfect time to get married is another year of our lives without it, and the truth is no marriage is ever perfect. They all have their flaws and conflicts, and the commitment to working at it together is the actual value, not some unachievable perfection for which we sit around waiting forever.

  The only thing better than Stella’s wisdom is Jeff’s even wiser response: ‘that’s nice. Now make me a sandwich.’

• Based Doyle: Likewise, detective Doyle has great, old-school perspective that sorely needs revival today. Don’t give me feelings - show me the facts. And most importantly, don’t give me female feelings. Doyle’s line to Lisa is a classic: ‘look, Miss Fremont - that feminine intuition sells magazines, but in real life, it's still a fairy tale. I don't know how many wasted years I've spent running down leads based on women's intuitions.’

• Authentic New York self-defense strategy: I appreciate the movie’s commitment to New York authenticity, like using a camera flash to defend yourself. Soon, Kathy Hochul will have these assault lights under control. Nobody needs that many bulbs.

Make me a sandwich

New York self-defense

THE WORST:

• Jeff and Lisa’s relationship to nowhere: Throughout the movie, there’s an implied premise that Jeff and Lisa’s relationship will develop into something meaningful. Stella urges marriage, Jeff resists, you expect some development, but then… nothing. Jeff and Lisa never get serious, there is no realization, and there is no proposal. Instead, their relationship moves none, and Stella’s advice goes completely untested and unrealized.

  In real life, James Stewart was 20 years older than Grace Kelly. Why this guy wouldn’t lock that down is the real mystery of the movie.

• Where is the twist?: Likewise, with the movie’s mystery setup and Hitchcock’s typical twists (see Psycho), I expected some sort of shock or surprise. Perhaps Jeff was wrong the whole time. Perhaps someone he trusted was involved in the murder instead. Perhaps there was no murder at all, but something else nefarious that was misunderstood. Instead, it’s exactly what was suspected: Thorwald killed his wife, and the only ‘twist’ is that Thorwald gets some half-assed window drop revenge out of it, but doesn’t even finish the job.

  Thorwald hacked up his wife, and we don’t even get the decency of showing some of the hackery - the only direct proof is his confession, instead of the dismembered body parts that are implied. Surprise! It’s exactly what was suspected the whole time, and no, you can’t even see any of the gore. Jeff and Lisa’s relationship goes nowhere, and so too goes the movie’s suspense.

• Snooping is good, apparently: I also had higher hopes for the moral themes of the movie. There’s a glimpse of it when Jeff and Lisa discuss the principles of his window watching. Jeff asks Lisa, ‘do you suppose it's ethical to watch a man with binoculars, and a long-focus lens, until you can see the freckles on the back of his neck, and almost read his mail - do you suppose it's ethical even if you prove he didn't commit a crime?’ Lisa responds, ‘I'm not much on rear window ethics.’ Jeff concludes, ‘of course, they have the same chance. They can look at me like a bug under glass, if they want to.’

  There are so many deep moral themes here - whether it’s right to spy on your neighbor out of sheer suspicion, whether the fact that someone might or could do something shady to you justifies you doing something shady to him, and whether proving someone innocent is in fact the correct burden of proof.

  And yet, the movie leaves all of these themes entirely unexplored. I had hoped that Jeff’s snooping would not just get him punished by the window drop, but that he’d be led to the wrong conclusion. I had hoped there’d be a philosophical lesson against spying on your neighbor, beyond just an extra broken leg.

  Instead, the movie’s lesson is snooping is good, apparently. Snoop on your neighbor like a creeper because after all, you may solve a murder case. Jeff may have cracked this one, but there’s a fundamental immorality to what he’s doing, and I’d like to see that immorality explored further.

THE RATING: 3/5 Wickies. Enough decent dialogue and suspense to keep me mildly entertained, but lacking depth in twists and moral dilemmas.

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NEXT WEEK: Dances with Wolves (1990)

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