By Jeremy Ambrose

Warning: The essay below discusses many crucial plot points including the film’s ending. Watch the film first and read the essay afterwards.

In the latter half of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Rear Window, Lisa bemoans to her wheelchair bound beau, Jeff, (a luminous Grace Kelly alongside the ultimate everyman James Stewart) the ghoulish reality that they are disappointed by the possibility Thorwald, from the apartment across the yard, may not have killed his wife. She quips, “Whatever happened to that old saying: ‘Love thy neighbour?’”

More than just an amusing line, I want to suggest that herein lies one of the more significant issues raised by the Catholic formed Hitchcock in this wildly entertaining film. What begins as witty repartee finds its dramatic fleshing out a little later in the film, when one of the women in the apartment block discovers her dog has been strangled to death. She cries out in despair, crushed by the cruel killing of an innocent pet, gaining the attention of all her neighbours as she rebukes them:

Which one of you did it? Which one of you killed my dog? You don’t know the meaning of the word “neighbour.” Neighbours like each other, speak to each other, care if anybody lives or dies. But none of you do! You don’t talk, you don’t help, you … you don’t even see. But I couldn’t imagine any of you being so low that you’d kill a little helpless, friendly dog! The only thing in this whole neighbourhood who liked anybody!

The words cut to the heart of all who hear it, including the viewer, becoming an indictment of a culture that has forgotten what the word ‘neighbour’ means. It offers a new ‘window’ by which to view the film through, elevating it from being a wonderfully crafted and suspenseful film to one that also holds a mirror up to the cracks in our own society.

Made over 60 years ago, Hitchcock’s film seems even more pertinent to our current age. We too find ourselves in a culture surrounded by windows to peer through; only, the windows have now become virtual ones. The age of social media provides endless windows, instituting voyeurism under the title of ‘friendship’ and erasing any concept of neighbourliness in the process. Never before have we been able to see more vastly into the lives of others and never have we seen so little. It is an age of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of ‘friendships’, yet an age that struggles for human connection. Technology has moved the whole world ‘next door’, yet how many people experience what it means to be somebody’s neighbour?

“A race of peeping Toms”

Rear Window offers a clear view of some uncomfortable truths about our culture and ultimately about ourselves. Although made in 1954, Jeff remains the perfect model of the modern man, with his blind spots and flaws, things that cripple him and keep him wheelchair bound. He is so preoccupied with looking out his window that he is unable to look deeply within himself. Stella proves to be the sage of the film when she comments, “We’ve become a race of peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change.” She has diagnosed the spiritual paralysis Jeff (and our culture) suffers. He cannot bear to be alone with himself, so he seeks the readily supplied distraction of looking outside into the lives of others. Like the modern man today, he fears processing his own emotions, seeing his own defects and admitting his own shortcomings. Instead of sitting with himself, he gazes through his window searching for satisfaction out there, effectively becoming addicted to the search.

The modern man with his smart phone is also fearful of stillness, silence and his own sinfulness. He too escapes introspection by scrolling through his newsfeed in an endless search for something to satisfy him. He is given glimpses into other people’s lives and he continues scrolling, not knowing what he needs to be satisfied but believing it will be just around the corner. For Jeff, something is actually found in the possibility of a murder committed, whereas, for most of us the search continues on in a meaningless loop. The potential murder offers a reason for the gaze outside, legitimising Jeff’s escape from himself. But he can only put it off for so long, such that, when the climax arrives he finds himself cornered with his own limitations, vulnerability and inability to escape. It is only in leaving his own window (even if it is falling out of it) that he enters the realm of the real world and becomes an authentic member of a community rather than the removed cynical observer. His fall out the window causes the other residents of the block to rush outside too, finally becoming ‘neighbours’ to each other.

Jeff’s gaze out the window is not the only problem facing the modern man. Rather, the quality of the gaze itself becomes an even greater issue. He looks without seeing. If he could see, he would turn away from his window, recognising the sacredness and awe of another person’s life. The woman who rebukes her neighbours for the loss of her dog could be speaking directly to Jeff when she says “you don’t even see.” The words accuse and convict, not only Jeff and his neighbours, but all of us. How often do we find ourselves in the midst of a gaze where we look without seeing? Do we see the dignity of the person when we see the other? There are moments of revelation for Jeff in this, like when he witnesses Miss Lonelyhearts’ heartbreak, feeling shame and knowing he has seen too much.

Again, Rear Window challenges our modern, online gaze, where we see people without seeing the inherent human dignity of the person. This is why it is so easy to tear apart and denigrate any person with a differing opinion. This is also why the porn industry thrives, an indictment of our culture that reveals our own flawed ability to see.  Pope John Paul II unmasked the heart of the problem when he said, “the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.” In the world of pornography we are shown bodies but not people, their dignity denied by the exploitation done to them, such that we “don’t even see” the person.

The widespread use of pornography means a whole generation has been trained to look without seeing. To look with lust is to miss the human person. People appear as objects of pleasure rather than persons.  Jeff too mistakes people for objects when he sees them from his window, distant and detached. Although he sees his neighbours, he cannot see that they are his neighbours, and so he misses his calling in relation to them, just as they miss their calling to each other – the call to ‘love thy neighbour’. He is the typical photographer; capturing moments, snapshots, but missing the whole sequence of continuing time that those moments belong to. In his limited vision he remains unable to open himself up to communion, unable to commit, because people can only commit to other people, not to objects.

In some way, it’s comparable to the detached way by which he views Lisa. He sees her beauty and he sees why she would be a worthy partner, but he actually does not see who she is or the depth of her character and thus is in danger of missing the person. The power of his gaze (and the lack of scope within it) means he can only recognise his desire for self-gratification, not the call to make a gift of himself. It is only when he witnesses Lisa climb into Thorwald’s window putting herself in the midst of great danger that he actually begins to see her. In recognising her adventurous spirit and unfailing courage, his eyes are opened to her dignity and the reality that beneath the glamour is a person.

The Dynamism of Commitment

Rear Window is a film about persons. The lesson it offers is that, once we start to see people as persons, we start to recognise persons as neighbours and finally see our calling towards them. ‘Love thy neighbour’ may simply be recognition of the human need for communion, allowing ourselves to enter into it and creating community in the process. The fear of commitment, however, must be overcome because being a neighbour requires commitment.

It is the problem Lisa faces in her relationship with Jeff. Jeff cannot commit, yet realises that Lisa, once seen as a person, requires commitment. His passivity becomes a sort of impotence, visually realised for us by his confinement to wheelchair. The realisation of this impotence takes place when he watches on helplessly as Lisa faces danger in the window across the courtyard, which awakens him to his unstated commitment to her. Commitment creates dynamism, the opposite of passivity and it flows on into service of community, rippling through to create neighbourhoods and neighbours. Perhaps the most accurate name for this dynamism is love. Love then battles such evils as alienation, loneliness and murder. It also transforms people into neighbours.

The clearest image of “neighbour” depicted in Rear Window is through the “type” of the musician. A musician by nature creates something which transcends himself. His vocation is outward facing, contributing something to the larger community. His music has a “dynamism” that travels across spaces, through walls and windows, bringing together notes in harmony and forming bridges between people. We witness the transcendental power of music give hope to Miss Lonelyhearts, pulling her out of herself and her own depression. Music becomes something akin to ‘love,’ the true spiritual good that saves and brings people together.

The photographer, on the other hand, could be seen as the “anti-type” of this, as his business is in framing images, introspection, separating individual parts from the whole. He is the voyeur, apart from the community, looking in. Here, we even see photography used as a weapon, with Thorwald blinded and thwarted by Jeff’s flash bulbs.

Both “types” demonstrate approaches towards community and the possibilities of one’s interior life, moving towards either communion or isolation. Jeff’s journey through the film sees a conversion of sorts, leading to him eventually putting down the lens. As the musician’s music moves and inspires Miss Lonelyhearts, likewise Jeff is moved and inspired by love of Lisa. The natural dynamism of being a neighbour has begun.

The final scene of the film is bookended by two images of this communion, suggesting the change brought about by the events of the film. The first is the musician’s window, now also containing Miss Lonelyhearts, two neighbours united. We pass by all the other windows, where neighbours seem to have found a kind of peace (except that one bickering couple has been replaced by another). They exist as many parts that make up the grander whole: the neighbourhood. Finally we come to Jeff’s own room, where he is no longer looking out his window but finally is at ease, peacefully asleep in his chair, and on the bed we see Lisa, a new “neighbour”, made so by Jeff’s commitment to her (at least assumed so by us). Will it last? Hitchcock ends on a comical uncertainty but after the transformative experience of love and neighbourliness, we have every reason to hope.