Analysis of the movie rear window

Literatura e Cinema
Final Paper: A brief analysis of the movie REAR WINDOW

Rear Window tells the story of L.B. Jeffries, a photojournalist who is confined to his tiny apartment due to a broken leg. To pass the time between visits from his nurse, Stella, and his sophisticated girlfriend, Lisa, Jeffries stares through the rear window of his apartment at the goings-on of the other apartments around his courtyard. He develops a particular interest on the travelling salesman Lars Thorwald, who lives with a nagging, invalid wife. One afternoon, Thorwald pulls down his window shade, and his wife's incessant bray comes to a sudden halt. Jeffries suspects that Thorwald has murdered his wife. Although his hypothesis seems to lack evidence, we find out at the end that he was right. In the very beginning of the movie, curtains are being opened so the spectators can watch - just like the main character does - what is happening inside the house of the photojournalist Jeffries. It seems like the screen is a kind of a window too, which gives us the possibility to see the life of other people. Jeff was bored with his 7 weeks rest, so he decided to give himself some entertainment by watching his neighbors’ lives through his window. When we get bored we often go see a movie which basically shows the life story of other people. And just like we chose what kind of movie we want to see, Jeff also is more interested in some windows than others, so he chooses what to see too. So, in this film we have two narrators: Jeff, who chooses what is being shown on the screen, what windows we are going to see (like his nurse said, he is a “window shopper”); and the camera, which is filming everything exactly how it’s happening from the particular angle of the shooting. It is interesting that, after the curtains from the beginning are completely opened, the camera shoots a general view of Jeff’s courtyard with his neighbors, and in this take we can see a