Rear Window - Quotes + Notes

Question 1

Stella’s opinion of voyeurism

Answer 1

“We’ve become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their house and look in for a change.”

Question 2

Detective Doyle’s view on voyeurism

Answer 2

“That’s a secret, private world you’re looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private they couldn’t possibly explain in public.”

Question 3

Jeff questions his actions

Answer 3

‘I wonder if it’s ethical to watch a man with binoculars and a long-focus lens.’

Question 4

Jeff justifying his actions

Answer 4

‘Six weeks sitting in a two-room apartment with nothing to do but look out the window at the neighbours.’

Question 5

Stella’s joke about Jeff being caught out

Answer 5

‘’Judge, it was only a bit of innocent fun.’’

Question 6

Lisa becoming apart of Jeff’s act

Answer 6

‘OK, chief. What’s my next assignment?’

Question 7

Jeff’s view on Miss Torso

Answer 7

‘’She’s like a queen bee with her pick of the drones.’’

Question 8

Lisa about Miss Torso

Answer 8

‘’I’d say she’s doing a woman’s hardest job. Juggling wolves.’ AND ‘’Well, she picked the most prosperous looking one.’’

Question 9

Jeff during investigation of Thorwald

Answer 9

“That’s no ordinary look. That’s the kind of look a man gives when he is afraid somebody might be watching him.”

Question 10

Stella on intelligence

Answer 10

“Intelligence. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.”

Question 11

Jeff about his cast

Answer 11

‘Next Wednesday I emerge from this plaster cocoon.’

Question 12

Significance of opening scene

Answer 12

• Curtains rising, suggests beginning
• Similar to a theatre, start of entertainment
• Creates a sense of security and that we’re in a nice neighbourhood
• Not much privacy, all curtains are open

Question 13

Cinematography

Answer 13

• Lighting, used to reveal things (windows resemble TV screens, Jeff channel surfs through the various apartments)
• Also use to hide things, Jeff hiding in the dark, contributes to sense of drama, suspense and tension
• Kuleshov effect, a sequence of two shots is used to convey information more effectively than just a single shot (Jeff watching Thorwald)
• Photographic vignetting to merge our perspectives with Jeff’s (circular shadow gives effect that we are looking though long-focus lens), also has the effect of focusing on a certain character/scene

Question 14

Historical Contexts

Answer 14

• Post-war period, characterised by the interpersonal suspicion of the era
• Real fear in America of Communist influences and Soviet espionage
• McCarthyism, making accusations without such evidence
• Seen through Jeff’s disregard for his neighbours’ privacy and his unparalleled ability to jump to conclusions about them and exaggerated interpretations of his neighbours’ actions lead him to an irrational sense of suspicion
• Marriage was an aspiration which everyone expected to have

Question 15

Symbol of broken leg

Answer 15

• Broken leg, symbolises powerlessness and source of discontent, represents impotence and his apparent inability to feel sexual desire towards Lisa (Here lie the broken bones of L. B. Jefferies)

Question 16

Symbol of long-focus lens

Answer 16

• Long-focus camera lens, symbolises his passive male gaze and voyeuristic tendencies (broken leg traps him and camera lens transports him out of his apartment)

Question 17

Symbol of Lisa’s dresses

Answer 17

• Dresses, represents elegance and refinery whilst also communicating a degree of incompatibility with Jeff, but as film progresses, her wardrobe become much more practical and less ostentatious (reflects changes in her character)

Question 18

Stella

Answer 18

• Initially polices Jeff’s voyeurism and makes her disapproval clear
• Irony in that not only does Stella become increasingly implicated in Jeff’s point of view, but she also ends up joining Lisa in actively assisting him in his process of surveillance

Question 19

Doyle

Answer 19

• Doyle’s stance towards Jeff’s eager desire to play “amateur sleuth” builds on the representation of Jeff as struggling to maintain a sense of power and control without the authority that comes from his work
• Doyle’s use of reason and institutional authority of the law, reinforces Jeff’s feelings of powerlessness

Question 20

Lisa

Answer 20

• Never represented as someone who is lacking. Instead, her active and successful public life is placed in contrast to Jeff’s confinement to his apartment and obsession
• Lisa has expertise in the investigation as she is a woman that knows about other women
• She breaks the expectation of women at the time
• Challenges Jeff’s critique that she can’t fit into a mould, proves him wrong

Question 21

Jeff

Answer 21

• Suffers issues with his masculinity, narrow point of view, and anxiety about becoming trapped with Lisa
• He never actually does anything but is rather limited to watching and judging those around him (never took photos with his camera)
• Jeff becomes the defenceless victim at the end (contrary to traditional films where a male protagonist rescues a female victim)

Question 22

Miss Lonelyhearts

Answer 22

• Loneliness and unsuccessful search for love drives her to nearly commit suicide (also take pills)
• Salvation achieved through the beauty of music

Question 23

Voyeurism

Answer 23

• Voyeurism is a dangerous yet natural desire
• Neighbours inadvertently permit Jeff’s eyes wandering into their apartments by leaving their blinds up
• Commentary on social values and provokes its audience to examine habits of their own
• Viewers participate in Jeff’s voyeuristic behaviour (vicarious voyeur), kept in suspense through Jeff’s perspective
• When there’s something interesting to be seen, people tend to cast aside their reservations (eg. Lisa and Stella)
• Jeff has become an observer of life rather than a participant and, similar to the experience of watching a movie, immerses himself into the narrative of his neighbour’s lives, filling out the plot with his own opinions when details are missing, even ascribing each with a nickname
• Relates to McCarthyism at the time (fears of the spread of communism within America resulted in the heightening of political surveillance)

Question 24

Gender Roles

Answer 24

• Gender norms of the 1950’s contradict the relationship between Jeff and Lisa
• Jeff’s stubbornness (Chauvinism)
• Prevailing idea of masculinity that enabled Jeff and Doyle to presume their entitlement of looking at Miss Torso
• Women subvert most expectation
• Jeff’s expectation of Lisa’s inability to live his intrepid lifestyle is overturned by her heroism in investigating and confronting Lars Thorwald, even leading Jeff to declare that he was proud of her
• Despite the apparent objectification of Miss Torso as a shallow, physical presence who is expected to choose the wealthiest of suitors, her eventual choice of partner confirms that she is neither shallow nor superficially
• Display of changing times and when women shifted gender roles
• Traditional roles cans till be seen, Stella and Lisa caring for Jeff, expectation that women should be made up (eg. Lonelyhearts makeup and Lisa’s dresses), manner in which men spoke to women (eg. Jeff’s attitude toward Lisa and reference to nagging, Doyle’s belittling of women intuition)
• Women’s obsession with beauty and possessions is pivotal to figuring out that Mr. Thorwald killed his wife

Question 25

Marriage / Romance

Answer 25

• Marriage is viewed as a necessity and something that everyone will have
• Hitchcock comments that neither marriage nor singleness is perfect but that instead each is fraught with its own benefits and challenges
• Post-war American attitudes favoured marrying early and raising a family and these are apparent in Lisa’s expressed desire for a union with Jeff, Miss Lonelyhearts’ and Miss Torso’s attentions towards the men in their lives, and Stella and Doyle’s encouragement that Jeff settle down
• Married life follows trajectory (newlyweds vs Thorwald), Thorwald marriage broken down and nagging occurs, end of film newlywed wife’s nagging

Question 26

Community / Care / Compassion

Answer 26

• People can be lonely and feel isolated even when they live in close proximity to others
• Jeff views his neighbours as subjects in a study rather than as active players in life, each with a separate narrative, played out adjacently but not connected. The big movie screen Hitchcock simulates in the opening scene when the curtains are first opened lends effect here
• Stella’s position as a nurse, positions her as caring, expresses concern about lonelyhearts, yet joins in on the viewing
• Casual interaction occurs between the characters, but they most keep to themselves (isolation)
• Death of the fire escape couple’s dog results in the woman pleading about the human qualities that should define a neighbour, strikes some reactions from other characters (lonelyhearts returns dog’s body, torso, jeff and Lisa emotionally affected)
• Investigation into Thorwald results in Jeff, Lisa and Stella venturing outside their world and entering community
• Actions suggest that community cannot be built simply by putting people in close proximity but is based on active participation and reaching out to interact with others on a personal level (eg. Jeff phones police about lonelyhearts and songwriter’s tune entices lonelyhearts)

Question 27

Gunnison on wives

Answer 27

‘Jeff, wives don’t nag anymore, they discuss.’

Question 28

Jeff about stella

Answer 28

‘I can’t tell you what a welcome sight this is. No wonder your husband still loves you.’

Question 29

Jeff to lisa after solving murder

Answer 29

‘Gee, I’m proud of ya.’

Question 30

Doyle on feminine intuition

Answer 30

‘That feminine intuition stuff sells magazines but in real life, it’s still a fairy tale.’

Question 31

Lisa on women’s belongings

Answer 31

“A woman going anywhere but to the hospital would never leave home without her makeup.”

Question 32

Gunnison on Jeff’s singleness

Answer 32

‘It’s about time you got married before you turn into a lonesome and bitter old man.’

Question 33

Lisa about women

Answer 33

‘Women aren’t that unpredictable.’

Question 34

Stella about lonelyhearts

Answer 34

‘Isn’t there anybody in the neighbourhood who could cast an eye in her direction?’

Question 35

Stellla about lonelyhearys and music

Answer 35

‘Mr Jefferies, the music stopped her.’

Question 36

Lisa about murderers

Answer 36

“A murderer would never parade his crime in front of an open window.”