One of the great things about small movie houses are the consistent screenings of older films. Rear Window has always fascinated me with its timeless portrayal of society and voyeurism. This movie was originally suggested to me at the end of college as I was finalizing a photo documentation project of random houses at night. But recently I got to see it on the big screen, and it reminded me of my fascination with voyeurism. The concept of what happens in the comforts of other people’s homes is an integral part of the film as the main character is temporarily ridden to a wheelchair with nothing but a window to the outside. He becomes engulfed in the lives of those around him; strangers, neighbors, and people whose lives may be less interesting than his own state of seclusion. But the more he indulges, the more he starts to make assumptions about those who have their lives on display.
Meanwhile, the whole time he feels no remorse for his invasive “spying”. These people could close their windows, but they want to see outside their own lives too. They want to be the subject as much as an observer. It’s interesting because this same duality exists in contemporary culture with social networking sites and technology. It’s completely feasible today to intentionally let someone monitor your location based on GPS in your cellphone. You can Twitter every mundane detail of your life for the world to read. I can write this blog projecting that I may have an audience. So in the same ways as looking through a window to watch your neighbors, we are all voyeurs in the ways we pry through the assumed realities of someone’s facebook profile.
As a result, should it be assumed that our privacy should be honored. In the film, the main character’s voyeurism leads to suspecting murder which toggles his morals about whether his “peeping” has a purpose. The suspense of this crime being real or a paranoid observation is how Hitchcock successfully arcs the storyline. But our real lives don’t offer that sense of excitement, solving crimes for our voyeurism. We just find out things we probably would be better off not knowing to satisfy our boredom with ourselves.
