Rear Window is a 1954 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story It Had to Be Murder. The movie stars James Stewart as photojournalist L. B. Jefferies, Grace Kelly as his fashion-model girlfriend, Lisa Carol Fremont, and Raymond Burr as the suspected killer, Lars Thorwald. The film combines its main theme, a murder mystery, with a critical examination of the ethics of marriage and voyeurism.
Hitchcock's fans and film scholars have taken particular interest in the way the relationship between Jeff and Lisa can be compared to the lives of the neighbors they are spying upon. Many of these points are considered in Tania Modleski's feminist theory book, The Women Who Knew Too Much. (ISBN 0-415-97362-7)[2]
* Thorwald and his wife are a reversal of Jeff and Lisa (Thorwald looks after his invalid wife just as Lisa looks after the invalid Jeff). However, Thorwald's hatred of his nagging wife mirrors Jeff's arguments with Lisa.
* The newlywed couple initially seem perfect for each other (they spend nearly the entire movie in their bedroom with the blinds drawn), but at the end we see that their marriage is in trouble and the wife begins to nag the husband. Similarly, Jeff is afraid of being 'tied down' by marriage to Lisa.
* The middle-aged couple with the dog seem content living at home. They have the kind of uneventful lifestyle that horrifies Jeff.
* The music composer and Miss Lonely Heart, the depressed spinster, lead frustrating lives, and at the end of the movie find comfort in each other (the composer's new tune draws Miss Lonely Heart away from suicide, and the composer thus finds value in his work). There is a subtle hint in this tale that Lisa and Jeff are meant for each other, despite his stubbornness. The piece the composer creates is called "Lisa's Theme" in the credits.
The film received four Academy Award nominations: Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock, Best Screenplay for John Michael Hayes, Best Cinematography, Color for Robert Burks, Best Sound Recording for Loren L. Ryder, Paramount Pictures. In 1997, Rear Window was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". This film was ranked #14 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills. It was ranked #48 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition). To this day, the film gets a 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window
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