Alfred Hitchcock's Ideas

As a filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock was always acutely aware of the communal experience of moviegoing. Many of his characters are voyeurs, like Psycho's Norman Bates and, of course, L.B. Jefferies. By filming Rear Window from Jeff's point of view, Hitchcock places his viewer in Jeff's voyeuristic mindset. We only know as much information as Jeff knows, and Hitchcock deftly reveals Jeff's neighbors' narratives in compact little pieces so as to keep us wanting more, therefore aligning us with Jeff's point of view. Jeff feels trapped, and he can't help but watch the world outside him; he immerses himself in the lives of others as a way to avoid his own personal problems. Similarly, the moviegoer escapes from reality when we go into the movie theater. We want Jeff to be right about Thorwald because we relish the drama, we want a satisfying ending just as much as Jeff does - it's not like we are in any danger. Critic Donald Spoto writes, "Jeff places his own life and that of others in peril precisely because he has been an observer and not a participant in life - in a way, then, this photographer is the ultimate moviegoer as well as the moviemaker."