James Stewart, the main protagonist of
the film Rear Window, by
Alfred Hitchcock, focuses
specifically on his neighbor across the street, who he later suspects
is a murderer. I thought Hitchcock was particularly effective in
expressing this view, both thought the character and his decisions as
a director. The gaze is obviously a male dominated one, especially
for the time in 1954, but in this film I feel it exists mainly to
develop Stewart's character. His gaze, as the film progresses, often
looks upon female roles as a display where some of the females stand
out more than the man. Often times a light will be brighter on the
women, or you could see the character played by Stewart's eyes glance
over to the room of the beautiful women across the street.
As far as
characterization goes, Stewart wasn't the only person involved in
what some of the characters may have said was a voyeuristic crime,
but also the women accompanying him were caught in his gaze. The only
difference was that they weren't looking at the other women, but
would comment on the men doing so frequently stating that some of the
men had issues. I thought that the film was metaphoric for how men
treated women. In refutation from Stewart's character, he constantly
commented on the problems of marriage, and 'not being ready for it.'
Thus would result in his side long glances at the women in the
neighborhood, which is even stated by his nurse that he is a, “window
shopper.” These characterization's help the story move along,
giving validity to the story, since the story was about a terrible
men. It implies that men only want one thing and don't pay much
attention to anything else.