What I'm Watching: Rear Window
 Made in 1954, the overt
sexuality of Rear Window must have startled the audiences of
the time. Sexuality is certainly the source of the movie's most shocking
and emotionally uncomfortable moments. Hitchcock's casual leering commences
instantly with the witty opening tracking shot, as the woman dubbed
"Miss Torso" rises for the morning and puts on her bra. Had Hollywood
ever before shown a woman bend over and put on a bra?
Grace Kelly, in whom Hitchcock persuasively creates a perfect woman,
has the sexual confidence and complete allure that any normal man would
find irresistible. James Stewart, however, is a self-infantalizing
boy-man who'd rather watch than do. His masculinity is up to the job of
shooting risky photos in the war zone, but he's without bravery when it
comes to handling one of Kelly's kisses. His callowness during their
distressing lover's spat made me impatient with the script for its
overkill. Okay, he's feckless — would you now please show us what
she sees in him?
 Stewart in fact has no
masculine efficacy at all. He's impotent to protect Kelly when the heavy
nearly kills her as he watches, and is almost equally defenseless when
the heavy comes directly for him. And his helplessness is infectious.
Stewart, Kelly, and Ritter all watch as Miss Lonelyheart prepares to
kill herself. Perversely, they choose this moment to allow
someone a little privacy, and turn away as if there's nothing they could
do.
The most uncomfortable scene is no less so for the fact that
Hitchcock deliberately set himself an exercise in brutality. Miss
Lonelyheart brings home a man much younger than herself and, as she
romantically prepares drinks, the jerk flings himself on top of her.
It's a tribute to this "anything-can-happen" film that we are open to
the possibility that Hitchcock is going to consummate a rape before our
eyes. I have rarely felt such relief at the movies as when Miss
Lonelyheart manages to fight the guy off and push him out the door.
The most striking visual (in a movie chock full of 'em) is seen
through Burr's eyes as he advances on Stewart in the dark and is
repeatedly blinded by Stewart's hand-held flash attachment. The glowing
red after-image situates us creepily behind the villain's retina.
And the most amazingly contemporary line comes when his magazine editor
tells Stewart: "Kashmir — the place is about to go up in smoke!"
Stewart replies, "I told you that was the first place that was going to
blow!" (Fortunately, as I write this, tensions between India and
Pakistan seem to be lessening.)
Disturbing as it often is, ultimately this is a witty movie, a movie
whose underlying metaphor is the experience of watching movies. To
discern what's going on in this film, we have to peer through windows
ourselves, and work hard — as if we were at a silent picture
without the titles — to figure out what people are saying and
feeling by deciphering only body language and gesture. The way the music
is conceived is as brilliant as anything Kubrick later did. Rear
Window has no real "score," only the ambient music of what people
are playing in their apartments. Ironic counterpoint indeed!
Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I sure didn't feel that the
mystery got any kind of satisfactory explanation. To whom was Burr
making the long distance calls? Who was the woman the building superintendent identified
as Burr's wife? Who sent the exculpatory post card? How could Burr be so
fiendishly clever in murdering his wife and then so incriminatingly stupid in trying to kill
Stewart in full view of the neighborhood? The movie would be the greater
masterpiece had Hitchcock expended a tiny additional effort and
fulfilled the genre expectations he had put in place, as he did so well in Vertigo.
1:08:22 PM 
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Although they lost, the
New Jersey Nets salvaged their honor tonight. For the first time in this
series they played as if they belonged on the same court as the Lakers.
An impressive run in the fourth quarter, in which they gained the lead
for the first since the first minute of the game, made it suddenly seem
possible that they could actually win and keep their playoff hopes
alive.
Speaking of 