REAR WINDOW, MOVIE 1954
Rear Window is a 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie, starring James Stewart as a wheel chair bound professional photographer, following a work accident, with Grace Kelly playing the girlfriend. I’ve always counted it as one of my favourites. Quite obviously the golden haired Miss Kelly is like a moving painting of class as she changes costume in every scene. Then the compulsive nature of Jimmy Stewart’s acting at its finest.
The movie though resounds beyond even its stars, as it reached into the 21st Century. Miss Kelly remarks “Have…we all become voyeurs ..I’m not much on rear window ethics, as boyfriend Stewart watches every move that his neighbours make in their lives. Is social media not the same, as we watch people living their lives online, with entrance to their homes? Are we not voyeurs too?
We share so much of our lives without even thinking about it these days. The computer screen and mouse have replaced the twitching of curtains, and, yes, the rear window itself. We follow others lives on a daily basis sharing their meals, family life, moods, music and social life. People fall in love through this “rear window” and bonded friendships are formed over many years. In this sense, the new rear window is just as real as the old one was.
For Grace Kelly, we have numerous photographs of new dresses and outfits online. For Jimmy Stewart we have people acting out their lives online. It may well be the case that the means change as in an actual window, though the end remains the same: our longing to peer into the lives of other people, seeing how it is different for them. In this way social media has become a magnet of attraction and addiction to the common human experience.
Alan Ewing, October 2017
Links
Watch movie ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-9OHkRiryw
Wikipedia ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window
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