Tension and Interruptions

In this post I would like to write about the moment in Rear Window where Jefferies, stuck in his wheelchair, can do nothing but watch as Lars Thorwald confronts Lisa, who has snuck into his apartment. This moment, near the final culmination of the film, is intense – it is still uncertain to both the audience and to Jefferies whether or not Thorwald is a murderer, Lisa and Stella have snuck into the garden to dig for evidence, and the neighbor’s dog has been killed. Thorwald has been lured away– they don’t know when he will return.

The height of intensity in the moment of confrontation between Thorwald and Lisa is not uncertainty, but that of realization. Jefferies has been orchestrating this investigation from the beginning. Although his leg is broken, he is near recovery, and at no point during the film has this impacted his standing on any social platform. Lisa still cares for him, is in love with him, and is attracted to him, so he is still a “man”; he is still valued and wanted at his workplace so he is still capable; his war friend and now-detective Doyle still picks up his calls, so he is not unimportant.  But now, the power status of his unnoticed observations of his neighbors is abruptly reversed. Both the audience and Jefferies himself are confronted with the realization that he cannot move; as Lisa cries for his help, he can do nothing but watch and hope that someone else will be able to save her.

It is only in this moment of helplessness that he turns his face away, desperately, into Stella, and then back to Lisa; Jefferies cannot help but watch, just as he has been doing throughout the film.

This is also when the film’s continued use of the answered question and implications rises into one of the culminations of its finale. Will we know what happens to Lisa? Will she be saved? We know that Jefferies cannot save her, but he has been the one driving the film to each new conclusion. With the foundation of the plot destabilized, the fact that nothing has been certain throughout heightens the tension of the scene.

Lisa is saved – is she now in jail? Jefferies can no longer see her, but Thorwald has seen him. The previous scene with Lisa and Jefferies’ helplessness now lends itself to the next. Where before the film relied on what the characters do not know (they don’t know that Jefferies is watching; Jefferies doesn’t know if Thorwald is guilty), now the audience has been confronted with several knowns: Jefferies cannot move, and Thorwald – guilty or not – is dangerous and has been provoked by Jefferies.

The heightened tension in the previous scene ratchets up the tension in the next; the big realization of Jefferies’ lack of control makes the next more terrifying in its looming uncertainty.