Light and Heat as Closeness in Rear Window
The introduction of protagonist L.B. Jeffries in the opening sequence of Rear Window correlates his proximity to the thermometer on his apartment wall with the implication of inescapable heat in a New York summer, and his inescapable position as a voyeur to the intricacies of his neighbors’ lives. The light from his window the first morning shown illuminates the sweat forming on his brow, and the restlessness he experiences sedentary in his cast. The thermometer in this scene is shown well above 90° but at the end of the film, the thermometer is shown around 70°, not only to show the passage of time through the summer, but the change in Jeffries’ mentality regarding the stagnancy of his life. In the beginning of the film, he felt trapped in his relationship with Lisa Fremont because of her perceived perfection and his stunted position as a traveling photographer. Though his body is still confined to the wheelchair at the end of the film, these things he previously believed to be perfect, or even real, no longer constrain him. Shown through Hitcock’s use of light and heat, the evolution of Jeffries’ character comes through his observation of what’s before him, and the illuminated reality underneath it all.
Because of the New York summer heat, most of the apartments Jeffries watches have their windows open at one point or another, and through these openings Jeffries becomes an audience to their lives. Walter Benjamin describes this phenomenon in the realm of film theory through the concept of the aura, or the contexts and histories that reside in the distance between two objects, defining one of them in the process. In film, the distance between actor and audience is immeasurable, so aura dissipates in the process (Benjamin 720). For Jeffries, he doesn’t recognize the lack of aura in his own observations as an audience to their lives, thus Hitchcock creates a suspended distance that closes through the use of light. In Ms. Lonelyheart’s apartment, lit candles and lamps are gradually introduced throughout the film as more of her life is revealed, and Ms. Torso’s dimmed business affairs construe her image to Jeffries, but her true self is shown when she dances alone in the light of day, or the morning her husband comes home from the army. In the confrontation between Thorwald and Jeffries, Jeffries himself uses his camera bulb to create light and heat, illuminating the reality of Thorwald’s aura and his true murderous nature. Lisa’s role grounds Jeffries’ observations in reality through not only her judicious nature, but in her constantly illuminating Jeffries space by lighting candles or turning on lamps. Reality then emerges through a combination of the surveillance he issues on his neighbors throughout the film and the ways in which light conveys the reality of their lives.