Thoughts on Rear Window

In Rear Window Hitchcock explores the loss of privacy and its effect on the individual. The action takes place in the early fifties but is even more applicable to today. As Jeffries watches his neighbors he relies more and more on what he perceives to be happening in their lives' as a standard against which to judge his own. One is reminded of today's reality television, the intrusion of the internet into our lives, and just the general inundation of media we are subjected to. There are two sides to this: one is the invasion of privacy of the ones being unknowingly (or not) watched, and the other is the effect on the voyeur himself. In Rear Window we are privy to the second, as we see Jeff wholly consumed by other people's realities to the detriment of his own.
Jeff's life is put on hold in Rear Window. This is in part unavoidable as he is in a cast and basically stuck in his apartment for eight weeks. But Jeff chooses to bring it wholly to a standstill by his obsession with what others are doing. He emotionally isolates himself from Lisa in favor of living his life vicariously through his neighbors and judging his own relationship according to his mostly inaccurate perceptions of them. Jeff's cynicism and fear about relationships is reinforced by what he sees. The couple with the dog reflects his fear of the loss of excitement as a relationship piles on years. He is deathly afraid to be stuck in an average boring marriage for the rest of his life; no more traveling the world to exotic locales taking pictures, but instead waking up everyday to the same apartment, the same woman, and the same routine. In Miss Torso Jeff sees a sort of ideal: a free person pursuing a career while fighting off the wolves who wish to tie her down. The newlywed couple and the Thorwalds seem to be the bookends of Jeffries' worst fear about marriage. The honeymoon seems to last only a few hours before the man is tied down by an all-too-demanding-wife. For Jeffries, this is how it all begins. And Mr. Thorwald, who is imprisoned by an ailing wife while he struggles to make ends meet and eventually decides that murder is his best option, is how marriage ends: in doom and misery.
Miss Lonelyhearts is the only counter to Jeffries' fear of commitment, as she offers up the reverse of being "stuck" in a relationship. She is instead stuck alone, and this must resonate strongly with Jeff as he is himself getting older and no doubt is afraid to grow old alone. He seems to relate more to her than any of the others, while finding in her a comrade who struggles on by herself. But in the end she too finds happiness through romance with the musician.
In the end things seem to turn out okay for Jeff and Lisa. Jeff has indeed solved a murder, which is unequivocally a good thing. But for his intrusion into the affairs of others he has suffered two broken legs and more home confinement, something that seems to border on torture for him. Perhaps he has learned his lesson though, and it is one that we can use today as well: turn off the television once in a while, get some distance from the "social" networking that is anything but social, and invest some time in your own life and relationships.