There are two main themes in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, voyeurism and marriage. Many believe that Rear Window "is a metaphor and study in making and viewing a film."" The opening shots of the film show the blinds of Jeff's apartment being raised to reveal the courtyard. The blinds resemble stage curtains rising before a performance and suggest to the audience that they are in for a show. Jeff soon becomes obsessed with watching his neighbours and we, the audience, share his obsession. We know it is wrong to spy on others, watch people who are unaware they are being watched. Rear Window is a film about a man who does on the screen what we do in the movies "Look through a lens at the private lives of strangers.
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"Rear Window takes place during a New York heat wave. More than a plot device explaining why everyone has their windows open, the heat intensifies a crisis for which it also serves as a metaphor."" It also means Jeff has easy access to entertainment and quickly becomes obsessed with watching his neighbours. As the film progresses Jeff becomes so infatuated with his window-gazing he starts looking through binoculars and his camera's telephoto lens. .
Roger Eebert writes that"Jeff is in love with the occupation of photography, and becomes completely absorbed in reconstructing the images he has seen through his lens. He wants what he can spy at a distance, not what he can hold in his arms."" Everyone directly involved in Jeff's life believes that he should get married to Lisa but according to Jeff, Lisa is "too perfect."" Whenever the question of marriage crops up, his leg itches under the plaster, he feels an uncontrollable urge to scratch.
All Jeff's neighbours relationships relate to the various stages his relationship with Lisa could be at. There is Miss Torso' who Jeff believes is just like Lisa, Miss Lonelyhearts, who Jeff fears he might become and the Thorwald's, a marriage that ends in murder.