Rear Window - Bradley Strickland

The apartments, or cages so to speak, that the tenants inhabit in Rear Window emphasizes the isolated lives that they live from one another. The film shows us over and over characters who shut themselves off (like the newlyweds) and who never leave their apartments (like Miss Lonelyhearts, Jefferies, and the murdered wife). Even when the characters do interact it is often negative for instance the murderer and his hatred for the neighbor’s dog.

While the mise en scene emphasizes isolation, the diegetic sound in the film serves to connect and unify the lives of the individuals in the apartment complex.

Much of the sound of this film centers on the pianist, one of the tenants. Hitchcock uses the pianist’s music to unify the people. His playing can be heard by all in the complex and serves as a soundtrack for all sorts of lovers and even prevents Miss Lonelyhearts from committing suicide. The music of the pianist literally brought him together with Miss Lonelyhearts, who adored his music. Also, when Lisa first hears the song she tells Jefferies that it was written for them. The pianist coming back to his piano and knocking off the sheet music in a drunken manner is symbolically in response to Jefferies feeling that Lisa is no longer the girl for him. However, the completion of the song at the end of the film symbolizes Jefferies realizing that he actually loves Lisa.

The true beauty of his music is that by connecting the people of the apartment, it connects their stories. Hitchcock allows the sounds of the apartment (specifically the pianist’s music) to create a community of marriages and lovers. This is truly effective because his music is used to tell the story of a wide range of relationships and marriages while relating couples to each other. For instance, it seems that Lisa and Jefferies’ relationship parallels to the murderer and his wife in that both the wife and Jefferies are being taken care of by their lover. The music shows us the ups and downs of these relationships and shows us that we all have these, but love is the only thing that can keep couples together and is the only thing worth a completed song. No one in the movie is unaffected by the pianist’s song, which is actually everyone’s song.