Hitchcock calls Rear Window "the purest expression of a cinematic idea...a whole film from the viewpoint of one man." Jimmy Stewart's position in the film, of course, directly parallels that of the viewer at the cinema: we're all voyeurs as we sit immobilized in our chairs gazing through the rectangular window of the screen at the intimate lives of people unaware of our fascinated gaze. But Stewart's character, again like the movie spectator, doesn't just observe; he projects into the lives of his neighbors his own plots, his own narratives, and eventually (if for no other reason than he's in a Hitchcock film) he begins to suspect he sees evidence of a murder. The real moment of horror is when the suspected murderer returns his gaze and comes to get him. Our terrible longing for murderous violence, the very desire that sends us to Hitchcock films, becomes a terrible reality, the punishment of a nightmare come true. -Marilyn Fabe