I refer all interested readers to the brilliantly remastered version of Hitchcock's 1954 thriller Rear Window, in which a bored and bedridden Jimmy Stewart (in a full-leg cast after a run-in with a racecar) witnesses what he thinks is a murder: his salesman neighbor's wife disappears the night that the salesman makes several early-morning trips out of the apartment, carrying a suitcase, in the rain. The movie itself is shot entirely from Stewart's vantage-point at his rear window and is a fascinating exploration of voyeurism, inference and 1950s haute couture.

Of course, there's a reason Hitchcock didn't use "Window Overlooking the Path Around Lowell House" instead of the movie's New York tenement. Here there are no suspicious Aryan costume-jewelry salesmen, few wives, no wardrobe like Grace Kelly's, no Yorkshire terriers and no soundtrack to speak of.

But the principle itself translates. At some imperceptible point in the middle of the movie, Jimmy Stewart's snooping shifts from being the forgivable voyeurism of a bored man waist-deep in plaster to the important surveillance of a concerned citizen. As soon as he and Grace Kelly convince themselves they've seen a murder, scruples are thrown to the wind.

I, for one, am willing to leave sleuthing to the movies. I have no desire to involve myself in sorting out the trysts which are negotiated and trumped under my window, or join in the rousing ballads of my musically gifted neighbors. I find the world of people I legitimately know to be complex and interesting enough.

Of course, if I spot a costume jewelry salesman or meet a man like Jimmy Stewart, it may be a different story.

(Rear Window is now showing at the Brattle Theater.)

Maryanthe E. Malliaris '01 is a mathematics concentrator in Lowell House. Her column appears on alternate Tuesdays.