Rear Window: point of view

Rear Window uses the shot-reaction shot sequence common to classical cinema (and Hitchcock's work): we see a character looking, then what he/she is looking at, then the character's reaction. In narrative and feminist theory, a character who controls the point of view (the gaze) holds power within the depicted world and directs audience identification:
When Jeff is talking to his editor about his vision of marriage as coming home to a nagging wife, he is watching the Thorwalds. (This is the first time the audience sees them.
Rear Window thematizes spectatorship. An important critical issue in feminist criticism has been whether the women in the movie ever have their points of view validated, as opposed to being restricted to serving as objects of the male (Jeff's and the audience's) gaze.
Lisa and Stella often share Jeff's point of view. This happens most often in reaction shots. Here, their different reactions to Miss Torso's juggling of wolves.

Watching Miss Lonelyhearts' abusive date: Jeff and Lisa share the point of view from the start, but he looks away while she continues watching.

Lisa's point of view?
"Where does a man get inspiration to write a song like that? . . . I wish I could be creative."
Critic Elise Lemire believes that this sequence is the first instance of Lisa's point of view apart from Jeff's. [The song she is reacting to is later revealed to be titled "Lisa."]

When Thorwald attacks Lisa in his apartment, the camera, and thus the audience's point of view, shifts from a dual point of view by Jeff and Stella to focus on Jeff's reactions alone, as if to emphasize his complicity in what is happening:
During the confrontation scene, we several times see Jeff through Thorwald's eyes. The audience is forced to identify, at least briefly, with Thorward, who is both the villain and the victim of Jeff's voyeurism and taunting. Also evoked is the film's earlier suggestions that Jeff has identified subconsciously with Thorwald's extreme solution to the marriage dilemma that they share.