A Tribute to Photography and the Movies

The Ten Best Movies About PhotographersNo. 1Rear Window, 1954
No question-this is the best movie about both a photographer and photography, working at every level. James Stewart plays an injured Life magazine photographer deprived of his powers (both his creative and sexual ones-the distinction between the two is pretty blurry). Confined to his apartment, where he is tortured by boredom and the warm presence of Grace Kelly, what is there left for him to do but become a voyeur, peeping on his neighbors with a long telescopic lens? His obsession becomes his redemption when he thinks he sees a murder, and the power of photography to elucidate our dreams is proclaimed when Kelly tells Stewart to "tell me everything you saw, and what you think it means."