Prepping the viewer for 'Rear Window'

The opening scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window set the stage for the movie.  The reason for the name of the movie becomes apparent in the first few minutes.  As the movie title and credits start, we see that we are in a room with a large picture window.  There are three shades that cover the window and the shades, one by one, start to lift to reveal the view from the rear window.  As the shades rise, the picture fills with light and eliminates the shadows that were in the room; thus illuminating the viewer with knowledge that is about to be displayed.

The camera then zooms to the buildings across the courtyard, which the viewer can see are apartments.  The camera then starts to pan around to the different apartments showing us activity going on within the homes.  The camera here is a voyeur showing us what the individual who dwells in the apartment in which the camera resides can see at any given time.  The camera then pans back inside the apartment where we see the open window of the apartment, a view of a sleeping Jimmy Stewart who is sweating and then to the thermostat in the apartment showing that it is very hot inside the apartment.

The camera then returns to the courtyard view and starts to pan in on the apartment residents within view of Jimmy Stewart's apartment.  The camera zooms in to show us more detailed information about some of his neighbors; a man shaving who has to stop to adjust his radio, a man awakens from sleeping out on the porch (presumably where it is cooler) and then a woman awakens also, another apartment shows a woman who is getting dressed, starting her day and dancing around her kitchen, and another apartment is hanging a bird cage outside.

The camera then returns to the inside of Jimmy Stewart's apartment and pulls back, revealing that Jimmy's character is in a wheelchair and has a cast on his leg.  This view that the camera has just shown us, is the center of Jimmy's world at present as he is a prisoner in this apartment with this limited view.  The camera then starts to detail to us, in a more shadowed frame, the story of how Jimmy Stewart came to have a broken leg.  The camera pans to a desk to show us a mangled, broken camera and photos on the wall of a car crash (perhaps the photo that led to the broken leg), a fire and other images.  Then, framed on the wall, we see a photograph with the negative image of a woman.  As the camera continues to pan, we see two stacks of magazines, the cover of one of the stacks reveals the actual image of the framed negative image we have just seen, the image of Grace Kelly. This juxtaposition makes one wonder about the negative image.  Is this framed negative image important because of the image it holds or is it because Jimmy Stewart has a special relationship with Grace Kelly and therefore his image of her must be as individual as their relationship?

From these quick images, the viewer can gather that this is the apartment of Jimmy Stewart's character who is forced to look out his window for entertainment during his confinement.  He has broken his leg, presumably as part of a photojournalist assignment, and he has a special place in his heart for Grace Kelly.