Rear Window

What is the significance of Jeff's cast in Rear Window?

The cast (along with making him incapable of movement at the end) renders Jeff impotent. Since he is incapable of physical pleasure, he is left with visual pleasure. The cast allows him to be less creepy looking through the window; what else is there for him to do? It also compounds his emotion when looking through the camera. When Lisa is seen through the binoculars, she is enchanting. Scopophilia, as Mulvey describes it, allows Jeff to exercise his attraction to her. "In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking ahs been split between active/male and passive/female... In their traditional exhibitionaist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayes, with thier appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness." The cast exemplifies and compounds the already explicit male gaze by not allowing the readers to question any other pleasure Lisa may be bringing Jeff.

What is the significance of the fastforwarding of characters toward the end of the movie?

The speeding up of characters through Jeff's perspective at the end allowed the audience to feel the same rushed frenzy that was happening in Jeff's mind. He is afraid for his life, and unable to move because of the cast so while (aside from the fact that they were running) things were happening at a normal pace for the rest of the characters. However given his adrenalized state, everything seemed to be happening much faster. Benjamin writes that "with the close-up, spaces expands; with slow-motion movement is extended." Hitchcock sort of plays off of this thought, but does it in a different manner. He allows speed to represent reality and instead of slowing it down he speeds it up. Both Hitchcock and Benjamin recognize film's ability to break open the laws of the physical world, and both see the power of movement as being one of those areas.