Hitchcock’s 1954 classic Rear Window is often considered one of his very best. Based on Cornell Woolrich’s short story It Had to be Murder, Rear Window is a wonderfully crafted suspense thriller. It won four Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Screenplay for John Michael Hayes, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound Recording. In 1997, the film was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry and ranks at #14 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Thrills list. It is also one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time and ranks at #14 on IMBD.com’s Top 250.
James Stewart stars as L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, a professional photographer who is laid up in his Greenwich Village apartment after an accident that left him with his leg broken. Suffering from boredom, Jeff begins to spy a little on his neighbours through his window. The neighbourhood appears normal, as various people are going about their business. Hitchcock’s direction keys in on this point beautifully, as we never leave Jeff’s apartment viewpoint and always see things through his eyes. His neighbours become as interesting to us as they are to him. We share his obsession and, through the magic of the movies, we share in his life.
Jeff has two regular visitors to his apartment: Nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) and his fiancée Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly). Thelma Ritter is great as the nurse, getting all of the great lines and gifted with a wit of ice and iron. She predicts trouble for Jeff’s spying ways. Kelly’s Fremont is a rich young woman who is madly in love with Jeff. Jeff feels out of her league, however, and can’t wrap his head around the fact that she loves him so dearly. Soon enough, Lisa beings to feel a kinship with Jeff, possibly for the first time, as the pair share in the lives of those in the neighbourhood through Jeff’s rear window.
Eventually, Jeff begins to notice a strange series of events coming from an apartment across the way. A man, Thorwald (Raymond Burr), with a wife who spends all day in bed making life miserable starts to act strangely. One day, the wife is gone and Jeff begins to think the unthinkable. Suspecting that a murder has taken place, Jeff and Lisa begin to look for clues. Together with Stella, the group’s suspicions lead them to some pretty dangerous places and conclusions arrive naturally. Because we see things how Jeff sees things, the process is unique and innate, giving the audience a share in the experience rather than just an observational seat.
One of the more interesting things about Rear Window is how the relationships in the community parallel the relationship between Jeff and Lisa. For one thing, the relationship between Thorwald and his wife is a direct inversion of the relationship between Jeff and Lisa. Lisa takes care of Jeff, while Thorwald takes care of his invalid wife. The newlywed couple represent idealism at the start of a relationship, but as the shades are pulled up after days of lovemaking, arguments take place. This represents Jeff’s fear with Lisa, as he fears the “nagging wife” ideal and the notion of being tied down. Jeff also dreads an uneventful life, which is likely the idea that leads Lisa to become so invested in Jeff’s little mystery of the murdering neighbour.
Jimmy Stewart, who has appeared in four Hitchcock films, is always an interesting choice to play these sorts of roles. I consider him to be a bit of a Tom Hanks-type actor, as he is generally well-liked and perhaps more noted for characters we like. Yet in the fantasy sequences in It’s a Wonderful Life, there was a glimmer of darkness in Stewart. Hitchcock grabbed hold of that darkness and exploited it, turning Stewart into the ultimately believable character he plays in Rear Window. This is an important transformation because Jeff isn’t particularly a moralist or a do-gooder, as he might have been had any other director made this movie. Instead, Jeff is absorbed as a passive individual who often does not act and often forgets how.
It’s this nature that makes Grace Kelly the ideal opposite and the ideal counterpart. She is graceful; he is sweaty. She is dressed in fine gowns that cost thousands of dollars; Jeff is bumming around in tawdry pyjamas. She is elegant and refined; he appears a little rough around the edges. Their relationship functions as well as it could, seeing as how the pair appears to have little to nothing in common. Yet the effort that Lisa makes in the film is heartbreaking at times and the idea that Jeff almost barely realizes it until moments of danger seems pitch perfect for a Hitchcock character.
The tension in Rear Window is astounding and far exceeds all modern incarnations of suspense. As we watch various characters becoming trapped in ugly or dangerous situations, we cringe, we jump, we even sweat a little like Jeff sweats. It’s all a part of one of the most organic experiences ever put to the film. With Hitchcock’s masterful suspense, it’s really all about the build, the rush, and the foreplay. Rear Window is a stunning piece of filmmaking and arguably the best thriller of all time.
10/10
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