Rear Window Film Review Dawn B
ARTS/100 Introduction to the Visual and Performing Arts June 24, 2013

Alfred Hitchcock was considered the master of suspense, and with very good reason. Hitchcock had a very productive film making career in which he made 53 major films. His production of Rear Window, a movie based on the short story by Cornell Woolrich titled, “It Had to be Murder” ("A Work In Progress,” 2013) is one of his most famous. I have seen Rear Window several times over the years, the first time in an art house theater in Lake Tahoe, California. It is my favorite Hitchcock film, and I looked forward to watching again. I relaxed in my recliner with a glass of wine to enjoy this Hitchcock masterpiece after everyone had gone to bed on Thursday evening, June the 20th. Rear Window opens on an apartment complex courtyard- peering into the windows of the people who live there. The camera tracks up and shows the audience a woman getting ready for the day. The camera tracks down and to the left to see the milkman walking away and into the street behind the building before tracking back around to the protagonist, L.B. Jeff Jefferies (James Stewart) in his apartment. A close up on Jefferies reveals the sweat on his forehead before cutting over to a wall thermometer showing how hot it is. Panning over, viewers get a closer look at the various people from the apartment across the street. The viewer sees a neighbor with shaving cream on his face as a radio announcement is being made. The film cuts back to a man and his wife on the balcony, awakened by the alarm clock, and then pans down and to the left to show a woman, who appears to be a dancer. The audience learns that Jeff has a broken leg, and as the camera cuts to a plaster cast. The audience can see the writing “Here lies the broken bones of J.B. Jefferies” (Hitchcock, 1954). The audience can infer from various pictures including a terrible car crash and a broken camera on the table that his injury was suffered at a racetrack. The audience learns Jeff has been incapacitated for seven weeks, and while recuperating occupies his time by watching his neighbors out the window. The window is presented as a cinema-like view for Jeff, giving the film its voyeuristic nature. Each window is like a short, silent film within the film that portrays a different aspect or emotion from Jeff’s own life. He has given nicknames to the neighbors, based on his observations of their behavior. There is “Miss Lonely Hearts,” “ Miss Torso,” “The Musician,” “The Couple with the Dog,” “The Thorwalds,” “ The Newlyweds,” and “The Artist.” (Hitchcock, 1954). Thorwald, played by Raymond Burr, becomes the focus of Jeff’s attention, when after an argument, the wife is no longer seen and piecing clues together, such as a suitcase, saw, a trip in the rain in the middle of the night with a suitcase. His suspicions are further aroused by a freshly dug spot in Thorwalds garden, Jeff suspects the wife has been murdered. He must convince his girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly), his detective friend Doyle (Wendell Corey) and his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) of this alleged crime. As the movie progresses, Jeff convinces Lisa that Thorwald is guilty and lures him away from his apartment with a phone call. Lisa breaks into Thorwald’s apartment, where she finds Mrs. Thorwald’s wedding ring, something a woman would not leave the house without. The evidence mounts, indicating that Thorwald did indeed murder his wife, and the film ends with Thorwald going to Jeff’s apartment, where a struggle ensues. Jeff uses the flashbulb on his camera to temporarily blind Thorwald, but Thorwald manages to push him out of a window. Thorwald immediately confesses his crime, and the movie ends with Jeff still in a wheelchair, but with two broken legs, and finally married to Lisa. The characters are well developed in this film. James Stewart’s portrayal of L.B. Jeff Jeffries is done wonderfully. Jeff is a voyeuristic, mildly self- pitying, somewhat ungrateful guy who tired of being stuck in his apartment. Grace Kelly plays Lisa Fremont, Jeff’s underappreciated girlfriend. Her slow motion introduction, followed by a close up from Jeff’s point of view shows the viewer a beautiful woman, who we also know to be a model, from the magazine cover in Jeff’s apartment. She shows that she is more than just a pretty face on the cover of a magazine however. She is smart, willing to take risks, and utterly devoted to Jeff, despite his seeming disinterest. Stella, the sassy insurance company nurse played by Thelma Ritter, tries to play matchmaker for Lisa and Jeff. She also has very strong opinions about Jeff’s hobby of watching the neighbors. "We've become a race of peeping Toms" (Hitchcock, 1954). The main plot is suspense, but the secondary and even more important plot is the romance between Lisa and Jeff. Hitchcock worked carefully with the screenwriter to develop the subplot of Jeff and Lisa’s relationship. In fact, the marriage conflict between Jeff and Lisa is introduced in the beginning, when Jeff is talking to his editor about how bored he is- so bored he might be considering something as foolish as getting married (Hitchcock, 1954). Rear Window was shot on one giant set, constructed on a sound stage. One of the largest indoor sets constructed in Hollywood at the time, it was 98- feet wide, 185- feet long, and 40- feet high. Twelve of the 32 apartments were fully furnished, as well as running water and their own electricity! (Rosenbaum, 2000). The set was so large, all of the lighting equipment that was on the Paramount Lot had to be used (Rosenbaum, 2000) in order to preserve the look of natural light. The use of shadows, light, and dark give the movie an almost film noire feel and are used masterfully to enhance the story. The entire movie is shot inside Jeff’s apartment, and every shot outside his apartment is looking out of his window. This element makes the viewer feel very much a part of the film, trapped in Jeff’s apartment with him. Jeff’s apartment reflects his profession as a photographer and his beloved bachelor lifestyle. The lighting and prop selection show Hitchcock’s perfect use of mise-en-scène- the whole opening sequence tells us Jeff’s background without any dialog ("Sbcc Film Reviews", 2012). The wardrobe is mostly focused on Grace Kelly’s character Lisa, with five separate outfits including one negligee. This prompts Jeff to make the comment that she “never wears the same dress twice” (Hitchcock, 1954). The rest of the cast is unremarkable in the wardrobe selections, with the exception of Miss Torso’s costumes, or lack thereof. Hitchcock was a master of point of view editing as Rear Window shows. The film is shown entirely from the perspective of one man in a wheelchair in his apartment. Hitchcock’s editing reveals a great deal about our character and the plot of the movie. Within the first few minutes, we know that it is 90 degrees, what James Stewart’s character does for a living and why he is stuck in a wheelchair without any lines being spoken. The editing also allows the viewer to feel the entrapment and confinement Jeff feels. Another of Hitchcock’s editing styles is his use of sound. Hitchcock believed that dialog and sound should be secondary to the story. There is not a soundtrack, per se, but natural sounds like birds, far off sounds of kids playing, and traffic noise. Hitchcock said that film editing should not be thought of in terms of "cutting" but more like assembly or Mosaic (Reynolds, 2013). Editing using today’s standards would use more sound, more dialog, focus less on the story, and the few special effects would definitely be more stylized, taking advantage of today’s technology. All of the elements of Rear Window are artfully put together like only Hitchcock could do. The choice of characters in Rear Window were perfect, James Stewart is the picture of the everyday man. Grace Kelly is beautiful and poised, playing the role of the pursuer rather than the pursued brilliantly. Thelma Ritter is funny, her insightful comments delivered realistically, with just the right amount of sass and wit. Wendell Corey is the perfect balance to Stewart’s character, giving reasonable explanations for what Jeff sees as suspicious behavior. Hitchcock’s use of lighting, set design, décor, prop placement, sound, storytelling, and editing make his films impossible to duplicate, as the film Disturbia attempted to do in 2007. The pace and subjective edits in Rear Window allow the film to have real and dramatic time in various scenes, such as when Jeff is watching his girlfriend Lisa, snoop around in the Thorwald’s apartment, nearly getting killed. Hollywood could not possibly make a movie like Rear Window with the same elements of suspense, romance, comedy, and fear, without resulting to massive editing and relying on technology and special effects. A exemplary Hitchcock quote according to "Think Exist" (2013), is “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” Hitchcock knew that the audience’s imagination was more powerful than any image he could put on the screen, and using this knowledge was able to manipulate his audiences. The use of graphic violence was not a plot device; rather the audience used the power of imagination. Watching a Hitchcock film like Rear Window is a complete psychological experience, and one I encourage everyone to indulge in.

References
A Work in Progress: Short Story Sunday: Rear Window. (n.d.). A Work in Progress. Retrieved June 23, 2013, from http://danitorres.typepad.com/workinprogress/2013/05/short-story-sunday-rear-window.html
Alfred Hitchcock quotes. (n.d.). Find the famous quotes you need, ThinkExist.com Quotations.. Retrieved June 23, 2013, from http://thinkexist.com/quotation/there_is_no_terror_in_a_bang-only_in_the/159798.html
Hitchcock, A. (Director). (1954). Rear Window [Motion picture]. United States: s.n.].
Reynolds, G. (n.d.). Presentation Zen. Presentation Zen. Retrieved June 22, 2011, from www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2013/01/visual-presentation-lessons-from-alfred-hitchcock.html
Rosenbaum, J. (n.d.). JonathanRosenbaum.com » Blog Archive » Backyard Ethics [REAR WINDOW]. JonathanRosenbaum.com » Featured Texts. Retrieved June 23, 2013, from http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=6414
SBCC Film Reviews. (n.d.). SBCC Film Reviews. Retrieved June 22, 2013, from sbccfilmreviews.org/?p=218944