Review of Rear Window (1954) by Norman B — 26 Oct 2013

Peeping tom alert! Hey if I had an opportunity to look at a woman dancing around in her bra and panties I would do it to ^_^. L. B. Jefferies who is a photographer confined to a wheelchair after breaking his leg he receives a call from his editor. Jeff tries to talk his way into an assignment, but he still has a week before his cast comes off. He has kept himself entertained at the bay window of his apartment. New York is under a heat wave, and Jeff's neighbors in the building across the courtyard keep their blinds raised 24 hours a day.

Stella a smart mouth talking nurse from the insurance company visits Jeff. She warns Jeff, I can smell trouble right here in this apartment. First you smash your leg. Then you get to lookin out the window. See things you shouldn't see. Trouble. Jeff agrees there is about to be trouble. His fashion model girlfriend wants him to marry her, but he'd rather fly off to Pakistan than confine himself to Park Avenue. He has decided to break up with her. Jeff wakes up from a nap to find girlfriend Lisa Carol Fremont staring into his eyes. She then prepares dinner. He introduces her to the characters across the courtyard. Miss Torso is a ballet dancer (The lady in her bra and panties :) ), Miss Lonelyheart is a sad single woman, and Mr. Thorwald who is a jewelry salesman berated by his wife. Jeff tells Lisa he doesn't want to get married. When he proposes they keep things "status quo" for now which was his choice.

Jeff all of a sudden hears a scream outside his window. A thunderstorm wakes him later that night, and he observes suspicious behavior from Mr. Thorwald. Jeff notices mysterious departures, a knife, a saw and a rope, long distance phone calls, and Mrs. Thorwald nowhere to be seen. Using a zoom lens for an even closer inspection, Jeff believes foul play is taking place. Stella then believes something is odd as well. She decides to investigate Thorwald's building, while Jeff can do little more than watch. When Thorwald learns he's being watched, he decides to pay his neighbors a visit. The cool thing is how the premise of Rear Window represents the very idea of watching movies. Hitchcock turns the camera towards the audience, and examines the reasons why people have a strange curiosity toward others. The center figure, the photographer Jeff throughout the plot is constantly peering and spying on others. With his binoculars and high zoom camera, he can see just about anybody in his sights in perfect detail. This voyeurism is wrong and creepy to the majority of people, but how different is it compared to someone watching a movie? When we watch a film we are seeing complete strangers during a certain timeframe of their own lives. What is it that makes us interested in seeing these stories?

Hitchcock doesn't only tell one story, he tells multiple stories each with its own arc. Like when Jeff looks around to the other apartment windows and sees everyone else, the characters presented are just as fleshed out as those in the main plot thread. We have the dancing Miss Torso and her hope that her lover will soon return home, or the piano dude who struggles with writing his next piece. The older couple that sleeps on the fire escape (Kind of odd to me but to each his own) also makes an impression, as well as the newlyweds who handle their business behind closed shades. Miss Lonelyhearts has the saddest story, stuck home alone with a desire to find her one true love. And of course Lars Thorwald, the suspicious looking man whose wife mysteriously disappears. These are all presented visually and with little dialogue, and yet by the end we clearly understand how each of the stories are resolved, a credit to the superior editing and direction. This film proved it can withstand the test of time and is definitely a certified classic.