Rear Window
Review
by : Eric
Barker
Starring:
James Stewart (L. B. Jeffries), Grace Kelly
(Lisa Fremont), Thelma Ritter (Stella), Wendell Corey
(Tom Doyle), Raymond Burr (Lars Thorwald)
Directed by: Alred Hitchcock
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A magazine
photographer, laid up in a wheelchair for "six weeks, sitting
in a two-room apartment with nothing to do but look out the
window at the neighbors," becomes convinced he has witnessed
evidence of a gruesome murder across the courtyard.
As near
perfect as a movie can get, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
is arguably the Master's greatest film (see Notes), a virtual
textbook of film technique, and inarguably one of the greatest
of all Hollywood entertainments.
First,
it does everything a Hitchcock film is supposed to do, and
does it in duplicate: it is suspenseful to its core, building
slowly along a rising line of tension until the audience is
in total conspiracy with its protagonist, culminating in a
final thirty minutes that are the very definition of the edge-of-your-seat
finale; it has a hypnotically glamorous blonde heroine in
the person of Grace Kelly; it affords the most experimental
of famous directors the chance to play around openly - in
this case, with the challenge of a single, confined set, using
nothing but shot/reverse shot editing to make all of his points,
dramatic and otherwise; and it is a genuine work of art, for
those who are interested in that sort of thing, wrapped in
the guise of a slick, witty, big-budget entertainment.
Second,
its design is flawless: man stuck in a wheelchair looking
out the window sees evidence of a murder, yes, but what else
does he see? The lives on view in the windows across the way
begin to reflect aspects of Jeffries' (Stewart's) own psyche
back to him, just as he projects his attitudes toward love
and marriage upon them, while on yet another level, Hitchcock
is pulling back the curtain on the loneliness of urban life,
and the bittersweet realities of romantic idealism. Through
the simple device of showing us a dozen or so windows that
reveal snippets here and there of life's tragedies, big and
small, Hitchcock sets up a dazzling, kaleidoscopic commentary
on twentieth century love and its attendant anxieties.
But what
critics and scholars most like to talk about when they turn
to Rear Window is its schematic exploration of the voyeuristic
impulse, and the ways in which the film pulls audiences into
a whirlpool of guilty conspiracy with Jeffries' mad quest
to pry on the neighbors.
There
is a moment when Ms. Kelly's Lisa remarks, "You and me with
long faces, plunged into despair because we find out a man
didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls
I've ever known," and when she does, she is not just talking
about herself and "Jeff", she's talking about all of us, too,
sitting out there in the dark of the theater, our attention
rapt on the window-like movie screen - waiting, just waiting
for some sign that proves Lars Thorwald really murdered his
wife. It's at this point that Rear Window unveils its gorgeous
labyrinth of mirrors to the audience, for if we are all double
voyeurs while watching this film, eagerly gazing into Jeff's
world and over his shoulder into the mysteries across the
courtyard, then aren't we always voyeurs at the movies, staring
without shame into what Lieutenant Doyle calls that "secret,
private world out there"? This is the level critics are talking
about when they say that Rear Window is above all a film about
film-making and -watching. No other film I know implicates
the audience so thoroughly in our own guilty behavior, and
makes us like it, too (though Hitch's Pyscho, 1960, comes
damned close).
Oh, and
did I mention Rear Window is one of the all-time great entertainments?
Stewart is at his most brilliant in this film, delivering
every witticism with deadpan, homespun accuracy and proving
conclusively his own dictum that movies are made up of "little
pieces of time". As his performance unfolds, keep in mind
that most of his reactions were shot in isolation: just Stewart,
the camera crew, and Hitchcock telling him what he was supposed
to be seeing. The actual Miss Torso was having lunch, or the
day off. Technically, it is like a reversion to silent film
acting.
Likewise,
Kelly is at her smartest and sexiest, the epitome of fifties
screen chic, while Ritter effortlessly displays how she chalked
up six Oscar nominations for Supporting Actress in twelve
years (1950-62). She was a master scene-stealer when in the
company of lesser actors; sandwiched here between Stewart
and Kelly, she has to draw on her fanciest moves to create
one of her most memorable characters, Stella, the riotously
funny conscience of the film.
Finally,
Rear Window is simply the Master of Suspense at the peak of
his form. Other Hitchcock classics are more frightening, or
more deeply felt, or in a few cases more playful, but none
is quite so elegantly constructed, or so efficient in creating
and sustaining its effects. It's a film that can be watched
again and again, a masterpiece that still moves contemporary
audiences to laugh and gasp in all the right places a half
century after it was made.
"To approach
the film only as a light diversion may in fact…indict a viewer,
along with Jeff, as one who merely peers at the lives of others
from a distance and leaves unexamined his own inner life."
-- Donald Spoto, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock
"…Hitchcock's
most uncompromising attempt to imprison us, not only within
a limited space, but within a single consciousness."
-- Robin Wood, Hitchcock's Films
"I was
feeling very creative at the time, the batteries were well
charged."
-- Alfred Hitchcock, in interview with Francois Truffaut
Notes:
Restored
in 2000 by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz, the team that
revived Vertigo (1958) to its original Technicolor-VistaVision
glory in the nineties. They had considerably more trouble
with Rear Window because some of the original elements had
deteriorated beyond repair. The restoration is, therefore,
extremely uneven in its success from scene to scene, especially
when trying to capturing the lush, original hues of Burks'
always fabulous cinematography. Interestingly, the film is
so good, it doesn't really matter. Due for release on VHS
and DVD in March 2001, after several years out of print.
Other
Hitchcock films in contention among critics for his greatest
work: Vertigo (1958), North By Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960).
Hitchcock
makes his trademark cameo appearance at 25 minutes into the
film, winding the clock in the songwriter's apartment.
Filmed
entirely on a set Hitchcock designed with the heads of the
Paramount studio art department, Pereira and Johnson, and
modeled on a real Greenwich Village courtyard. The set was
185 feet long, 38 feet deep and 40 feet high, with 31 apartments,
12 of which were completely furnished. Thorwald's apartment
was fully habitable, with running water and electricity. (see
Bill Krohn, Hitchcock at Work, Phaidon Press Ltd., 2000)
Hitchcock
was, and is, famous as a filmmaker who prepared his movies
with storyboards that mapped the finished shot arrangement
of every scene. The truth is, he often experimented on-set
to give himself the widest range of choices in editing. Camera
reports for Rear Window show that he ordered alternate takes
on every scene, and shot key moments from a variety of angles
(again, see Krohn's book). Example: his use of telephoto lenses
throughout the film, changing the viewer's proximity to the
other windows (particularly Thorwald's) for emotional effect,
getting closer to them as Jeff becomes more involved. Hitchcock
shot each scene in the other apartments several times from
the same angle, but with ever stronger lenses, each one changing
the size of the actors in the frame, subliminally suggesting
that we are still seeing what Jeff sees even though our perspective
is actually much closer than his would be.
There
is a fascinating mixture of acting styles in the film: Stewart's
approach, and Kelly's and Ritter's, is up-to-the-minute, 1954
cinematic realism, with understated gestures and expressions,
while the playlets performed beyond the other windows and
in the courtyard are highly theatrical pantomime - big gestures,
over the top reactions, exaggerated emotions - largely because
the camera is so much farther away from them, but also because
they represent ideas more than anything else. Except, that
is, for the Thorwald's Drama. In typical Hitchcockian counterpoint,
the Thorwalds begin the film performing mostly mundane activities,
but as the film progresses there is an increasing slowness
of movement, in their apartment, sometimes stillness, that
contrasts menacingly with the urban exuberance all around
them. (see James Naremore, Acting in the Cinema, chapter 13,
"Rear Window," University of California Press, 1988) .
The screenplay
was written by Hitchcock and Hayes in collaboration, the director
dictating situations, dramatic arcs, character development,
and plot structure. Hayes wrote the dialogue, and what marvelous
dialogue it is, too. Hitchcock never took screen credit for
writing, although this was his relationship with most of his
writers throughout his career. He also did not take credit
for set designs, lighting designs, cinematography, film editing,
or promotional schemes, but he was intimately involved with
all of these decisions, to varying degrees, on all of his
53 films (see Stephen Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making
of "Psycho", W.W. Norton, 1990). Hayes also collaborated with
Hitch on To Catch a Thief (again, priceless dialogue) and
The Trouble with Harry (both 1955), and The Man Who Knew Too
Much (1956).
A good
experiment for those who believe dialogue is the most important
part of a movie (or, for those who don't): watch the first
ten minutes of Rear Window with the sound turned off. Watch
the last twenty. If watching with the sound turned up, listen
only to the rise and fall of ambient noises - cars, sirens,
justified music, voices - and the choices Hitchcock and his
sound men make, the times they choose to use a particular
effect to underscore the images. The sound editing of Rear
Window is like a second music score.
An Oscar
nominee for Best Director (the award went to Elia Kazan for
On the Waterfront), Adapted Screenplay, Color Cinematography,
and Sound Recording. Grace Kelly took home the Best Actress
Oscar that same year (1954) for a more "serious" movie, The
Country Girl. Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director a
total of five times without ever winning. He was given a special
Life Achievement Oscar in 1969. He gave a deadpan, two word
acceptance speech: "Thank you."
Number
42 on the 1999 AFI List of 100 Greatest Movies; the #5 box-office
attraction of 1954.
The production
company Patron, Inc. was a joint business partnership between
Hitchcock and Stewart.
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