Rear Window
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Movie Help Web Popcorn Kernels:
In the first few seconds of Rear Window Hitchcock sets the scene for the entire movie, putting you right into the apartment of L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies and painting a swelteringly accurate picture of a heat wave in the city.
That's what immediately drew me in. Before the plot even began, I was there in this setting both intimate and exposed. The intimacy of the tiny apartment, the exposure provided by the window which must be open in the summer heat.
This intimacy and exposure reflects the relationship of the two main characters. Jeff the action photographer recovering from a broken leg is played by Jimmy Stewart. Lisa Freemont a socialite model who sees past Jeff's rough exterior is played by a stunning Grace Kelly. Their intimacy exposes Jeff's fears of being trapped and weighed down - a point all the more sore from the vantage of the plaster sarcophagus which has him confined to a wheelchair.
Jeff's only outlet, aside from debating the disparities between Lisa's world and his own, is to watch his neighbors. Benign interest becomes obsessive when he believes he has witnessed odd behavior which implies foul play. Hitchcock ratchets up the tension as Jeff plays through doubts about what he has seen. Ever present is the energy that drives a news photographer, a natural voyeur, in his need to uncover the truth.
Woven through this tale are the lives of the other neighbors, who intertwine to make the neighborhood more than just a stage for the strutting about of the main characters. There is human drama behind every window. Hitchcock makes use of them all, whether it is to humorously punctuate Jeff and Lisa's emotional struggling or to scold them for turning their attention outward.
I can't recommend this film too highly, and in my opinion it is Hitchcock's best - even better than Vertigo. Rear Window makes you one of the main characters - you are compelled to watch just as they are, trapped as a passive observer. It is only in the climactic ending that you are sent back to your seat and forced to watch the consequences of being too curious about your neighbors.
