Rear Window (1954)

Written October 18th, 2017

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Rear Window is a 1954 mystery thriller filmed directed by the "Master of Suspense" himself, Alfred Hitchcock, known for his critically acclaimed films such as Vertigo, Dial M for Murder, Psycho, and The Birds just to name a few. This film was based off the 1942 short story It Had to be Murder written by Cornell Woolrich, and mainly focuses on the theme of voyeurism as well as the idea of "pure cinema," something Hitchcock is very well known for in his filmography.

	The movie opens up similar to that of a stage play, having curtains being slowly lifted up from a window to reveal the film's setting, an apartment complex in New York City in the midst of a summer heat wave. We are then introduced to the many neighbors of the apartment complex such as The Composer, Miss Torso, Miss Lonelyhearts, Mr. and Mrs. Thorwald, and lastly our main protagonist L. B. Jeffries. Jeffries (played by the late James Stewart) is a professional photographer who is currently confined to a wheelchair and what he calls a "plaster cocoon" due to breaking his leg from photographing a racetrack accident. Although while he does get a visit from his girlfriend Lisa Fremont (played by Grace Kelly) and nurse Stella (played by Thelma Ritter), Jeff is mostly left to his own devices having nothing else to do except watch the daily lives of his neighbors through his apartment neighbor. As Jeff soon comes to adopt this voyeuristic behavior, he then one night ends up seeing what he believes to be the murder of Mrs. Thorwald and attempts to solve this murder from only his apartment room with the help of Lisa and Stella.
	
	Rear Window is often highly regarded as one of Hitchcock's best films often for it's outstanding use of pure cinema, a term that is often used in regards to film that rely more on imagery for storytelling rather than relying on dialogue like other films. Meaning that if you were to watch this movie with no audio, you would still have a firm idea of the plot is even though you may miss out on some clever dialogue and jokes. Another specific way this film uses pure cinema is how the audience is immersed into the movie, a good example of this is that throughout the film we first have Jeff looking up at something, a cut to what he's particularly looking at for the audience to see, and then a cut back to Jeff with his reaction. As excellent as Rear Window is, my only critique for this film is its lack of score, while we do hear some music it's really only being played in the background merely as diegetic sound. Even then I do not truly believe the lack of a score really takes away from this film in any way, the scenes with no dialogue and long strings of complete silence help builds up suspense and makes the experience feel a lot more authentic.
	
	I will confess I never really cared for Hitchcock or any of his films at first, but after watching Rear Window for the first time had completely changed my thoughts and made me want to watch the rest of Hitchcock's filmography. Overall I would grade this movie an A, for its compelling visual storytelling, spot on acting and camerawork, charming characters both of major and minor roles, and it is a film almost anyone can get into ranging from your casual moviegoer to crazed film fanatic.