Snack Bar Films

Rear Window

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Story

While recovering from an accident, news photographer LB Jefferies (James Stewart) becomes bored with being confined to his wheelchair and begins to look in on his neighbors across the courtyard. As he watches the different lives of those around him, such as the piano player or dancer, he begins to suspect that one of his neighbors has committed a murder. With the help of his girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly), and nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter), Jefferies begins to piece together the crime.

My Thoughts

Like most of my experiences with classic films, my initial reaction was, “That was pretty good!” though I liked it a lot more after pondering the depth of its message. There are so many interesting little subtleties of the filmmaking that make the story and film as a whole much deeper. For instance, I love how Jefferies seems to represent the audience, as we are usually the Peeping Toms of films, staring out from our seats in the cinema. His viewing the people in his neighborhood unabashedly is what we do for film; Hitchcock’s use of this reflection-of-the-audience makes the film more real, in the sense that what Jefferies sees and does is what we see and do for film. Throughout, Jefferies is stationary, reflecting the audience’s immobility and furthering its “art imitates life” approach.

As for the film’s plot and execution thereof, there are other instances of just good film making and storytelling. Take, for instance, the scene where Jefferies tells Doyle what he believes is happening. For the entire scene, Doyle is seen as bigger than Jefferies; this hierarchical scaling technique is used to make us want to side with Doyle and doubt Jefferies, which was my initial thinking while watching. Most of the film I sat questioning whether or not the “murder” actually happened, or if Jefferies was being paranoid and overly observant where it led to delusion. It wasn’t until Lisa breaks into Thornwald’s apartment, and he spies Jefferies watching that I realized he might have actually killed his wife and Jefferies was right. His coming into Jefferies’s apartment also solidified my change in opinion, though by then it was pretty certain that he had killed his wife – one does not try to push another out of a window on normal circumstances.

The characterization of this film is on another level. If one looks at it just the right way, each of Jefferies’s neighbors reflects an aspect of his life or situation. Miss Torso’s character, for one, mirrors Jefferies and Lisa’s relationship as a whole. Miss Torso’s true lover, which is seen in the end to be a man that would be considered not as perfect as she appears to be, is just as how Jefferies and Lisa’s relationship is; Jefferies fears that Lisa is “too perfect” and above him for their relationship to work. However, Miss Torso’s relationship shows that perfection, or the lack thereof, does not matter in the end. This is also reflected in the piano player’s story, as he is always striving for perfection – playing his song over and over again – when there really is no real perfection in real life. Miss Lonely Hearts shows what can happen when you neglect and push away others for too long, as it is seen when she almost commits suicide.  

One of my favorite film techniques is the Kuleshov effect – used in tons of films, the technique shows a character, what they are looking at, and then followed by the character’s reaction. The interesting part of it is that it seems almost obvious that a sequence of images showing a character and then a reaction would affect the scene or audience’s thoughts. However, when it’s thought about on a deeper level, the skill of editing is amazing. Hitchcock’s own example of the technique, as he explained in an interview with Fletcher Markle on film editing in 1964, begins with a man, then the next image is a woman and baby, followed by the man’s smiling reaction. Hitchcock goes on to say that when the image in the middle of the sequence is replaced by a woman in a bikini, the smiling old man goes from nice to creepy in an instant. I love how the use of this technique – showing a character, an image or scene, then their reaction – is seen throughout the film, and is a lot of what the driving force of the plot includes.  

Another aspect of the film I think is worth looking at is the use of gender roles and stereotypes. Some right away can be seen plainly in the film, such as the “women are sex objects” stereotype represented by Miss Torso, or that “women are obsessed with beauty and material things” which is how they piece together Mrs. Thornwald’s murder. However, given both character’s situations, the typical male: active, female: passive role is switched for Jefferies and Lisa, an interesting approach given the time the film was made. The way that Jefferies takes on the passive role – literally, he is stuck in a wheelchair for the entire movie – and Lisa takes on the active role makes the rest of the stereotypes a bit easier to stomach. I also love how Lisa is the one who jumps at the chance to go dig up the flower beds, and how she risks her life climbing into Thornwald’s apartment to find evidence.

Overall, I really liked this film. The editing is really interesting to analyze, and Jefferies’s character is also intriguing as a reflection of the audience. While I definitely thought it was odd at first, not believing Jefferies until almost the end, the story is engrossing and well strung together. Hitchcock’s auteur style really shines through with this film. Newest member of the Hitchcock club, reporting for duty!

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