Rear Window is personally one of my favorites because of my love for the late, great, Alfred Hitchcock, and for Princess Grace Kelly. She, to me, is the ideal woman! She dresses like a prom queen, thinks like a business elite, is classy, and wittier than ever. Every scene that she and Jimmy Stewart are in together is gold. Rear Window is important for a multitude of reasons that I will cover including the idea of “watching” and “being watched,” and the morals that encompass that ability; Whether Jimmy is moral in viewing people’s personal lives from his bed-rest wheelchair, even if there are things he wasn’t meant to see?
The movie has really one main set, all soundstage that includes Jimmy’s apartment, and his view into the square-shaped, shared backyard’s of his neighbor’s apartments. He is able to look with his photographer’s lens into their windows and see the relationships of a newly-wed couple, a lonely woman, a sculptor, a struggling musician, a gorgeous dancer (“Miss Torso”), and a salesman whose wife is always sick and nagging him. The plot is perfect and sets tensions high; not only with the possibility of one of Stewart’s neighbors committing murder, but also by the romantic relationship that Stewart and Kelly have, and by the whole theme of the movie: Voyeurism. In fact, Rear Window has been recently re-made into the film, Disturbia, starring Shia LaBeouf. I’ve seen the re-make and although it has some newer elements that I can appreciate, there’s really nothing like the original. Also because of a pretty important point: Shia’s character is not as “stuck” as Jimmy’s is because Shia remains under house arrest, though still able to use all of his limbs. Stewart is trapped to a wheelchair with one leg broken for several weeks, possibly justifying some of his looks out the window, but probably not with his binoculars, as he ends up doing.
The drama is indeed added to by the injury of Stewart’s L.B. Jefferies, world-travelling photographer, because at one critical moment when he has finally convinced his girlfriend, Kelly, that murder has taken place, it is she who volunteers and crosses that forbidden line to the murderer’s house, looking for clues. The entire movie is shot from Jefferies’ perspective and seeing his girlfriend in peril is worth the watch.
The relationship between Jefferies and Kelly’s character, Lisa Fremont, is played in a coy, self-suffering, exciting manner. Jefferies is thinking of breaking-up with Fremont because she isn’t the type of girl his career could satisfy, traveling without sleep in 3rd world countries for days on end without food and water and bathing. Fremont wants Stewart to give a little and believe that one of them could change. She is the typical socialite, wining and dining, but later reveals an adventurous side in climbing through the murderer’s window. In my opinion, Jefferies is rethinking breaking-up and considering that she can withstand more than he thought. At the same time, Jefferies character has learned a valuable lesson in the dangers of watching, and is know more open to a life in the city, and a future with his one true love, Fremont.
The very few characters in this film require that they all be multifaceted and are entertaining and drive the story. This is both a character story and an action story. The choice of casting Thelma Ritter as Jefferies’ physical therapist and home-visit nurse was genius! Although she is a character actress who even in this movie plays the funny, witty, truthsayer, the choice of spot-on. Ritter’s Stella provides the voice of reason. The 3rd party who is indeed eventually wrapped up in the murder as well, but who before warns of the dangers of spying on one’s own neighbors, because “you may see something you aren’t supposed to.”
Rear Window is another classic whose name shall not be forgotten in the lists of greatest movies ever made. So to wrap it up, watch this movie because A) You can learn almost everything about great film-making from Hitchcock, B) the witty, sexy relationship between Stewart and Kelly is a masterful piece of work that only two actors who have experience on-stage and on-camera could perform, C) don’t you want to know who the murderer is? And D) Watching a movie to learn is wayyy better than reading any textbook ^_-
Cinema Sweetheart and her Looks 