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Rear Window (1954)
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Movie Review by Jarrod 
May 21st, 2008
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'Rear Window' is an exercise in perfectly crafted suspense. It crosses the line from voyeurism into fetishistic fascination, as LB Jeffries (James Stewart) observes his neighbors, giving them each a colorful nickname, and eventually suspecting one of them of murdering his wife. This is Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), a salesman. Thorwald's spouse is an invalid; she mysteriously disappears one day, supposedly on a trip, but Jeffries thinks otherwise. He is uniquely receptive to her condition; he is confined to a wheelchair after breaking his leg. He is forced to stay in his apartment, which is situated in such a way that he can see the central courtyard and spy on his fellow tenants, most of whom leave their windows open due to the hot and humid summer weather. He glimpses the pretty Miss Torso who is always exercising; the musician who is always at his piano, the newlywed couple that always keeps their bedroom blind pulled down, to conceal their frequent sexual activity. Miss Lonelyhearts is a depressed, aging spinster with no apparent friends or much of a social life. This is Jeffries's way of entertaining himself, to stave off the obvious boredom that arises from immobility. He is a photographer; he looks at people for a living, and captures them in various states of being. This is Hitchcock's manipulation of the male gaze, this emphasis on looking, mostly at women, in a manner that is erotic and curious. Jeffries is blessed with an astoundingly beautiful girlfriend named Lisa (Grace Kelley), whom he seems to keep at a distance, even when she is overly flirtatious and inviting him to pay attention to her. Jeffries uses the zoom capabilities of his camera, as well as a trusty pair of binoculars to see everything he can.
He does not focus too much on men, until he takes an interest in Thorwald, who does act strangely, but there is no reason to think that he is a murderer; no one is willing to believe Jeffries at first, not even Lisa, until her feminine intuition compels her to find out what really happened to Mrs. Thorwald, who has apparently left behind her purse and certain pieces of jewelry, notably her wedding ring, that any woman would take with her, no matter where she went. It is not hard for Jeffries to recruit his amusingly blunt and nosy caretaker Stella (Thelma Ritter), not hard to encourage her to try and find some evidence indicting Thorwald, which he can show to skeptical detective Doyle (Wendell Corey). Lisa teams up with Stella; it is the women doing the work the man should be doing, but cannot. Jeffries comes up with a scheme, to investigate that flower garden down below, particularly a spot that has drawn the attention of a dog. Lisa spontaneously decides to break into Thorwald's apartment, to inspect it more closely. She climbs in through a large window, shaped, oddly enough, like a movie screen. This scene gets me every time, builds an unbearable sense of dread and powerlessness, as Thorwald comes home, confronts Lisa, appears ready to strangle her, until some cops arrive and Lisa signals to Jeffries that she has the ring; but Thorwald spots this, and looks right at Jeffries, and right at us. The climactic encounter between Thorwald and Jeffries is intense, brilliantly structured, as Jeffries's apartment is covered in darkness, the sound of Thorwald's footsteps echoing on the stairs, steadily approaching, until he opens the door and slowly moves toward Jeffries, who has maneuvered himself into a corner, equipped with a flashbulb he uses to blind Thorwald temporarily, to delay him until help arrives. The clues assembled by Jeffries acquire coherence as the plot progresses, and his conclusions become more plausible and likely, but the full truth is not revealed until the very end.
This is Stewart at his finest, in probably his best Hitchcock role. Stewart makes Jeffries a bitter and impatient man, whose discomfort and boredom is as palpable as the heat that causes sweat to drip from his brow. Kelley is a flawless beauty, and Hitchcock showcases this repeatedly. Ritter is a delight, and Burr is menacing, but there are moments when we feel sort of bad for Thorwald, as he is harassed by Jeffries and has his privacy invaded. Hitchcock cleverly manipulates the audience, with subtly changing camera angles, the amplification of foreground and background details, rendered with alarming clarity, so that there is action and movement in every possible direction, from every possible perspective, images to distract us, like Jeffries, away from the important things we should be seeing. Many may differ on what they would rank as their favorite Hitchcock film; my personal choice is Vertigo, with North by Northwest in second place, but everyone can agree that Rear Window is a completely engrossing classic.
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