After North by Northwest, we move
onto the next in this Hitchcock Double—1954’s Rear Window. This one is also a
treasured classic—one imitated wholesale, as with films like Disturbia, or affectionately
parodied, as in that one episode of the Simpsons. But for the average viewer
coming to it 65 years later, does it hold up?
Jimmy Stewart plays Jeff, a
crippled photographer with little to do but to watch his neighbors out in a
Manhattan apartment courtyard. It may sound like a small, made for TV setting,
but you can immediately see how elaborate the set was. With not many options
for complex composition and certainly no CGI, you can definitely appreciate Hitchcock’s
technical talents in co-ordinating extras and actors whose characters all go by
their routines simultaneously through Jeff’s lens. In any case, by chance, he
spots someone acting suspiciously, and his imagination takes hold of him with
theories of murder and conspiracy.
It’s definitely an idea that
resonates now. The only difference is now, with the presences of social media,
such voyeurism is almost invited—but with drones, computer tapping, and so on,
you can certainly feel how Jeff might go about things in a modern setting. The
main difference is that you can’t have people reading pointless phallic
analogies into the size of his camera.
In any case, there’s definitely
some solid character interactions, even if some of it, like discussions of
women and jewellery, show the film’s age a little—but there’s enough scenes to
draw you into Jeff’s plight like his discussion with his police friend. As often
with Hitchcock’s conversations, you have all the snark and banter to keep it naturalistic
and funny enough. Grace Kelly is always welcome as Jeff's girlfriend, getting more involved into his ruminations and perhaps suspect theorizing as things develop.
Now, I’ll discuss spoilers
upfrontly—there’s one disappointing thing about this, and that’s the lack of the
twists Hitchcock is known for. You expect Jeff to be maybe going stir crazy, or
maybe he’s onto something but has the wrong conclusion, or something else
commentating about how one’s paranoia can go when there’s no other stimuli…but
he essentially turns out to be right. The perpetrator even comes off as
somewhat pathetic when Jeff ends up confronting him. Perhaps the lack of a
twist is the twist, but it doesn’t feel as satisfying as other films of his,
such as Vertigo or Pyscho.
Overall, Rear Window is still
technically well made and definitely has those right Hitchcockian elements, but
for those coming into his films, I’d say go with North by Northwest and Psycho
first. They’re equally classic and, I’d say, have endings both more satisfying
and more satisfyingly creepy. But either way, it’s certainly worth watching
after those…
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