Rear Window (1954): Favourite Films Series

Rear Window (1954): Favourite Films Series 

 

Alfred Hitchcock made so many cinematic classics that I find it unlikely any true cinephile could create a favourite films list and not include at least one. There are many to choose from—Psycho, North by Northwest, The Birds, Rope—but the one most people pick as their favourite is Vertigo, starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. And I get it. It really is an incredible piece of cinema. But it’s not quite my personal favourite. For me, Rear Window (also starring Jimmy Stewart in the lead role) is not only the best Hitchcock film I’ve seen, but one of the most-captivating films I’ve seen in general.

 

Jimmy Stewart’s character Jeff is stuck at home in his small apartment with a broken leg, which happened when he went to dangerous lengths to get a photograph. Bored and sore, he has nothing to do but look out his window and people watch. He uses binoculars to scan from apartment to apartment, and the audience only ever sees the activities of these characters from his perspective. He continues to spy on his neighbours, using both binoculars and the zoom lenses on his camera. It’s a little creepy, but in doing so, he discovers something disturbing. A man next door (Raymond Burr) may be guilty of murder, so Jeff investigates, which at first annoys his girlfriend, played by Grace Kelly, but soon she’s wrapped up in the conspiracy as well. Slowly, they piece together what happened, and things get dicey as the alleged killer catches on to what they are doing.

Despite clocking in at just under two hours long, the story unravels at a great pace and is never bogged down by boring or tedious scenes, largely thanks to Jimmy Stewart’s great acting. He’s a high-energy character but he’s trapped, and that initial frustration comes through loud and clear, but then evolves into curiosity, and then obsession. We at first question this man’s morals as he watches his neighbours go about their lives, but quickly grow to like him and invest ourselves in his mission to bring a possible murderer to justice. The viewer never knows more about the crime than what the characters are able to deduce, so it makes the viewer participate in the story more faithfully and easily—as one character discovers something new, the audience in turn feels one step closer to solving the puzzle.

 

Rear Window isn’t just a mystery film. It’s something of a mystery, a drama, and nearly horror, with many of the best elements of other Hitchcock works. One of the most interesting is the voyeuristic aspect, with Jeff being an anonymous watcher and knowing what these people are up to without them knowing that he knows, which reflects the whole concept of movie-watching: viewers watch people interact on screen without them knowing their stories are being seen. As the tension ramps up and Jeff’s investigation becomes more intensive, the stakes get higher, and towards the end, it verges into horror when Raymond Burr’s character realizes Jeff is onto him and he goes after him, made even scarier because there isn’t much Jeff can do to protect himself being stuck in a wheelchair.

 

Even though Jeff never meets any of his neighbours up close (with the exception of Raymond Burr’s character) the neighbours are all well-developed supporting characters. We only ever see them as Jeff sees them through his camera, so the audience rarely gets to hear what any of these neighbours are saying. We get to see, mostly through physical action, what these people are up to, how they feel, and how they change. Again, the viewer participates with the events in congruence to how Jimmy does within the film. We watch them as he watches them, and figure them out just as he does. Little to no dialogue informs the audience about these side characters, it’s almost purely visual deduction, but it works brilliantly.

 

I think my favourite aspect of Rear Window has to be the setting. It’s a bit like watching a play. It’s as if the courtyard is just one giant set. We never get to see the rest of Jeff’s building, we only see what’s out the window. We can just barely see the street on the opposite side of the apartment complex. Despite this partial view of Jeff’s world, it never gets boring. I love movies with limited scope, because it’s more challenging for the filmmaker to keep it interesting. With one setting, it can get boring if the story isn’t strong or if the directing isn’t sure-handed. This is definitely a case where it works. Jeff’s apartment is bland and boring, but it functions as a non-distracting backdrop so every time we see Jimmy Stewart, we’re focused on him and his reactions to what he sees out the window.

 

To be fair, it isn’t technically one setting. All of the apartments have their own look, plus their own characters and stories going on, but they are presented as all being part of a whole, despite not all influencing each other. But then in moments like when the one neighbour finds her dog dead and screams who did this, it works as a reminder that even though not all these neighbours interact with each other they are all part of a community. It still feels like a set, and I don’t mean that in a negative sense (though it does look like a constructed set on a backlot, which it was in real-life), it feels like a play with these little parts to the set that work independently.

 

Rear Window is a classic suspense thriller that remains gripping to this day. It stands as a testament to the slow-burn method of storytelling, as well as the type of story set in one location, and how it can be so effective when done right.