Rear Window is one of the rare films of Alfred Hitchcock where women emerge smarter and stronger than men. The last scene has the hero Jeff with two legs in a cast and his lady love, Lisa Carol Fremont played by the late Grace Kelly, switching reading material to what she prefers to read over what the hero would prefer her to read, even though for the first time she has switched to trousers to humor her future husband’s vision of his kind of wife.

Rear Window is yet another film on marriage—a recurring theme in Hitchcock’s films. Jeff and Lisa do not tie the knot but the end inferred this would eventually happen. One interesting subtle aspect most audience might miss is the switching of the reading material by Lisa at the very end gives the viewer a clue at just who among the couple would rule the marriage.

This is a film on photographers, photography and voyeurs. Only the photographer looks out of the window, when all have windows open, except when a dog or housebreak is involved.

As far as cultural references go, four decades after Hitchcock made this film, the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski in his Sixth episode of his Tele Movie entitled Dekalog (the only masterpiece Stanley Kubrick named during his lifetime) was a short film about love explored the same theme with even more astonishing results. It just goes to show the magic of Hitchcock enamors more and more geniuses of cinema even to this day.

For a mature viewer, there is more entertainment in the film than the obvious story-line woven around a wheelchair-bound voyeur suspecting a murder has been committed close to his apartment.
He can see through their open windows and knows many of their life stories from just their actions. The vast majority of shots in the film are either from Jeff’s point of view, or objective shots of him looking out at the audience. This is a brilliant contrivance, but it only works so far, and only as long as one is content in believing people carelessly frolic about their apartments doing all sorts of sexual and psychotic acts for the world to see.

By telling story from a distance Hitchcock is engaging in a form of pure cinema, relying more on visuals than any other thing to push forth the tale, and never has the old idea that comedy is life from a distance, and tragedy is life close-up, been more convincingly portrayed on film. There is almost a comic strip quality to many of the antics that are seen framed in each apartment.

One of the other people that Jeff, Lisa, and his nurse Stella come to gawk at is a salesman named Lars Thorwald whose constantly nagging, invalid wife who suddenly disappears. Jeff and the ladies conclude he has killed her, when they see him wrapping up knifes and saws, as well as packing away things of his and hers, even though no actual violence is ever seen onscreen.

Jeff sees him leave his apartment early in the morning three times, and gets his cop friend, Doyle, who is later revealed as his old war buddy involved. But, it seems that Anna Thorwald, the invalid wife, has gone out of town, and Doyle grows skeptical of Jeff’s obsessions. One of the criticisms I have against this movie is the fact that his friend does not warn his pal it’s against the law to invade others’ privacy is one of several suspension of disbelief the film relies on.

As the film goes on, Jeff has Lisa slip a letter under his door, then makes a call to Thorwald’s apartment, to get him believing someone is on to his adulterous and murderous ways, and pretends to blackmail him, asking to meet him at the Albert Hotel, so Lisa and Stella can dig up some flowers that seem amiss, which have Jeff believing the reason the middle aged couple’s dog was killed by Thorwald was because it was digging where Anna Thorwald was buried.

This heady conclusion is come to by Jeff because Thorwald was the only neighbour not to respond to the dead dog’s female owner’s screams when it’s found dead. This sort of preternatural ability to piece things together is a sort of corollary to the ‘dumbest possible action ‘ tropes that propel melodramas- such as when a serial killer is loose and a sexy, scantily clad girl in high heels goes down a dark corridor alone. This inverse, where only the hero can put together disparate and unrelated pieces of evidence that logically have no real connection, is a more human manifestation of a near-deus ex machine.

While digging, with no one watching, it seems, Stella finds no body. Then Lisa climbs up into Thorwald’s apartment- in high heels no less! as Stella and Jeff watch in horror as Thorwald returns.

Hitchcock does add some ethics and depth to the moment for, just as Thorwald discovers Lisa, a floor below, Miss Lonely Hearts is also attempting her suicide, and Jeff must choose which woman’s life to save. Fortunately, the musician’s music entices Miss Lonely Hearts to soldier on, and Lisa is eventually saved by the cops and arrest her for breaking and entering.

Before Lisa is taken into custody she flashes to Jeff that she’s recovered Anna’s wedding ring. Lars sees that she’s motioning over to Jeff’s apartment, before he can turn out his lights. Stella, who’s returned to Jeff’s, goes to bail Lisa out, he calls Doyle again, and then Thorwald comes over to kill Jeff.

With Lisa arrested, all Thorwald had to do was claim that the ring was his wife’s and Lisa stole it, and he could have easily retrieved it, for we know Doyle and the cops don’t believe a word Jeff’s saying about the murder, for Thorwald has a perfect alibi. He would be far more believable than she would be to them, but then again there could be no final confrontation scene if the cops believed Jeff.

Now why would Jeff’s apartment door be unlocked? I have no idea. Yet through the whole film Doyle, Stella, and Lisa pop in and out without a key nor a word from Jeff. And Jeff’s attempt to stop the murderous Thorwald with camera flashes, and not tossing things at him while blinded, is plain silly, although the flashes are a brilliant visual representation of Jeff’s impotence.

Rear Window is a technically great film. The camera work by the cinematographer is first rate, and the film goes over many standard Hitchcock themes such as voyeurism- especially apt in this cyberworld of 24/7 voyeurism.

There are many small moments in the film that work for effect- such as pure mise-en-scene shots of Jeff or the neighbors doing minor things unrelated to the main tale. And, there is some comedy, such as after Jeff is tossed out the window, and Thorwald is arrested, Stella comments to the cops, ‘I don’t want any part of it’, when asked about assisting in the search for Anna Thorwald’s body.
You leave Rear Window knowing exactly what happened and knowing exactly who these characters were. The film ends exactly like it started. Another adventure has happened and the two leads are still faced with the same conflict.

Well I’m busy. So excuse my lateness in Blogging. My life now mostly compromises of three main things. School, Work and Sleep.

Good news everyone, I’m changing my 4 year old iPod shuffle (1st gen) to a shiny new 8GB iPod touch. I know some people out there hate apple and have religiously told me how other brands offer much more capacity for the same price. But at the end of the day, Apple has widgets which are cool and others don’t. And that is reason enough for me.

If you were wondering about the Quotes of the week posts, I assure you they are coming.

In lieu of attempting to write something of substance tonight, I’ve returned to my old geeky ways and tinkered a bit with the machinery running behind this blog. Don’t worry I won’t let it bite you.

You would have probably noticed that I am starting to flood this site with more videos. I admit this is indeed a shameless act to populate this site.

Week one just ended and I am still trying to remember all the faces and names of my fellowship. The lecturers are great esp, Mr.Janzo. I swear if this man was a sponge he would probably be a very heavy sponge just oozing with whatever that sponges were meant to be carrying.

And most importantly almost all the illustrations I saw in class, were simply marvelous.

I’m off to the University.

It would be nice to think I have someone to wish me well.