REAR WINDOW

'''Rear Window''' is a 1954 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story ''It Had to Be Murder''. It stars James Stewart as photojournalist L.B. Jefferies, Grace Kelly as his fashion model girlfriend Lisa Carol Fremont, and Raymond Burr as the suspected killer, Lars Thorwald. The film combines its main theme of a murder mystery with a critical examination of the ethics of marriage and voyeurism.
The film is considered by many film goers, critics and scholars to be one of Hitchcock's best and most thrilling pictures.^[1] Hitchcock also cameoed in the movie. ''Rear Window'' is one of several films directed by Hitchcock originally released by Paramount Pictures, that were acquired by Universal Studios in later years.

Contents

Plot summary

Hitchcock's cameo

Analysis

Legacy

Re-tellings

Footnotes

External links

Plot summary

L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies (James Stewart) is a professional photographer who has been confined to his Greenwich Village apartment after an accident has left him with his leg in a cast.
Suffering from boredom, he takes to spying on his neighbors through the rear window. His view of the back of several apartment buildings, their inner courtyard, and the persons dwelling within at first have a strongly Norman Rockwell feel about them. Over time, however, Jeff comes to believe a murder has taken place in the building across the courtyard, though his friends, his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter), and his girlfriend, Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly) initially think his beliefs are imagined, and put them down to his idle behavior.
Almost the entire movie is filmed from inside Jeff's bedroom, and most of the point of view (POV) shots are Jeff's. However, at key points in the movie this rule is broken (usually as a dual or triple POV shot, but also the single POV shots of Doyle, Stella, and Lisa).
Furthermore, there is at least one moment when the viewer sees something while Jeff is asleep, and in two key sequences, characters are seen from angles not possible from Jeff's window. This trend increases throughout the film until the final sequence, when Jefferies' POV is nearly subverted.
The character of Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) is not seen in close-up and cannot be heard speaking clearly until the climax of the movie. At this point, he appears in Jeff's room. This scene features a sequence shown from Thorwald's point of view as he attempts to proceed towards Jeff, but is repeatedly stopped as Jeff blinds him with his camera flash.

Hitchcock's cameo

Alfred Hitchcock appears briefly onscreen in the film as the man winding the clock in the songwriter's apartment as he (the songwriter) is performing the piece that he had been working on during the course of the film.

Analysis

Hitchcock's fans and film scholars have taken particular interest in the way the relationship between Jeff and Lisa can be compared to the lives of the neighbors they are spying upon. Many of these points are considered in Tania Modleski's feminist theory book, ''The Women Who Knew Too Much.'' (ISBN 0-415-97362-7)^[2]

★ Thorwald and his wife are a reversal of Jeff and Lisa (Thorwald looks after his invalid wife just as Lisa looks after the invalid Jeff). However, Thorwald's hatred of his nagging wife mirrors Jeff's arguments with Lisa.

★ The newlywed couple initially seem perfect for each other (they spend nearly the entire movie in their bedroom with the blinds drawn), but at the end we see that their marriage is in trouble and the wife begins to nag the husband. Similarly, Jeff is afraid of being 'tied down' by marriage to Lisa.

★ The middle-aged couple with the dog seem content living at home. They have the kind of uneventful lifestyle that horrifies Jeff.

★ The music composer and Miss Lonelyhearts, the depressed spinster, lead frustrating lives, and at the end of the movie find comfort in each other (the composer's new tune draws Miss Lonelyhearts away from suicide, and the composer thus finds value in his work). There is a subtle hint in this tale that Lisa and Jeff are meant for each other, despite his stubbornness. The piece the composer creates is called "Lisa's Theme" in the credits.
The movie invites speculation as to which of these paths Jefferies and Lisa will follow.
The characters themselves verbally point out a similarity between Lisa and Miss Torso (played by Georgine Darcy) - the scantily-clad ballet dancer who has all-male parties.
A thoughtful analysis of ''Rear Window'' can be found in John Fawell's book ''The Well-Made Film''.
Other analysis centers on the relationship between Jeff and the other side of the apartment block, seeing it as a symbolic relationship between spectator and screen. Film theorist Mary Ann Doane has made the argument that Jeff, representing the audience, becomes obsessed with the ''screen,'' where a collection of storylines are played out. This line of analysis has often followed a feminist approach to interpreting the film. It is Doane who, using Freudian analysis to claim women spectators of a film become "masculinized," pays close attention to Jeff's rather passive attitude to romance with the elegant Lisa, that is, until she crosses over from the spectator side to the screen, seeking out the wedding ring of Thorwald's murdered wife. It is only then that Jeff shows real passion for Lisa. In the climax, when he is pushed through the window (the screen), he has been forced to become part of the show.
Further analysis into Jefferies' character could also be interpreted as somewhat of a voyeur. Because of Jeff's sexual frustration with Lisa, he may look to other sources to fulfill his sexual need.

Legacy

Brian De Palma paid homage to ''Rear Window'' with his movie ''Body Double'' (which also added touches of Hitchcock's ''Vertigo''). The 2001 film ''Head Over Heels'' starring Freddie Prinze Jr., in which a young woman falls for a man she believes she saw commit a murder, closely follows the plot of ''Rear Window''. Marcos Bernstein's ''The Other Side of The Street'' (2004) also makes a reference to ''Rear Window'', albeit with a Brazilian twist. Many animated series, including ''Tiny Toon Adventures'', ''Rocket Power'', ''The Simpsons'', ''Rocko's Modern Life'', and ''The Venture Bros.'' have paid homage to ''Rear Window'' in different ways. Robert Zemeckis' ''What Lies Beneath'' is another film that pays tribute to this film and other Hitchcock features. Woody Allen's ''Manhattan Murder Mystery'', in which Allen and his wife suspect an elderly neighbor of murdering his wife and are forced to investigate for themselves when no one else takes their concerns seriously, could also be said to owe a debt to ''Rear Window''.

This movie has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The film was restored by the team of Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz for its 1999 limited theatrical re-release and the Collector's Edition DVD release.
The film received four Academy Award nominations: Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock, Best Screenplay for John Michael Hayes, Best Cinematography, Color for Robert Burks,
Best Sound Recording for Loren L. Ryder, Paramount Pictures.
This film was ranked #14 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills. It was ranked #48 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition). To this day, the film gets a 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ownership of the copyright in Woolrich's original story was eventually litigated before the United States Supreme Court in ''Stewart v. Abend'', 495 U.S. 207 (1990). The film was copyrighted in 1954 by Patron Inc. — a production company set up by Hitchcock and Stewart. As a result, Stewart and Hitchcock's estate became involved in the Supreme Court case.
The film was shot entirely at Paramount studios, including an enormous set on one of the soundstages, and employed the Technicolor process in use at the time. There was also careful use of sound, including natural sounds and music drifting across the apartment building courtyard to James Stewart's apartment. At one point, the voice of Bing Crosby can be heard singing "To See You Is to Love You" originally from the Paramount release ''Road to Bali'' (1952).
Hitchcock used famed designer Edith Head to design costumes in all of his Paramount films. (She continued to design costumes for his films when Hitchcock moved to MGM in 1959 and then to Universal in 1960 until the end of his career.) With Hitchcock's encouragement, Head designed especially "romantic" dresses for Grace Kelly.^[3]

Re-tellings

Since ''Rear Window'' is considered one of Hitchcock's classics, it has been re-told and spoofed a number of times in a number of ways:

★ 'Film'

★
★ ''Clubhouse Detectives'' is a 1996 retelling, aimed at a younger audience, where a young boy sees a neighbor kill a student and bury her under his floor boards.

★
★ In 1998 Christopher Reeve starred in a remake that retained the original title, but had the main character completely paralyzed instead of just having a recently broken leg.

★
★ ''Disturbia'' is a modern day (2007) retelling, with the protagonist under house arrest instead of laid up with a broken leg.

★ 'Television'

★
★ ''The Simpsons'' episode "Bart of Darkness" is heavily influenced by the movie, with Bart breaking his leg and coming to the belief that he witnesses Ned Flanders killing his wife.

★
★ In a Halloween themed episode of ''That 70's Show'', "Too Old to Trick or Treat, Too Young to Die", Fez and Hyde spoof the film after Fez breaks his leg and spies on Bob, thinking he killed Midge.

★
★ An episode of ''Home Movies'', "Definite Possible Murder" also retold the story when the main character, Brendon, broke his leg and thought he saw a new neighbor acting suspiciously.

Footnotes

1. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1017289-rear_window/
2. Modleski, Tania, ''The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory'' (New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc., 1989)
3. Review by Robert E. Nylund

External links

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★

★ Rear Window at Box Office Mojo

★ skyjude - movie legends

★ DVD Review of Rear Window