Rear Window

1
Rear Window

• An Alfred Hitchcock Film

2
Rear Window

• Comes very close to being the perfect Hitchcock
  film that illustrates nearly all of his great
  abilities.
• Hitchcock demonstrates that he is a great voyeur.
• He loves to spy on his characters.
• He allows his viewers to be voyeurs forcing his
  audience to see everything from his heros point
  of view.

3
Rear Window

• Plot
• James Stewart as L.B. Jeffries, a photographer,
  is confined to his two-room Manhattan apartment
  with a broken leg.
• He passes his time spying on his neighbors
  through a back window.

4
Rear Window - Plot

• He is visited by his girlfriend, Lisa Carol
  Fremont (Grace Kelly), his officer friend
  Wendell, and his nurse, Stella.
• As Jeffries observes the comings and goings of
  his neighbors from various apartments.
• He watches as the people in the 31 apartments
  live out their little lives.

5
Neighbors

• The tormented middle-aged bachelor, composer,
  songwriter
• The couple who beats the heat by sleeping on the
  fire escape
• The newlyweds and lovers
• The tragic Miss Lonelyhearts with her fantasies
  of entertaining gentlemen callers
• The hearing-impaired sculptor working day and
  night

6
Neighbors Contd

• The vivacious and sexy blonde dancer Miss Torso
  who does suggestive routines in bikini tops
• The hysterical nagging wife lying in bed
  and her grouchy fed-up husband, a jewelry
  salesman.

7
Rear Window

• Focuses on the seduction of crime not in
  committing it, but in the act of discovering it.
• The urban backyard setting is the night city
  terrain of Rear Window, a night shattered by
  the sharp sound of a loud female scream and the
  sound of breaking glass

8
Setting of Rear Window

• One of the beautiful aspects of the movie is its
  superb use of location.
• The whole movie, bar a couple of brief scenes, is
  set in Jeffries apartment.
• This could seem claustrophobic, but Hitchcock
  does not let this happen
• His roving camera swoops down to let us see what
  the characters see

9
Setting Contd

• The apartment is just the right size and is
  nicely laid out.
• The real praise goes to all of the other
  apartments set with multiple stories where
  characters can be observed only as they pass
  their own windows (obviously they dont care much
  for curtains).
• There is a sense of individuality in the décor of
  each apartment despite the fact we see only a
  snapshot of each.
• There is a mini soap opera contained in the movie
  all observed at a distance.

10
Rear Window

• Hitchcock presents Stewart who sees (or thinks he
  sees) what he is powerless to stop.
• The insidious salesman strangely attracts
  Stewarts attention
• His past-time becomes an obsession after he
  suspects that the salesman has murdered his
  ailing wife, especially when he notices that she
  is missing.

11
Rear Window

• His girlfriend and nurse both warn him that
  voyeurism is a crime and is dangerousbut Stewart
  persists.
• He uses a huge zoom lens to do his peeping as he
  monitors the murders activities.
• At one point, his Jeffs friend convinces him
  that there was no murder, and Jeff is
  disappointed.
• Not because someone wasnt dead, but because he
  enjoyed the voyeurism.
• People do not want to commit crimes they want to
  watch other people commit them. (Popular Crime
  shows)

12
Hitchcock

• Great movie maker and great movie watcher
• When watching Rear Window, it is better to
  imagine Alfred Hitchcock sitting in the
  wheelchair rather than Jimmy Stewart.
• When camera uses longshots to watch the
  neighborhood, it is really Hitchcock watching.

13
Hitchcock

• Demonstrates that he is a great voyeur
• Loves to spy on his characters
• Makes his audiences into voyeurs, forcing them to
  see everything from the heros point of view.
• Restricted to one confined set, Hitchcock is
  forced to be ingenious in order to keep curiosity
  alive.
• Hitchcocks camera tracks out through the window
  we never see close-ups of the characters
• Audience can see only what Stewart sees
• We feel like we are watching people through a
  window instead of in a movie.

14
Hitchcock

• Does not use any musicwe hear natural sounds,
  occasional live music played in the surrounding
  apartments.
• One great shot reveals how involved Stewarts
  character has become in the lives of his
  neighbors when Miss Lonelyhearts during her
  romantic dinner for two raises her glass in a
  toast to her imaginary lover, and Stewart raises
  his glass as well.

15
Hitchcock

• In many of his movies, Rear Window, Vertigo,
  Psycho, The Birds, etc., the blonde actresses
  are objects.
• They rarely get close to male leads
• For Hitchcock, these women are ideals that should
  be admired rather than touched.

16
Hitchcock

• In the span of two hours, Rear Window examines
  some of the most recurrent themes in films.
• When we watch Rear Window, it is really us
  watching someone watching someone else.
• All the while, Hitchcock is sitting on the
  balcony watching our reaction.
• It is an act of voyeurism layered on top of
  itself, and allows us to examine our own behavior
  as we are spellbound by Hitchcocks world.

17
Hitchcock

• Hitchcock is a master at using his camera to
  create suspense.
• Like Stewart, the audience is restricted in
  movements, paralyzed inside the apartment,
  immobile, trapped in a room where we become
  anxious and uncertain.
• This suspense is created only by visual means.

18
Hitchcock

• Stewart is the perfect Hitchcock character,
  giving the performance of his life an
  unpretentious photo journalist who becomes caught
  in a terrifying event
• The audience is able to feel the menacing look of
  the murderer staring those evil eyes at them.
• Hopefully, you were able to catch Alfred
  Hitchcock in his customary cameo appearance, this
  time repairing a clock