James Stewart and Grace Kelly star in Alfred Hitchcock's classic
thriller which explores the role of the voyeur. After breaking
his leg during a shoot, photo-journalist L.B. 'Jeff' Jeffries
(Stewart) is forced to spend a humid summer recuperating in his
Greenwich Village apartment. The wheelchair-bound Jeff whiles
away his time observing his neighbours through a telephoto lens,
bestowing them with nicknames and growing familiar with their
daily routines. However, his society girlfriend Lisa (Kelly) is
exasperated and then alarmed when Jeff becomes obsessed with the
notion that Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), who lives in the
apartment site, has murdered his wife...
From .co.uk
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Like the Greenwich Village courtyard view from its titular
portal, Alfred Hitchcock's classic Rear Window is both confined
and multileveled: both its story and visual perspective are
dictated by its protagonist's imprisonment in his apartment,
convalescing in a wheelchair, from which both he and the audience
observe the lives of his neighbors. Cheerful voyeurism, as well
as the behavior glimpsed among the various tenants, affords a
droll comic atmosphere that gradually darkens when he sees clues
to what may be a murder. Photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries (James
Stewart (
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)) is, in fact, a voyeur by trade, a professional photographer
sidelined by an accident while on assignment. His immersion in
the human drama (and comedy) visible from his window is a
by-product of boredom, underlined by the disapproval of his
girlfriend, Lisa (Grace Kelly (
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)), and a wisecracking visiting nurse (Thelma Ritter). Yet when
the invalid wife of Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) disappears, Jeff
enlists the two women to help him to determine whether she's
really left town, as Thorwald insists, or been murdered.
Hitchcock scholar Donald Spoto convincingly argues that the
crime at the center of this mystery is the MacGuffin--a mere
pretext--in a film that's more interested in the implications of
Jeff's sentinel perspective. We actually learn more about the
lives of the other neighbors (given generic names by Jeff, even
as he's drawn into their lives) he, and we, watch undetected than
we do the putative murderer and his victim. Jeff's evident fear
of intimacy and commitment with the elegant, adoring Lisa
provides the other vital thread to the script, one woven not only
into the couple's own relationship, but reflected and even
commented upon through the various neighbours' lives. At minimum,
Hitchcock's skill at making us accomplices to Jeff's ing,
coupled with an ingenious escalation of suspense as the teasingly
vague evidence coalesces into ominous proof, deliver a superb
thriller spiked with droll humour, right up to its nail-biting,
nightmarish climax. At deeper levels, however, Rear Window plumbs
issues of moral responsibility and emotional honesty, while
offering further proof (were any needed) of the director's
brilliance as a visual storyteller. --Sam Sutherland
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Synopsis
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The weather is getting hotter, and photographer L.B. Jefferies
(James Stewart) is stuck in his apartment with a broken leg and
nothing to do--that is, nothing to do but on his neighbours
through their open windows across the way in the apartment
complex. There's an attractive and scantily clad dancer, a
songwriter, a lonely woman, and the Thorwalds (Raymond Burr and
Irene Winston), a bickering couple, among others. But when Mrs.
Thorwald disappears, Jefferies is sure that something's wrong.
Soon, despite the warnings of his girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly),
and his motherly nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter), Jefferies has out
his binoculars and telephoto lens and is studying his neighbour
'like a bug under glass.' However, looking in from the outside
might not be as safe as Jefferies assumes. Rear Window is not
only a gripping story of murder and suspense, it is a celebrated
allegory on the nature of film itself, a story in which the
audience watches Jefferies watch the story unfold. The different
windows can also be seen as a representation of the emerging
medium of television, with Jefferies watching a multitude of
'shows' from the comfort of his own apartment.
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