Rear Window (1954)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

As a Hitchcock fan, I am guilty of serial-watching his oeuvres. An engaging tale about spying on your neighbours, which perhaps many of us are guilty of, James Stewart and Grace Kelly are timeless on screen. Is it paranoia or is it real ? If you're hindered and your leg is on a cast, will you take note of every single thing happening around you which may be only baseless, unfounded fear? Is there a killer on the loose? What are you going to do about it? These are the myriads of questions you ask when you watch this film. I am one of those skeptics when a Classic such as this gets adapted and recycled ( e.g. Disturbia with Shia Leboeuf )since there was only one Hitchcock, one James Stewart and one Grace Kelly. Go be creative and leave this Classic film alone.

Rear Window was a wonderful movie that more than fits into Hitchcock's portfolio of masterpieces.Personally I have trouble categorizing this movie into a single genre as it is so diverse. With this said this movie certainly used certain elements from multiple genres. One of these genres that the film certainly borrowed from was film noir. One of the biggest conflicts of the film was whether or not Thorwald killed his wife. Even I as a viewer was unsure if this was the case while I was watching it. Although Rear Window's setting might've been too trusting and almost lush for it to be considered hard boiled, this movie certainly was a crime drama with certain romantic elements. Additionally this movie has many elements of a suspense film. I know personally I was sitting on the edge of my seat while Lisa was going into Thorwald's apartment, as well as when Thorwald had entered Jeff's. However I personally don't believe there was enough suspense throughout the entire movie for it to be outright considered a full-out thriller movie.Alfred Hitchcock claimed to be a formalist director at heart and that really showed in the film. The movie used continuity editing so that it was easy for the viewer to sympathize with the protagonist, where as if he used non-continuity here the viewer might get confused and might emotionally disconnect from the protagonist. Additionally at the beginning of the movie and at the end of the movie the pacing of the cuts is very slow to show that there is very little tension. At the climax of the film the pacing is much faster to express a new sense of urgency and tension. The shots used in the film and the camera techniques were unlike many other movies. This first scene in this film was a long panning shot of Jeff's backyard showing off a unique assortment of happy individuals from both in and outside their apartments. I think this opening shot really impressed me because this scene not only conveyed who many of the individual characters and families in this neighborhood were, but it also did a really good job of making this neighborhood seem especially open and trusting. One of the major plot points of this movie is that the protagonist, Jeff, is looking at his neighbors through their apartment windows. To compliment this most of the shots in the film, were framed by Jeff's window sill. Like I said before the viewer throughout the film felt like they were watching from Jeff's point of view, where they could see what was happening around them but they were stuck in their seats and unable to affect anything. Hitchcock was able to build this sympathy also by showing an event happening outside of the window and then showing a close up on one of the protagonists so that they know how to feel about these events.This film also focused in on the certain themes and successfully raised a lot of questions about them throughout it. One of the themes that was brought up was community. At the beginning of the movie, the neighborhood that Jeff lived in was portrayed as being, perhaps a bit more friendly than most but overall unextraordinary. You felt like if you knew any one of those neighbors you'd be friends with them. But later in the film, obviously this sense of community is betrayed as one of the neighbors finds their dog strangled to death. Hitchcock often leaves his audience afraid of things people have come to trust in his films like in his other classic, the birds. Additionally this movie seems to revolve around Voyeurism which in this case is the pleasure one gets from watching people who don't know that they are being watched. This movie shows both positive and negative outcomes from Jeff's "peeping" so the question is left up in the air. However some viewers got a sense that the voyeurism Hitchcock was referring to wasn't staring at unsuspecting people through a window, but rather staring at characters through a movie.All in all I was absolutely in love with the cinematography and am looking forward to watching the rest of Hitchcock's films.

The dialogue between Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly is light and effective. Stewart is type casted as his normal smart but clumsy guy role. The "enemy" or "bad guy" actor is picked very well. Outside of the story and plot, the ambience and setting of the film is the added treat. Peering into the live of strangers and their routines and guessing their life. It's a nice breather between plot developments.

Rear Window By Alfred Hitchcock's 2/6/18L.B. Jefferies played by James Stewart is depended on his wheelchair after a broken leg. Jefferies is forced to stay in his apartment for several weeks because of his injury. Because of this he gets a deeper meaning to his girlfriend Lisa Carol Fremont who is played by Grace Kelly. Lisa was this perfect woman which every guy dreamed of having but because of Jefferies injury he realizes she has a rebellious side to her. Jefferies nurse (Stella played by Thelma Ritter) who was hired to help him out gets launched into the drama of Jeffries spying on his neighbors. The story was written by John Michael Hayes and filmed by Alfred Hitchcock. The movie was produced by Paramount Pictures in 1952. The story is based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 story "It had been a murder". In 1995, The film won the Edgar Allen Poe award for best motion picture screenplay. In 1997, the movie was honored by the United States National Film Registry in the library of congress. In 2002, the film won the online Film and Television Association Award. After Jefferies broke his leg during a photographing a racetrack accident he is forced to stay in his apartment. His apartment overlooks multiple other apartments in the building over. He creeps on multiple people over the course of time. Until one night during a thunderstorm he hears a woman yell "Don't!" then the sound of breaking glass. He witnesses a guy named Thorwalds who is played by Raymond Burr. Thorwalds lives in the apartment directly across from Jeffries with his wife for the previous six month. Jefferies notices the next day Mr. Thorwalds wife is missing and that he is cleaning a knife. Thorwalds later that day locks a trunk and has moving men move the trunk away from the apartment. Jefferies soon become convinced that Mr. Thorwalds killed his wife and, becomes obsessed with finding out the truth.Jeffries believes that Mr. Thorwalds buried something in the court yard and killed a dog to stop it from digging. Jefferies and his wife Lisa go try and dig it but don't find anything. Lisa than climbs into his apartment. Mr. Thorwalds comes home and catches Lisa; Jefferies calls the cops to save her but in the mix of everything, the police arrest her for breaking into the apartment. Stella goes to bail out Lisa at the police station. Mr. Thorwalds calls Jeffries to confront him but Jefferies thinks it's detective Doyle who is played by Wendell Corey: says, "the suspect has left the apartment". When Mr. Thorwalds goes speechless, Jefferies quickly realizes that it's not detective Doyle and makes a huge mistake. Mr. Thorwalds comes over to confront him. When he gets there, he grabs Jefferies and throws him out the window. As he falls to the ground the police enter the apartment and arrest Mr. Thorwalds. A few days later, Jefferies goes home to rest peacefully but now with a cast on both his feet. All the neighbors seem to go back to living normal lives and a happy ending is at ease. It is not certain if Jefferies and Lisa ever get married.Jefferies isn't by definition, someone who goes out of the way to do good nor is he a detective. He is simply someone who likes to snoop around in other people's business. He is driven to be someone who likes to be next to the drama but not actually involved in it. You can see this in multiple occasions in the movie where he delays doing something because he's afraid to get himself involved.