Rear Window

Rating

Director

Alfred Hitchcock

Screenplay

John Michael Hayes (Short Story: Cornell Woolrich)

Length

1h 52m

Starring

James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Judith Evelyn, Ross Bagdasarian, Georgine Darcy

MPAA Rating

PG (formerly: Passed (National Board of Review))

Review

One of the defining characteristics of Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic oeuvre is his constant need to innovate and iterate on ideas, taking audiences to new and compelling places. Rear Window is not his most ambitious gimmick, but it is his most successful.

The film stars James Stewart as a professional photographer confined to a wheelchair with a broken leg. As he spies on his neighbors out his courtyard window, he witnesses what he believes to be a murder and although he cannot investigate himself, his girlfriend (Grace Kelly), nurse (Thelma Ritter), and a police detective friend (Wendell Corey) help him out in this respect. They are a little less sure of the villainy of his neighbors and take a few more incautious maneuvers than he might have, leaving him to fret from his window-side perch.

Hitchcock’s gimmick here is setting all of the action-reaction within the apartment itself and always through the frame of reference of his protagonist. Stewart, for his part, plays the role perfectly, creating a sense of tension with just his facial expressions and body language. The rest of the suspense is provided by the master as Hitchcock’s directorial efforts showcase just how exquisitely he can craft a scene. Shot composition alone makes up the vast majority of the feel of the film, Hitchcock’s relationship with cinematographer Robert Burks amplifying its ultimate success.

While not nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction, Hal Pereira and Joseph MacMillan Johnson spent weeks erecting an enclosed sound stage set wherein all of the action would take place and based on a courtyard in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Apart from the intricate details, they set up a massive drainage system for a rain sequence in the film as well as building a complex lighting system to create natural-looking lighting for both day and night scenes. It is perhaps one of the most ambitious set projects in cinema and the attention to detail shows in each and every frame. In an era when on-location filming was starting to gain traction, adherence to years of cinema techniques paid off with the film’s look and feel.

Like many of Hitchcock’s films, the film is adapted from another source. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes is based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich, which establishes the entire concept for the setting of the film. Hitchcock, however, is the auteur of the film and exemplifies the theory put forth during the rise and dominance of French magazine Cahiers du cinéma, which dominated film discourse through the 1950s and forward. The theory states that the director is the author of the film, putting in his themes, symbolism, and techniques to use establishing a recognizable style. Hitchcock might well be one of the most prominent exemplars of the theory in action, earning him the moniker “The Master of Suspense” as the genre would be defined thereafter largely by his successes.

Rear Window is a fascinating film whose tension and trappings enrapture the audience, giving them feelings of dread, inevitability, and relief in a seemingly compact 112-minute package. Hitchcock’s films have long been an integral part of the cinematic experience and his astute eye for composition, detail, and suspense turned nearly every one of his films into a massive visceral success. While there are better Hitchcock films out there, this is still one of his absolute best.

Review Written

September 28, 2021