Rear Window (1954)

I can only hope that someday in your life you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy some uninterrupted Alfred Hitchcock movies. They are just so rich. Take for example Rear Window, the setting in this film is everything and it’s only one large set. You may not think a film of a guy in a wheelchair looking out his rear window onto the courtyard of his apartment and its other inhabitants sounds like the fodder for action and suspense, but believe me, in the hands of the master – it’s riveting.

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The setting in this film, like most settings crucial to the narrative, is almost a character in itself. We get so much information in the opening panning shot. Before a word is spoken, we know things about our protagonist like he’s a photographer, he’s been in an accident, he has photographed famous people, and his neighbors all have distinct characters.

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It shouldn’t be surprising then, that the main character played by James Stewart spends his time looking out his window at his neighbors. He’s a photographer…a professional observer. Hitchcock raises this pastime to an almost deviant voyeuristic level. He becomes convinced that his neighbor has killed his wife and manages to convince those around him of the same thing. The voyeurism takes a turn in a scene when the man (played by Raymond Burr) turns his gaze back into Stewart’s apartment. The viewer then becomes the viewed. His wheelchair-bound state makes him vulnerable as he cannot escape his setting.

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Even though there is only on set in the film, it only becomes claustrophobic when the killer arrives. Until then, Hitchcock manages to keep us interested by including moments of the neighbor’s lives. Hitchcock always seems to manage his settings for the greatest effect. From Rope to Lifeboat to Rear Window and to some extent Dial M for Murder, there’s a very limited setting, yet its character is just as much a part of the film as the actors!

Seriously, treat yourself to a Hitchcock film tonight!

Alfred Hitchcock Filmography   

The Silent Years

1925 The Pleasure Garden

1927 The Mountain Eagle

1927 The Lodger

1927 Downhill

1927 Easy Virtue

1927 The Ring

1928 Champagne

1928 The Farmer's Wife

1929 The Manxman
 

The British Classics

1929 Blackmail

1930 Juno and the Paycock

1930 Murder!

1931 The Skin Game

1932 Number Seventeen

1932 Rich and Strange

1934 The Man Who Knew
Too Much

1934 Waltzes From Vienna

1935 The 39 Steps

1936 Sabotage

1936 Secret Agent

1937 Young and Innocent

1938 The Lady Vanishes

1939 Jamaica Inn

1940 Foreign Correspondent

 Vintage Hollywood

1940 Rebecca

1941 Mr. and Mrs. Smith

1941 Suspicion

1942 Saboteur   

1943 Shadow of a Doubt

1944 Lifeboat

1945 Spellbound   

1946 Notorious

1948 The Paradine Case

1948 Rope

1949 Under Capricorn

1950 Stage Fright 

1951 Strangers on a Train

1953 I Confess

1954 Dial "M" for Murder

1954 Rear Window

1955 To Catch a Thief

1955 The Trouble with Harry

 1956 The Man Who Knew
Too Much (remake)

1956 The Wrong Man

1958 Vertigo

1959 North by Northwest

1960 Psycho

1963 The Birds

1964 Marnie

1966 Torn Curtain

1969 Topaz

1972 Frenzy

1976 Family Plot