Rear Window (1954, Paramount)

Rear Window (1954, Paramount)

FILMS OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK Analysis & Review form

10/31/2016

Describe your assessment/opinion for each category below Do NOT write generalized statements without examples from film or examples without statements clarifying them

1). Screenplay/Storyline:

A documentary photographer is injured on the job and is in his NY apartment recuperating for six weeks. He is visited by his girlfriend and his health care worker. To pass the time, he observes the tenants in the other buildings as they carry on with their lives. Over the course of a few days he believes that he has seen a murder. His girlfriend and health worker become interested in solving the case with him as his police friend does not believe it. His girlfriend goes into the suspect’s apartment to find a wedding ring as evidence. She is caught and the police take her away. She signals her boyfriend pointing out the ring on her finger. The suspect looks down and then over to the photographer, figuring out that he is behind the snooping. The suspect comes over when the photographer is alone and tries to kill him by throwing him out the window but is saved by the police and the suspect is caught.

2). Hitchcock‘s Direction/Style (use of editing/montage, composition of shots, camera angles)

The camera angles are shot from the point of view of the photographer’s gaze looking into the tenants in the apartment complex in front of him. The editing goes back and forth from what he sees to his facial expressions. A lot of times there is no dialogue we just see what his faces expresses.

There is an exception to the movie being shot from his POV. It is when the little dog is killed and there are close ups from many angles of the tenants as they react to the owner screaming.

3). Performances and Characterization:

Grace Kelley is convincing as a high society fashion expert. Her manner is flirtatious but not overly. She is beautiful and a good actress. She started out playing a stuffy society girl and domineering in her beliefs of their coupledom and she becomes a more open minded and understanding of her mate and his lifestyle.

James Stewart is able to convey wonderful facial expressions. His facial expressions drive most of the movie as the camera keeps switching back to his face. He is a good actor and plays an uninterested boyfriend to an enamored one.

Thelma Ritter adds fun comedic elements. She was a good choice for her comedic timing. They cast the right age for being a reasonable mom-ish person to Jeffries. She also has a bit of a New Yorker accent which adds to her working class persona.

4). Cinematography:

A clever use of integrating close ups into the scenes is that we see most close ups when Jeffries uses binoculars or his zoom photography lenses.

The lighting of the film many times is done with the light coming from the lamps as Lisa moves around changing the dark room into light before the full lighting comes on.

We also see the use of lights in the apartments across the way to show beginning and endings of scenes. A great use of light is the view of the murderer in many scenes just by the light of cigarette in the dark.

There is also a clever use of a shadow from the window frame. He is able to to step back from the light to hide himself or the people in his apartment by going into the shaded area.

5). Film Score/Sound and/or Visual Effects:

The creation of a musical score throughout the film fits in with the building of the score the relationships and storyline. It works very well with the love story of Jeffries and Lisa. There is a struggle to create the music as they struggle to define their relationship. Once the composition has a breakthrough in its completion, Lisa and Jeffries also have a breakthrough in their relationship. The musician not only completes his music but his happiness is also complete as he begins a relationship.

Grace Kelley has special lighting on her face that makes her eyes sparkle and makes her look extra glamorous.

6). Hitchcockian Themes and Motifs:

Stella is a mother figure to Jeffries. He is able to confide in her about Lisa and his spying on the neighbors. She talks to him realistically and disapprovingly in a kind way. She scolds him about sleeping in his chair and peeking on the neighbors.

There are many birds in the beginning shots of the film. There is a small canary and then lots of pigeons on the rooftop. It is possible that he used this as he usually does as a sense of foreboding over a pleasant little neighborhood.

There is a psychological motif. There is a view into the psyche of the tenants and what drives their behavior. Ms. lonely heart is aging and is depressed about being single and pretends to have a boyfriend at her meals, then goes into desperate measures to get a man. A man struggles with his creative abilities to compose music. A couple begins a marriage and we see a bit of its development. Each window is a window into the minds of the tenants.

There is moral grayness in the fundamental set up of the film. Jeffries is spying on the neighbors and invading their privacy, even a female neighbor who dances around in her underwear.

Varied social classes interacting is a theme Hitchcock uses. The documentary photographer is a well-known in his field. Lisa is a wealthy society girl wearing thousand dollar outfits. The cop and the masseuse are blue color workers. The tenants are mainly middle class, but the composer has a more stunning apartment and wealthier guests.

The disillusions, disappoints, and complications of love and marriage is a theme used. We see newlyweds begin their relationship in bliss and then end up arguing about the husband quitting his job. There is a frustrating marriage that ends up in murder. Jeffries and Lisa are in love but have incompatible life styles. They struggle through the story on their relationship.

7). Influences evoked from or inspired (film/literature/art/political/social):

The movie is based on a story by Cornell Woolrich.

I also see the paintings of Edward Hopper in the film: Night Windows (1928); Room in New York (1932); Room in Brooklyn (1932); Office in a Small City (1953); and Nighthawks (1942). We are all voyeurs into windows or in apartments in these paintings.

8). Overall impressions of film (positive/negative) and additional comments:

I love city life and the interesting characters that one can find there unlike most of American suburbs. The characters in this film are interesting city-types and artists in Greenwich Village. The protagonist is given a fascinating career as an international documentary film photographer. His apartment shows this interesting career with a collection of photos and paraphernalia of different travels. There are masks, a Japanese chest, a Chinese chest and interesting photos of the world.

Lisa is beautiful with a glamorous society life with lunches and cocktail parties. In her character we view the high life and excitement that one can have in Manhattan. I could never do it, but it’s nice to think about possibly being able to jump into that life for a few days.

As in other films that Hitchcock does, there is usually a put down to a woman which I don’t like. In this case there is a police officer that denies the theories of Lisa because he doesn’t believe in women intuition. That is a demeaning comment. He has wasted time in the past over following misdirection from women’s intuition.