Rear Window - The Mini-Review

Some of the points I'm going to bring up in my mini-review of Rear Window have been examined and discussed at great length by people with much more expertise than myself. I will not be the first one to notice them, but is the first time I will be writing about them, so I will go ahead and bring them up.

Let's get the first major point out of the way, it goes without saying, Alfred Hitchcock was way ahead of his time. Technically speaking, Rear Window is filmed in a way that was exceptional for it's time. Hitchcock's long takes and camera movement (among other things) established his visual style immediately. At first glance you can tell it's one of his movies. This is the review, so I'll get more into the technical aspects of the creation of the movie when I do the "Match-Up" with the re-imagined movie, Disturbia, but it has to be said that the way the movie is shot has much to do with it's greatness.

One of the boldest choices the movie makes it to confine the main character and as a result, the viewer, to a single room. At no point does Hitchcock venture outside the small 2 room apartment that wheelchair bound L.B. Jefferies occupies. We do get to see virtually everything that is going on around him but only from the vantage point of his picture window. This goes a long way towards immersing the viewer in the character's situation. When some of the movies more tense sequences play out, they are made all the more upsetting because of our limited view of the action. We are stuck across the courtyard in our wheelchair, after all. Preceding generations of directors have been using this "less is more" approach to visual storytelling, thanks in part, to Rear Window.

I'll probably say a couple more times in these reviews, my frame of reference for reviewing these older films is limited. There are some ideas I get from watching them that can only be backed up with more context. With that being said, the romantic subplot in this film seemed a little ahead of it's time, as well. Movies of this era seemed to have very simplistic romances. Male leads are strong and in control, female leads are beautiful and ripe for romancing. Often times we don't see why these two folk should get together, other than one is the current big male star and one is the latest Hollywood princess. Here, we get a little more depth to their interactions.

Rear Window is suspenseful, technically pleasing (as soon as you realize Hitchcock is placing you in that wheel chair along with James Stewart) and surprisingly funny. If you haven't experienced many Hitchcock films, think M Night Shyamalan, at least when he is on top of his game ,that is. Don't let Rear Window sit on your list of shame like I did for so long. It deserves to be seen, so you can realize it's influence on so much that came after it.