Film Review: 'Rear Window'

Film review: 'Rear Window'

Recently i have been watching many thrillers that have been recommended to me and thrillers that i know from the storyline that i would enjoy. Also this will help me when producing my own thriller introduction to see what has come before me that maybe is successful or not. From this i can witness the use of conventions and the breaking of conventions to see what effect they have on the audience, whilst also widening my creativity and ideas.

Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' is an absolute classic and its success led to many remakes, most recently 'Disturbia'. The voyeurism and murder mystery storyline is so simple but is clinically executed which makes the experience of watching the film so thrilling.

Characters:

• L. B. Jefferies (hero/main character) a photojournalist, is acted by James Stewart


• His fashion model girlfriend, Lisa, is played by Grace Kelly (doner and helper)


• The killer (villain), a Mr. Lars Thorwald is acted by Raymond Burr


• Jefferies' nurse, Stella (helper)


• a new couple- first time buyers


• a female dancer


• a musician


• the killer's wife

Themes:

• a murder mystery (main theme)


• voyeurism


• fear and suspense


• lack of police involvement


• law v order


• use of current technology


• right v wrong


• ethics of marriage


• relationships (sexually and between friends)


• suspicions


• home-bound
• boredom
• isolation
• obsession

Setting:

• An urbanised, high density housed area-an estate/appartments


• Film is shot from Jefferies point of view and therefore from his bedroom, as he is home-bound.
  

Narrative/plot summary:

Jefferies (main character), a photojounalist, has broken his leg and is home-bound for a number of weeks. He lives in the city in an appartment, whereby he can look out of his 'rear' window and into many other appartments, almost like an estate. He becomes extremely bored and really wants to get back to work, and so takes up his profession at home, by watching/spying on his neighour's lives through his high lens/long distance camera. The audience watch the entire film mainly through his point of view, along with his girlfrind's and nurse's.

He watches a number of appartments including characters such as; what seems to be a couple in their first home, a female dancer, a married couple and a musician (pianist).

He is drawn to the married couple's appartment as it seems the couple are in disagreement. He watches their confrontations and their time spent alone. From this intense watching he believes he has witnessed the male (husband) kill his ill wife.

Jefferies urges his nurse Stella and his girlfriend, Lisa , to agree, however they both feel he must have imagined it due to his state.

Doubts are set in their minds as they continue to watch the couple disagreeing and then the villain's behaviour, they search for clues that the villain is in fact a killer. After much turmoil, the villain catches Jefferies watching his every move through his rear window. This leads to the final confrontation whereby the villain enters Jefferies' appartment and attempts to kill him. Jefferies stalls him by using the flash on his camera, which probably saves his life as the police are moving ever nearer to the appartment. The villain is then arrested for the murder of his wife and Jefferies lives happily ever after with his girlfriend.


Opinions:

My first impressions when the film began, was that this would be the type of film i would have to sit through when visitng the grandparents or something, however soon did i realise that infact this was a film which was hard hitting to its audience and broke thriller conventions of its time by highly reflecting the society of its set time period.

I particularly enjoyed how the film was entirely shot from Jefferies bedroom, because it shows, even though only one location is used, the film remains interesting and intense to the audience. Also i liked the fact that the audience witnessed the majoriy of events through Jefferies point of view. This was signified by the camera work as, the film was filled with frames within frames (looking through the window, through the camea lens..) and over the shoulder shots. On the contrary, i specifically loved the fact that the climax was from this villain's point of view, as this made it so much more thrilling to watch. And finally, in the film i thought the lack personality given to the villain really helped carry the suspense of the film. This is rarely used nowadays but from this film we can see it used very effectively. (This could possibily be an element used in my thriller project)