A tight, suspenseful movie with universal implications

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2006)

Due to its tightly defined setting and the short time frame that it covers, "Rear Window" at first seems like a film that will dazzle you with its economical construction, but run the risk of feeling limited or claustrophobic. The story takes place over 4 or 5 days, entirely within a Greenwich Village courtyard and the surrounding apartments. Furthermore, the camera never travels inside any of the apartments except for that of L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies (James Stewart), a photojournalist recovering from a broken leg. Instead, the inhabitants of the other apartments are filmed as Jeff sees them: from a distance, across the courtyard, through windows. By the end of the film, you are quite familiar with everyone and everything Jeff can see.
But the genius of "Rear Window" is that it rarely feels confining. The plot takes its time getting started, introducing all the characters at a leisurely pace. Even when the machinery of the suspenseful plot starts to click into motion (Jeff suspects his neighbor Thorwald of murdering his invalid wife), the movie continues to follow the interesting lives of the other apartment-dwellers: a seductive dancer whom Jeff nicknames "Miss Torso," the depressed "Miss Lonelyhearts," a struggling young songwriter, a newlywed couple, a middle-aged couple with a little dog... The voyeuristic Jeff finds these people endlessly fascinating, and so do we; the apartment courtyard is a microcosm containing enough stories to make many more movies. And something magical happens when Jeff looks beyond the courtyard, at the bustling patch of street and sidewalk that he can see down an alley. Suddenly you realize how many other people there are in the world, thickly crowding the New York streets, and how each of them would reveal a different, intriguing story, if you were able to watch him or her from a distance.
"Rear Window" might still be a decent thriller if it were pared down to eliminate all the subplots about the neighbors, but Hitchcock does the more difficult, braver thing: he maintains the suspense of the main mystery story while intercutting it with the neighbors' vignettes. Thus, for a movie that was filmed on a sound stage at the height of the studio system, "Rear Window" feels surprisingly realistic and lifelike. The story might sound confined, even airless, in summary, but Hitchcock reveals its unlimited possibilities.
James Stewart plays Jeff as a man who has always relied on his wit, his observational powers, and his analytical skills. In order to take his mind off his broken leg, and stop himself from over-analyzing his relationship with fashion-model girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly), he starts obsessively watching the neighbors, and witnesses Thorwald's strange behavior. Stewart has some great moments when he tells his friends about his suspicions, and they doubt him, and he doesn't know what to do, because his eyes and brain have never failed him before.
Kelly is better here than in her other famous Hitchcock film, "To Catch a Thief"--she's more sympathetic, vulnerable, funny and relaxed. Thelma Ritter is very entertaining as Stella, Jeff's shrewd nurse.
Nowadays, the 1950s have a reputation as a time when Americans liked to think that everything was sunny and prosperous, and pretended that the darker side of life didn't exist. Recent films such as "Far From Heaven" have deconstructed the '50s, revealing the disturbing undercurrents beneath the cheerful faÃ§ade. What amazes me is that Hitchcock explored that exact theme here, in 1954--the despair, the passionate sexuality, the murderous impulses found in a group of seemingly ordinary New Yorkers. "Rear Window" may be one of the films that best encapsulates its era, in addition to being superbly crafted entertainment.