Masterful Information Abstraction

Rating: 9/10 (23 September 2018)

Rear Window is the story of a photographer named Jeff who is recovering from a broken leg and is grounded in his apartment until he is healed and can return to the field. Jeff is cared for by a nurse named Stella who aids Jeff is his recovery while also encouraging him to marry his girlfriend Lisa. Jeff is extremely reluctant to the idea as he describes that the two of them may not be compatible. The core of film revolves around his relationship conflicts with Lisa and eventually a suspected murder that took place in a neighboring apartment. The plot of the film is entirely driven from Jeff's immobile condition. The film's title is essential to the central cinematic theme of the film. That is, we watch an entire story unfold through a single scene of a rear window. In doing so, we see a carefully crafted story unfold just as Jeff does. The exposition of the film is overall quite limited. But it provides all of the elements needed to garner an audiences attention and curiosity. With consistent foreshadowing of trouble to come, the film invites the audience to join Jeff and look through his eyes. Rear Window is a masterwork display of information obfuscation and does so through a lens of voyeurism. Story telling in this nature is interesting because from a literary perspective it is the opposite of dramatic irony. Where dramatic irony is employed stories take on a certain sense of suspense where wonder what will happen to characters based on information we know but they do not. In Rear Window's case, the use of dramatic irony is entirely null and the result is suspense that imitates life. This version of suspense is far more real seeming because it is based off of information that is known and unknown. Much of story telling in film is done through the simple structure of an audience watching a story. Rear Window differs from this model going a level deeper. As an audience, we watch characters who view a story unfold. This distinction is important for the theme of voyeurism and for the layers of abstraction that are done through Jeff's apartment point of view. The information that we are given as audience members is given out when we are given point of view shots as if they were from Jeff's own eyes. The smooth camera movement from one apartment to the next throughout the film gives glimpses into the lives of his neighbors and gives us limited perspective on the happenings around him. This makes us speculate and draw our own conclusions in addition to the ones our characters creates. Rear Window is superb in its ability to simultaneously tell a story of suspected murder through what Jeff sees as well as intertwining the conflicts that he is facing is his relationship with Lisa. Rather than having a compartmentalized and divided story, the murder case acts as a cinematic element to push his relationship forward. Throughout the case Jeff sees Lisa differently and find a new appreciation for her. As mentioned earlier, the film uses point of view shots of Jeff's neighbors to further the murder plot and build suspense to the film. The characters that are found in the neighboring apartments also act to further his relationship with Lisa. Jeff often views scenes which include the likes of a newlywed couple and a lonely woman who drinks her sorrows away. Ultimately, it's shots of this nature that tell of an internal conflict within Jeff in which he is deciphering what is important to him and which life he would rather end up in.