Hitchcock Work of Art

Rating: 8/10 (5 February 2018)

Here we have a story of stories. Numerous narrations enveloped into one holistic, Thriller of a film. Namely two plot lines steal the spotlight; the life that has been given to L.B. Jefferies (James Stewart), and the life which he has chosen to lives his days by through that rear window.
The emotional relationship journey through his character and Lisa, and the murder thriller brought to life by predominantly nameless characters and events from which the audience and main cast are entirely concealed from. Every detail has its place, every storyline has its meaning, Alfred Hitchcock has unlocked this dynamic story through plot intuition and creativity which is then presented from film angles so that no intention of the storyline is missed. Both the story itself, and the film art, work from separate perspectives to make this entirely cohesive thriller.
Professional photographer L.B. Jefferies spends his days peering down from his apartment window at his neighbors and surrounding alleys as he recovers from his wheelchair restricting broken leg. His persistent watching produces consecutive evidence of questionable action by his neighbor Thorwald. Later aided by his dear Lisa and other close companions, Jeffries unravels the story of a murderous husband, and complex deception, that would otherwise go unseen.
From the artistic and technical side of the film, the plot line and camera angles take gold in my eyes. The window of the shots oscillate between having Stewart dead center, to his optical target, and then back again repeating this pattern. The audience then receives from this a beautiful interpretation of Jefferies inquisition, physical target, and then reaction to what he saw. Each consecutive view of the same region would also involve a closer look at the region of interest. Without words the audience understands each detail and the mental process of the character.
Another story telling technique which really stands out is the order in which pieces of evidence are visually presented, significantly before they are ever considered by a character. This is fascinating as it allows the viewers to ultimately solve parts of this riddle entirely on their own; independent of the characters' discovery. Two examples of this are the digging of the dog in the garden, and the wedding ring that is seen in Mrs. Thorwald's handbag. The dog's curiosity is seen very early on in the film, though not addressed until the poor pup is later found dead. The ring is first seen by Jefferies as Mr. Thorwald fumbles through the bag's contents while on the phone, though no character acknowledges the discovery until later discussion occurs. The close-up shots and perfectly timed panning of the set allow for these details to be picked up by the audience and subtly emphasized as important without any plot cue having to tell them so.
Along with film angles, the control of light and dark on the set itself is the obvious director of audience attention. In the extremely tradition sense, rooms that are lit are where the eye is meant to be drawn. This is a voiceless narration that is ideal for this film. This film is essentially narrated by the thoughts of L.B. Jefferies, though these thoughts are not audibly expressed. The film angles and set lighting are meant to produce the narration in the head of the viewer by matching your thought process identically to that of Jefferies himself. Phenomenal.
Lastly, just as the light is used to regularly draw attention, in calculated instances the darkness was used in just the same way. When the dog was discovered to be dead, lights came on in every room as people all around the set looked out of curiosity; all except one room. This dark room of Thorwald was silent proof that emphasized him as the guilty party.