Innovative Setting, Brilliant Character Study

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2015)

To me, setting is one of the most important factors in any film. The main draws of The Searchers for me (far from John Wayne's Ethan Edwards or the 'groundbreaking' take on racism) was the beauty, isolation and vastness of Monument Valley; While I love all of East of Eden, you can't beat the beautiful landscapes and scenery that surround the area the story is told in; Even though The Wizard Of Oz's painted backdrops are painfully obvious, the cheesiness is what draws me to the movie. What I'm getting at is that even if I don't particularly love a movie's plot, characters, acting, what have you, it's really the setting and sets that make or break a movie for me. Rear Window has a top-notch, fascinating set that I fell in love with from minute 1 (or 2, I can't remember how long the jazzy credit sequence is).
Don't get me wrong, this movie has it all, namely a compelling plot that stems from an innovative idea (man breaks leg and has to stay in his apartment, man occupies himself by watching his neighbors out his window, man sees something he's not supposed to see and spends the rest of the movie trying to prove that he saw what he wasn't supposed to), to put it in the simplest terms. It's this plot and the idea of a forced-static setting that makes this movie so hard to turn away from. Apparently, Hitchcock only filmed from the same room that James Stewart and the audience are 'stuck' in for the duration of the film. This increases the sense of suburban claustrophobia, being too close to people it seems you should be able to trust, if for no other reason than the fact that you can see what they are doing at all times, just by peeking out your window. You're really there with the characters, hearing the neighbor's noises and looking right into their homes and, moreover, their lives.
If nothing else in a film matters, characters do. I feel that Grace Kelly kind of steals the show. It may seem like her character undergoes a change over the course of the movie, but this is not the case, we've just been looking at everything from Jeff's (Stewart's) perspective: Early on, he gripes about Lisa (Kelly), saying she's "too perfect" and complaining that a person of her social standing and class would have no place in his supposedly rough-and-tumble lifestyle as a photographer. A little later, after Lisa puts the note under Thorwald's door and experiences a close call almost getting caught, she rushes back to Jeff's apartment, and as she remarks excitedly on her quest, we are given a closeup of Jeff's suddenly lovestruck face. This is where you see a transformation in Lisa, and see that Jeff is really falling for her now. In actuality, this is a transformation in Jeff: He never gave Lisa the chance to prove that she's more than a pretty, privileged face, but once she does it on her own, he begins to really fall for her, seeing that she might actually have a place in his adventurous lifestyle. By the time Lisa sneaks into Thorwald'a apartment and pokes around (eventually getting caught red handed), Jeff is in obvious pain at seeing Lisa in such a dangerous situation, and we know he's hooked.
Stewart, to me, is less charming, and maybe the only flaw in the movie. His ornery behavior to every single person he encounters (and they're all visiting him in his own home while he's wheelchair-ridden) is annoying and does not aid his character development at all: it seems like L.B Jeffries can only get better from the start, but he's been such a jerk that the last 15 minutes of realizing he really DOES love Lisa don't really redeem him in my eyes. Speaking of Lisa, she is obviously far younger and more attractive, yet he acts like HE'S the real catch of the two (Kelly only helps this vibe along, drooling all over him and practically begging him to include her in his future). It's all a little hard to swallow.
Don't worry, though, this movie is hardly about romance, or even really about the relationship between Lisa and Jeff: it's a fascinating study of the average neighborhood, populated with newlyweds, mature married couples, popular young women, lonely older women, people who seem happy around others but are miserable alone, artists, grouches, and occasionally, people who reach their breaking point. And all this is viewed from one man's apartment window.
The set is believable, the people even more so, and It's the innovative idea of forced-static setting that makes it so important to see at least once.