Damn, you should see this......

Rating: 10/10 (24 May 1999)

If you are looking for a starting point to act as an introduction to Hitchcock then its hard to argue the case for any one particular film. The case made for Rear Window is at least as good as any others though. Featuring the main themes that flowed through Hitchcock's work (voyeurism, death, betrayal, pessimism, grim fascination with the darker parts of the human psyche), Rear Window is also a prime example of Hitchcock's stylistic singularity as a mainstream director. For example, the opening track and pan tells us at once who we are with, why we are there and what has happened to bring us there. As James Stewart's character L.B.Jefferies gazes out of his window we only really see the other characters in their moments of weakness, at their most vulnerable. At once a comment on the intrusive nature of the camera and the human self, we feel as intriqued and simultaneously disgusted as we along with Stewart's narky, bored photographer as he gazes at the drama unfolding as a man supposedly kills his bed-ridden wife.
I believe this to be Hitchcock's most pessimistic film regarding marriage and human relationships. All the characters we watch are either precariously happy or plain unhappy specifically regarding their marital/non-marital status. They are at worst like the murderer, ready to kill to rid himself of his wife, or like 'poor Miss Lonelyheart', alone and full of self pity. The only seemingly positive example is the newlyweds but even they near the end of the film show some signs of weariness. The evidence stolen by Grace Kelly's character is a wedding ring, which she slips on her finger, an ironic and bitter twist as she has been trying to ensnare Stewart's hand in marriage throughout the whole film and this perhaps is the closest she'll get. The ending, where her character lets the cover of her book slip to reveal a travelling magazine encompasses Jimmy Stewart's reasons for not marrying earlier on as the differences between them are too severe. The ending resolves little except the murder.
One of my favourite films. Although what precisely that says about me....