Jeff's Room

Rating: 8/10 (26 November 2013)

There's something about Hitchcock. Most of his films are fun for their craft and understanding of what works cinematically, but for me they are mostly one-time films. There's one exception, however, and that's "Rear Window" (1954). Surprised you there, didn't I. "Vertigo" (1958) I like, yes, and while much of it struck me equally as magical as before, the jaded ending spoiled it for me: it was too expository, somehow too clean.
Here the ending is a bit too explanatory to my taste, and everything happens a bit too suddenly when things get going. But the amazing sequence of events that leads us there more than makes up for it. Much has been said about this film's voyeurism in the filmic sense: we gain emotional satisfaction when we are granted godlike access to other people's lives, be they real or fictional. This, however, is important in regards to a form of art that's so deeply all about us seeing things. Stewart plays a photographer and we're constantly reminded about his point of view — what did he see? Does what he saw really mean what he thinks it does? In other words, how does what we think we see relate to what we think is happening. In addition, the camera-eye is pretty marvelous: we stay the whole film in Jeff's room, in his point of view. Hitchcock devices it brilliantly: he's in a wheelchair so he can't move out, and neither can we. He uses surrogates, and they become our surrogates as well, meaning that effectively we become so close to Jeff as actually becoming him.
Writing about it makes me want to see it again.