Stylish Direction, Witty Dialogue, Memorable Characters, and a Suspenseful Climax Make For a Hitchcock Classic

Rating: 8/10 (11 May 2014)

When it comes to filmmakers, very few have made as much of an impact as Alfred Hitchcock. He was the Master of Suspense, as he was called. He's influenced filmmakers across the board, from Steven Spielberg, to Christopher Nolan. He's also some of the most famous films ever made and one of them, is Rear Window.
The plot of Rear Window is very simple. Basically, a professional photographer by the name of L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race so he spends all his time observing his neighbors through his rear window and one night, after witnessing some mysterious acts from a man who lives across his apartment, he begins suspecting the man to be a murderer. At first, he tries to warn a detective, but the man doesn't believe him so it's up to Jeff to solve it on his own with his fiancée.
Rear Window is a perfect example of a movie that survives on the strength of the direction. Normally, a film where you watch a guy watching someone through his window would be very boring, but Hitchcock's directing makes for a very witty, entertaining film with a strong intrigue throughout and a very memorable finale.
The first thing that makes Hitch's directing special, is the way he puts us into the perspective of the main character Jeff. The camera in this film rarely ever leaves Jeff's apartment, we see the neighbors just like how the character sees them, through a window. And their dialogue always sounds as though we are REALLY hearing them from such distance by having more echo than the characters'voices in Jeff's apartment. The sound design also makes the neighborhood feel very alive by having numerous sounds in the background at once such as car horns blowing, birds chipping, pianos playing, people singing etc. The sound design also gets SCARY at times when we hear sounds of Thorwald presumably killing his wife. These things are probably not things you'd think about on a first-time viewing, but they help put you into Jeff's perspective perfectly.
But outside of the gimmick of a film being entirely set in one room with a character looking out a window, the film also has a very strong, witty script that keeps the film entertaining from beginning to end. The characters in the film(even the neighbors) all have distinct, memorable personalities that keep the film afloat when it gets talky and the way they bounce off each other is very witty and memorable. The performances, themselves, are excellent. The performance of the actor playing Jeff is very important, because not only is he the audience surrogate, he's also the character whose perspective we see through from beginning to end and yet, Jeff is never BORING. Jeff is always interesting and compelling to watch because James Stewart is just such a likable, charismatic actor. He's funny, he's relatable, you care for him, he's great. Grace Kelly on the other hand, is simply STUNNING as Lisa Freemont, Jeff's fiancée. Her beauty and well, GRACE, perfectly contrasts with Jeff's adventurous attitude. And Thelma Ritter very likable and has excellent chemistry with Jimmy Stewart in the role of Stella, Jeff's nurse.
We also have Judith Evelyn as Miss Torres or, as Jeff likes to call her, Miss Lonelyheart, a sad, lonely woman without a lover. This character doesn't have any lines but Evelyn manages to make her a very sad and sympathetic character without ever saying anything. Lastly, there's the murderer himself, Lars Thorwald, portrayed by Raymond Burr. Thorwald is a villain that really depends on the actor's look. He needs to have an intimidating, scary look to make for a memorable villain. Luckily, Burr pulls off this intimidating look on his face the entire time to make for a scary villain.
The film also has a great, suspenseful climax. It involves Lisa basically sneaking into Thorwald's apartment to find evidence but as she's doing so, Thorwald comes right back to his place. The entire time, you're just BITING your nails in suspense because Jeff is not an action hero. He can't even walk, so we feel just as helpless as he does and we're just hoping that Lisa gets lucky the entire time. Although, there were some silly moments at the end such as Jeff using the flash on his camera to slow down Thorwald from getting to him by temporarily blinding him in the dark each time and the dated fast-forward editing and front projection shot of Jeffrey falling out his window.
But overall, Rear Window is a great film with stylish direction, witty dialogue, memorable characters, and a great, suspenseful climax. 8/10