One of Hitchcock's Best

Rating: 10/10 (27 July 2003)

(contain minor spoilers)
Two newlyweds have recently moved into their first apartment. A ballet dancer invites acquaintances home for a dinner party. Miss Lonelyheart pretends that she's having dinner with her boyfriend. A downhearted composer plays the piano in search of inspiration. A married couple enjoys sleeping on the fire escape. And lastly, a salesman, Lars Thorwald, appears to be peculiarly fond of quarreling with his invalid, sick wife.
Every scene depicts a unique story in each of private compartments into which no one should ever pry or meddle without permission. But what if one of the occupants in this apartment building appears to be a murderer?
In Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 thriller, Rear Window, L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart), an injured photographer with a broken leg, tries to address the above question by taking on a role of a crime-scene investigator when he suspects his neighbor Thorwald of murder. Using a pair of binoculars and his photographer's long lenses, Jeffries spies on Thorwald's and his other neighbors' private lives without leaving his wheelchair.
Because of Jeffries' immobility, nearly all the scenes in the movie take place inside his apartment. Although the stationary setting of a film can create an uninterestingly monotonous atmosphere, the fixed setting in Rear Window effectively draws our attention away from the scenery by turning our focus onto the characters. Through the witty repartees between Jeffries, his nurse Stella (Wendell Corey), and his fiancée Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly), the audience becomes fascinated by Jeffries' `risky business'. Being a high-end fashion model, Lisa considers Jeffries' spying unethical; yet, her curiosity quickly persuades her to take a deep interest in Thorwald's life.
Meanwhile, the audience, intrigued by the possibility of deciphering a homicide case, also becomes persuaded. Like Jeffries and Lisa, we have gradually turned into voyeurs, having secretly approved their actions by attaching our emotions to the main characters. To successfully connect us to the characters, Hitchcock chooses to recount the movie from Jeffries' perspective, letting us witness what Jeffries sees through his binoculars. Jeffries, thus, becomes a member of the audience, and we a part of him. When Jeffries wonders whom Thorwald is calling, we wonder with him; when Jeffries suspects that Thorwald has created false evidence to deceive the police, we agree with him; when Jeffries senses the danger once Thorwald has discovered his surveillance, we worry with him. Amidst the unfolding suspense, we hope to help Jeffries solve the crime, reasoning what would happen next and what would be the logical next step.
Yet, regardless of how deeply and firmly we have convinced ourselves of the murder, without evidence, we (the audience and Jeffries) cannot prove anything. Indeed, many private doings are never elucidated, but the movie's attentiveness to detail makes the crucial evidence easy to find under careful inspection. Every shot in the movie has a purpose: the most forgettable and trifling details often reveal the most meaningful clues to the manifestation of the murder and the murderer. Shots of a dog digging the dirt in a flower garden, a photograph of the flowers, a lady's handbag hanging on the bedpost and the tangled jewelries inside the handbag are revealed as crucial details. Yet, a viewer does not comprehend the importance of these significant scenes until he undergoes an unexpected epiphany later in the film, when he suddenly realizes their implications to the solution of the crime.
Thus, Rear Window has remained a classic decades after its first screening. Though it does not possess the mind blowing CGI effects of a present day action thriller, the audience is never deprived of the excitement, enthusiasm and suspense of a great murder mystery.