Review Of "Rear Window"
- Alfred Hitchcock: Psycho Review - game with the audience was fascinating. I was directing the viewers. You might say I was playing...
Submitted by sumrgurl on 06/30/2008 05:21 PM
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Review Of "Rear Window"
Alfred Hitchcock is often named the master of suspense. Hitchcock has the ability to take a creepy story and transform it into a masterful suspense flick overflowing with skill and talent. In the film Rear Window, Hitchcock explores the frightening occurrence of voyeurism (to watch people) and delivers a suspenseful and enthralling movie. Rear Window takes us through a regular day for Mr. Jeffries, played by James Stewart, which includes a visit from his nurse and a full day of voyeuristic activities such as watching the bickering married couple or the curvy "Miss Torso", the dancer. What may have started out as a simple activity to pass time while his leg is healing soon landed Jeffries in the middle of a frightening and mysterious murder. Hitchcock wanted to open people's eyes to the fact that everyone and anyone is or could be a voyeur. Hitchcock believed, in fact, that all humans are voyeuristic and it can be proven with the obsession with entertainment and media.
Jeffries is a normal working citizen who's life is changed when he is confined to his apartment until his leg is healed. Never before had Jeffries found entertainment in watching his less than perfect neighbors, but the longer he's confined, the more interesting he begins to believe their lives really are. Grace Kelley plays Jeffries loving girlfriend. She is perfect, interesting, entertaining and attainable to Jeffries but he still finds his neighbors more interesting. The fact that Jeffries is able to dismiss his perfect girlfriend on account of his voyeuristic lifestyle is found to be ultimately sad. Throughout the film there is an impression of helplessness in Jeffries, but at the same time it's as though he possesses power as well. He is able to sit there and watch people's lives as though they were movies.
Hitchcock is said to have believed that when an audience is watching a movie, they are acting voyeuristically. Perhaps watching a movie is an act upon where people sit and...
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