Rear Window (1954)

           James Stewart and Grace Kelly

'Rear Window' is an American crime-thriller movie made in 1954, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr.

Along with 'Vertigo', which he made four years later the movie represents Hitchcock's most successful merger of entertainment, intrigue, and psychology. It is the culmination of his his simmering and barely suppressed psychosexual fixations, a fascinating study of obsession and voyeurism. 'Rear Window' combines a perfect cast, a perfect screenplay, and particularly a perfect set for a movie that's even better than the sum of its parts.

It received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Director, but won none. In 1997, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is ranked at number 48 on AFI's list of 100 Greatest Movies.

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For maximum freedom, Hitchcock constructed an intricate replication of a crowded and constantly bustling New York City tenement building and its equally busy courtyard. 31 apartments were constructed in all, 8 of them furnished. Each window offers a glimpse into another life and in effect tells another story. In one unit, a composer hunches over his piano struggling with his latest work. In another, a dancer practices compulsively. One apartment houses a lonely woman, unlucky in love, and another an amorous newlywed couple.

L.B.'Jeff' Jeffries (James Stewart) is a successful photojournalist sidelined with a broken leg. Stuck in a wheelchair all day, he has nothing better to do than spy on his neighbors through the rear window of his two-room apartment. Or at least that's what he claims, because his fashion model girlfriend (and would-be wife) Lisa (played by a surprisingly carnal Grace Kelly in one of her final roles before retiring) and his cranky caretaker Stella (Thelma Ritter) perceptively observe that he's merely addicted to the thrill of voyeurism.

The notion of anyone able to keep their eyes off a character as beautiful and luminous as Lisa is hard to believe, until Jeff begins to suspect one of his neighbors (a glowering Raymond Burr) of murdering his wife. Soon enough, Jeff has dragged Lisa and Stella into the mystery, obsessively studying Burr's character's behaviour for signs of his guilt. But as Jeff's furtive investigation advances, so do the ongoing stories of all of his other neighbors, oblivious to the nefarious plot possibly unfolding literally right next door.

'Rear Window', the film, is constructed every bit as thoroughly as its elaborate set. Watching it is like watching a living, breathing ecosystem, with the added thrill of a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. Hitchcock relishes the film's particularly postmodern scenario: we, the viewers, are entranced by the actions of these characters, who are in turn entranced by the actions of still other characters. It's a vicious circle of obsession laced with black humor and a dash of sexiness.

Indeed, although the nosey Jeff discovers a murder in his urban hamlet, it's the numerous romances transpiring in the other units that first draw his attention to the courtyard peepshow. It's wholy ironic that his obsessions with the love lives of his neighbors prevent him from acknowledging the romantic interest of Lisa. In fact, the bachelor in Jeff looks to his neighbors as an excuse to ward off her advances. It is only when his actions put her in danger that he finally understands that what he has in front of him is better than anything he can see out the window.