Mystery

 Rear Window

Once I had watched the original “Psycho” I became something of a Hitchcock buff. As instructed by my dad at the time, I had to watch “The Birds” and “Rear Window” to get to know some of the directors other famous films. 

Rear Window is a masterpiece in the build-up and execution of mystery and suspense. It is based primarily at the one location; a window. From this view, a wheel chair bound photographer named L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries (James Stewart) kills his time by gazing out from his room onto the adjoining apartments that also look down onto the courtyard below them. Observantly, he gets to know all about his neighbours and their daily routines. These include a dancer Jeff calls “Miss Torso” who practices her moves by her open window for all to see; a lonely woman he aptly calls “Miss Lonelyheart”; a songwriter; several married couples (including a newlywed couple who rarely leave their bedroom); a sculptor; and a man called Lars Thorwald – a jeweler who takes care of his bed-ridden wife. 

At first, Jeff appears as something of a voyeur, as he tries to relinquish his intense boredom of being confined to his room because of a broken leg. Armed with a pair of binoculars and a camera with a telephoto lens, he watches his neighbours up close and personal without their awareness. His surveillance of others is filmed with such craft and clarity by Hitchcock that we the audience become spies with him; seeing things from his point-of-view as he surveys his fellow neighbours. 

Occasionally, his girlfriend Lisa (played by the beautiful Grace Kelly) pays him a visit to lift his spirits, bring him lunch and listen to him go on about the movements of his neighbours. These two actors have great chemistry and the dynamics of their characters relationship is somewhat remnant of what is going on in the lives of his neighbours.  

One night, Jeff is asleep in his chair by the open window on a hot, summer night. He hears a noise that wakes him up and looks out his window. It appears as if all his neighbours are in bed with the lights out… except for one of them. Directly across the way, Jeff hears Thorwald have an argument with his wife, then watches him proceed to clean a large knife, and make repeated trips in and out of his apartment with a suitcase. Jeff instantly suspects that Thorwald has murdered his wife, so with the aid of his girlfriend, personal carer and a detective, he starts to unravel the clues. 

After watching Rear Window my obsession for the films of Alfred Hitchcock really kicked in. I followed this film by watching “The Birds” and on and on it went. As I began watching his other works, I was continued to be amazed at how sophisticated and ahead of his time Hitchcock was. There is a sly confidence about all his films, which can be seen in the performances of the actors. I got the sense they played their parts with so much style and nuance because they were safely in the hands of a master story teller. I imagined that Hitchcock treated his actors like royalty, but later I came across a quote the director once made “Actors should be treated like cattle”. Hmm… so he only regarded them mildly? Still, he got the best out of them, which demonstrates Sir Alfred Hitchcock really was a firs-rate director and “The Master of Suspense”.  

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