Part of Hitchcock’s greatness is that he’s both a artistically gifted filmmaker and a very entertaining one. He creates work with deep messages that also happens to be fun every minute along the way.
And sometimes he’ll comment on one of his own favorite subjects and a favorite subject of many people watching: movies themselves. There is, of course, a meta element about movies that comment on movies, evidenced by films like The Player and Singing in the Rain (to come on this list), but some, like this one, are less of a commentary on making films and more of a commentary on watching them.
This is the first of his movies to make it onto the AFI list and the third one that I’ve covered thus far, and many might say it’s his best, although with Hitchcock there are so many reasonable cases for others.
So here we are with 1954’s Rear Window written byJohn Michael Hayes and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Stuck in pasivity
The thing I was yammering on about above, Hitchcock’s commentary on watching movies, comes down to a simple idea: watching movies is often a very passive experience. This is especially true in movies that only have the goal to entertain. Television is often the same way, as we can easily sit, binge-watch and experience what others have created with no other effort than keeping our eyes open.
Rear Window comes with a message that is related to this: “we have a more rewarding life when we take action.”
Jeff, Jimmy Stuart’s character, is a great example of someone who’s living passively. First off, he’s doing so by necessity, healing and confined to his apartment because of his broken leg.
But also, a lot of his life is defined by similar passivity. He’s a photographer, a profession that usually entails capturing the moment and not necessarily participating within it.
He’s also doing so with his girlfriend, Lisa, not really wanting to get too actively involved with her, despite how awesome she is.
Throughout the movie, he’s constantly observing the life of others, viewed from his windows, which are often framed like movie screens.
When he observes what he thinks is a murder, he’s pushed towards taking steps towards being active, although mostly he gets Lisa and his caretaker, Stella, into troube.
It’s only when his neighbor comes to him and he’s forced to confront the man he’s been watching does Jeff fully go into action, essentially changing who he is as a person.
Master of suspense
Hitchcock is often dubbed as a master of suspense, and this film does this suspense in such a fun way.
Jeff is like us. He’s observing others. He’s also played by one of the most likable actors of all time which puts us even more into his shoes (or should I say into “his cast” here?).
Like individual TV shows, we get to safely be voyeurs in everyone else’s life.
But as the reality sets in that the neighbor might be a murderer and Jeff, Lisa, and Stella, start facing danger, we start getting the anxious feeling of stepping into it as well. It becomes no longer a voyeuristic adventure for them, but one with real consequences. It’s like the creepy girl from The Ring is crawling through our TVs, right into our comfort zones and is confronting us directly.
This great setup and patience that Hitchock masterfully uses lulls us is into Jeff’s safety and then makes us feel violated as that safety is removed. It’s Hitchcock anticipating exactly what the viewer will be feeling, and expertly making us feel like we’re involved in a less passive way than we thought.
Really, not all movies are passive experiences.
Films become active when they make us think, they make us have big emotional reactions, they make us put ourselves in the character’s shoes and feel what they feel. We go along for the cathartic journey with these characters when that happens.
At the end of the movie, Jeff winds up with two broken legs. He’s more debilitated than he was before, but he’s gone through the experience of stepping up, being active, and even being confronted with his own demise. He’s clearly a different man, evidenced by the fact that he’s diving deeper into his relationship with Lisa.
And since we actively went on the ride with Jeff, we might have experienced a similar journey, feeling a little changed too from going through it.
We might be watching a movie through the window of a movie screen, TV, or computer, but through his great filmmaking, Hitchcock allowed us to step through that window.
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