Hitchcock's Rear Window: A Voyeuristic Thriller and Exploration of Human Nature | Lecture notes Voice

Excerpts from Reviews & Brief Comments:Hitchcock’s Rear Window

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News:

Don't resist the urge -- steal a peek at it now, and be reminded why Hitchcock is still without equal in the

clammy thrills department.

Jeff Millar, Houston Chronicle:

The deliciousness of watching the film as it's intended to be seen is that the big screen gives Rear Window

back its claustrophobia

Dennis Schwartz , Ozuz’s World Movie Reviews:

Alfred Hitchcock's answer to why he makes films and perhaps his darkest one, both as a romance and as a

thriller. It plays as the ultimate guilty pleasure treat (comparing the viewer to a voyeur who sits in the dark

judging what he sees while being unobserved) and an allegory to the dreamlike workings of the cinema.

Hitch makes the most of his artificial Greenwich Village setting to stage an innovative, suspenseful and

entertaining but morally questionable voyeuristic murder mystery story.

Dan Jardine, Cinemania

In keeping with the focus of this essay upon Vertigo and Rear Window, look at the similarities between the

female leads in both films. The icy blonde. Cool. Distant. Detached. Aloof. Unattainable. Troubled. Sexy

without being necessarily sexual. Further, add to this how both films provide evidence of Hitchcock's familiar

obsessi ons with voyeur ism (Rear Window, Psycho) and the male gaze as well as the attendant (Catholic) guilt

and drive to violence and/or control that attends the resultant arousal.... [and the] dual nature of men and

women (can Grace Kelly's Lisa, a bon vivant New York sophisticate, be at home in the rough and tumble

world of photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries?)

Both films also consider the impossibility of the male-female relationship, though Rear Window is

considerably lighter in that regard, ending as it does on an ambiguously optimistic note. People, and women

in particular, are not who they seem to be, and all that mask wearing makes permanent happiness between

the sexes extremely unlikely. Further, the leads in both films are seen as emasculated in this brave new world.

Jeff (broken leg) and Scotty (vertigo) are damaged goods, reliant upon and yet intimidated and confused by

women. Here Hitch seems to be tapping into a familiar theme of the day, one which runs throughout most

of the best noir of the period, gender confusion surrounding the role of men and women in this post-war era,

which helped to create one of noir's most distinctive attributes, the femme fatale. The similarities between

the treatment of women in these two films ends there, however, as Rear Window's Lisa finds a way to bridge

the gap between genders as the film aims towards happy ending...

John Morrone, Chelsea Clinton News, Oct. 20, 1983, p. 18

Seamlessly witty and with water-tight suspense, Rear Window reminded us that films must be composed, that

they create entire worlds for us to enter in which our emotions can be thrillingly tampered with.

James Stewart’s voyeur-detective, discovering a murder across a Greenwich Village court, violates lives

as he exposes an evil and “sets things right.” But Raymond Burr’s trapped killer finally asks, “What do you

want from me?” It’s a question only the audience can answer, and Hitchcock strikes us dumb by our prurient,

2D interest in our unpredictably 3D neighbors. Rear Window is the window into the viewer’s own eye, and

Hitchcock’s film is so observant, it feels like it watches us. Every inch is a masterpiece.

Rex Reed, “Rear Window’: Still Wonderful,” New York Post, sept. 30, 1983

Hitchcock not only shows an immobilized man looking out. But he also shows the world he sees and how

he react s. Stewart is th e camera. We see e verything throu gh his binocular s. We discover e ach club the same

time he does.

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Excerpts from Reviews & Brief Comments:Hitchcock’s Rear Window

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: Don't resist the urge -- steal a peek at it now, and be reminded why Hitchcock is still without equal in the clammy thrills department.

Jeff Millar, Houston Chronicle : The deliciousness of watching the film as it's intended to be seen is that the big screen gives Rear Window back its claustrophobia

Dennis Schwartz , Ozuz’s World Movie Reviews : Alfred Hitchcock's answer to why he makes films and perhaps his darkest one, both as a romance and as a thriller. It plays as the ultimate guilty pleasure treat (comparing the viewer to a voyeur who sits in the dark judging what he sees while being unobserved) and an allegory to the dreamlike workings of the cinema. Hitch makes the most of his artificial Greenwich Village setting to stage an innovative, suspenseful and entertaining but morally questionable voyeuristic murder mystery story.

Dan Jardine, Cinemania In keeping with the focus of this essay upon Vertigo and Rear Window , look at the similarities between the female leads in both films. The icy blonde. Cool. Distant. Detached. Aloof. Unattainable. Troubled. Sexy without being necessarily sexual. Further, add to this how both films provide evidence of Hitchcock's familiar obsessions with voyeurism ( Rear Window , Psycho) and the male gaze as well as the attendant (Catholic) guilt and drive to violence and/or control that attends the resultant arousal.... [and the] dual nature of men and women (can Grace Kelly's Lisa, a bon vivant New York sophisticate, be at home in the rough and tumble world of photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries?) Both films also consider the impossibility of the male-female relationship, though Rear Window is considerably lighter in that regard, ending as it does on an ambiguously optimistic note. People, and women in particular, are not who they seem to be, and all that mask wearing makes permanent happiness between the sexes extremely unlikely. Further, the leads in both films are seen as emasculated in this brave new world. Jeff (broken leg) and Scotty (vertigo) are damaged goods, reliant upon and yet intimidated and confused by women. Here Hitch seems to be tapping into a familiar theme of the day, one which runs throughout most of the best noir of the period, gender confusion surrounding the role of men and women in this post-war era, which helped to create one of noir's most distinctive attributes, the femme fatale. The similarities between the treatment of women in these two films ends there, however, as Rear Window' s Lisa finds a way to bridge the gap between genders as the film aims towards happy ending...

John Morrone, Chelsea Clinton News , Oct. 20, 1983, p. 18 Seamlessly witty and with water-tight suspense, Rear Window reminded us that films must be composed, that they create entire worlds for us to enter in which our emotions can be thrillingly tampered with. James Stewart’s voyeur-detective, discovering a murder across a Greenwich Village court, violates lives as he exposes an evil and “sets things right.” But Raymond Burr’s trapped killer finally asks, “What do you want from me?” It’s a question only the audience can answer, and Hitchcock strikes us dumb by our prurient, 2D interest in our unpredictably 3D neighbors. Rear Window is the window into the viewer’s own eye, and Hitchcock’s film is so observant, it feels like it watches us. Every inch is a masterpiece.

Rex Reed, “Rear Window’: Still Wonderful,” New York Post , sept. 30, 1983 Hitchcock not only shows an immobilized man looking out. But he also shows the world he sees and how he reacts. Stewart is the camera. We see everything through his binoculars. We discover each club the same time he does.

The cutting, the rhythm, and the direction of the action in the various windows across the courtyard command the audience’s undivided attention until you are shaking with suspense and terror. This is an audience-participation picture in the keenest sense. In the end it is also a film of great tenderness and humanity.

Andrew Sarris, “Return of the ‘Missing’ Hitchcocks,” The Village Voice , Aug. 23, 1983, p. 41 Village types, for example, may still complain that Hitch’s view of bohemia is strictly Middle America. There is the matter of a door that is left conveniently unlocked, and the more substantial complaint that the crucial relationship between the pathetic murderer (Raymond Burr) and the snoopy witness (James Stewart) is insufficiently developed. On the overwhelmingly positive side is the deliciously perverted relationship between the morbidly voyeuristic “hero” and the elegantly masochistic heroine (the late Grace Kelly at her most Vogue coverish), the director’s profound insight into the morbidly voyeuristic attraction that is at the heart, if not in the soul, of all movie making and movie watching, the sterling contributions of Wendell Corey and Thelma Ritter in support, and the interesting tension between the sound film in the foreground and the silent film across the courtyard with its very broad pantomimes.

Otis T. Guernsey, Jr. “Hitchcock’s Old Touch in New Film,” clipping, Rear Window (Cinema 1954) at Performing Arts Library What was, and is, “The Hitchcock touch”? The director himself would be the first to admit that relentless logic has never been one of its aiming points. Pacing, surely, was an important factor in it, with the speed and rhythm to carry over weak spots in the story and cancel the necessity for tiresome explanation and reasoning. Another important factor–possibly the most important–was a keen sense of humor. Many of his pictures looked as if they had been made by a jolly undertaker. There were memorable laughs all the way through, with chills tacked on to the end to remind you that Hitchcock’s stories were only half-kidding.

John McCarten, “Hitchcock Confined Againk,” New Yorker ... “Rear Window” struggles heavily to make the point that an ounce of intuition on the part of a photographer is worth a pound of gramatism on the part of a copy. The author of this claptrap is Cornell Woolrich, a popular drugstore author, and Hollywood’s affinity for him is easily understandable. What isn’t understandable, however, is Alfred Hitchcock’s association with this enterprise. He is billed as the director, and I fear that “rear Window” must be taken as another example of his footless ambition to make a movie that stands absolutely still. In “Rope” and “Diam M for Murder,” He worked, to all intents and purposes, in one room, and in the current foolishness, he is confined to an implausible back yard.

Irene B. Nicholas, “No Hitches in Hitch’s Masterful ‘Rear Window,’” Chelsea Clinton News****. Nov. 3, 1993 In contrast to today’s slice ‘n’ dicers, Rear Window is bloodless, but it’s so full of Hitchcock terror, that is often more effective The fear doesn’t explode on the screen, it creeps up slowly: in the glint of the knife and saw the salesman wipes so carefully; the trips in the dead of night with suspicious looking suitcases; the strangulation of a small dog that sniffs in the wrong places. And always, Hitchcock plays on every man’s nightmare: the immobilized man in the wheelchair, trapped and helpless, if, and when, he must confront the killer.

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Excerpts from Reviews & Brief Comments:Hitchcock’s Rear Window