"Rear Window" Analysis

Rear Window
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelley, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr
Screenplay: John Michael Hayes                                                                                         based on a short story “It Had to be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich published 1942
Cinematography: Robert Burks
Music: Franz Waxman
Paramount Pictures
Use of Subjective point of view.
Someone said there are two kinds of people in the world, there are people who observe world as it passes by and there are people who are active, adventurers who are part of the world.   Normally, J.B. “Jeff” Jeffries is considered the latter. He works as a famous professional photographer until he gets a little too close to the action on a racetrack and breaks his leg. He is put in a wheel chair and confined to his small apartment in Greenwich Village, Manhattan with nothing else to do all day but look out at the neighbors. He then becomes obsessed with the salesman who lives in the adjacent apartment, and is convinced that he has murdered his wife. With the help of his stunning girlfriend Lisa and his in-home nurse Stella, they investigate the strange events that have occurred.
This shot of James Stewart, it shows what he’s looking at, see his reaction. That is the heart of Hitchcock’s filmmaking. He looks, you see what he sees, he reacts. He has incredible ability to out you in the POV of character. Does with considerable dexterity and is particularly noticeable because the entire picture plays out in one apartment. It’s limitless really, the power of cutting and showing various images and the assembly of them (The Juxtaposition of imagery relating to the mind of the individual). And what a wonderful job James Stewart does too. He doesn’t have any dialogue, yet you can interpret everything he’s thinking and feeling
The set was fascinating; you literally can see all the apartments and all the different people. Problem: They had to create a whole... [continues]

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