Rear Window is a Classic

(Spoilers)

This is one of my all time favorite movies. There’s something about this movie’s atmosphere that gives me an experience that I don’t get from other movies. The distant music, the rain, the colors, everything comes together to create something that feels unique and timeless. This movie doesn’t feel the need to rush the plot or constantly show action, it thrives off of its quiet moments that let you take in the atmosphere. I love the long shots where you see other people going about their lives in their apartments. They feel very real. Sometimes when I’m in public and I’m bored, I wonder what the lives of strangers around me are like, and this movie perfectly captures that. This movie doesn’t explicitly tell you everything about these characters, it lets you interpret the characters. I genuinely get wrapped up in their lives, the lonely lady breaks my heart every time I watch this movie. The death of that one dog shouldn’t seem like a sad moment, but the emotions of her owner make you feel for it. The pianist is very relatable to me, his anger over his art is sad. The apartment that is the main focus of the movie is the murderer’s, obviously. The movie never really gets into exactly why he murdered his wife. You see his wife sick in bed, and at one moment she laughs at him while he looks angry. You can kind of imagine what their relationship was like. Maybe the husband always felt as if his wife mocked and bullied him constantly, and this anger towards his wife built up and led to murder. Or maybe the husband married the wife with the intent to kill her and inherit money from her. Or maybe he accidentally killed her, and tried to cover it up. This mystery makes each watch of the movie even better than the last for me. There is always something new I notice about the killer, along with the other apartments. The cinematography is absolutely amazing. It might be one of the best looking movies I’ve ever seen, which is insane given that it came out over seventy years ago. The sound design is also amazing and ahead of its time. The layers of street noises and the noises you hear from Jeff’s apartment make for a very realistic and satisfying experience. Jeff himself is a likable protagonist. He starts off as an asshole who is emotionally distant from the world, but over the course of the movie he changes and learns to open himself up to both the world and Lisa. James Stewart is great as usual. My only problem with James Stewart is that he tends to play himself in most movies, but I think he works great for this movie. Grace Kelly is entertaining and fits the role perfectly. She is able to maintain a certain elegance throughout the movie, even as she becomes involved in the mystery. The nurse is very funny and I would watch a tv show about her. Jeff’s detective friend seems unlikable at first, but on a second watch I realized that he isn’t really doing anything wrong. If I was in his position I would also probably deny the murder. This movie also was filmed entirely on a sound stage, which means the apartments are all part of one giant set. Watching the movie it’s hard to tell because of how detailed everything is. It never feels like they are on a stage, it feels like they are in NYC. Alfred Hitchcock was a very ambitious director, and this ambition is felt through nearly every aspect of this movie. I could watch this movie again and again and never get tired of it. It’s not a movie for everyone, the plot is slow and there aren’t many twists, stakes, action, etc. Not even the climax has action. But if you have taste similar to mine then I would definitely check it out.