Rear Window (1954)
Country: US
Technical: col 112m
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey
Synopsis:
A photographer is confined to his flat during a heat wave when he is injured in a fall, and whiles away his time watching his neighbours' lives unfold, first with the naked eye and then through his viewfinder. When he thinks he has seen evidence of a murder he endangers both himself and his long-suffering fiancée.
Review:
Classic Hitchcock, a film so referenced and revered by subsequent directors (Antonioni and De Palma more or less use its ideas) it almost competes with Psycho for influence. On its own terms it is a brilliantly constructed suspense thriller confined to one set, which the director had meticulously constructed at the studio. Each of the dramas unfolding around the courtyard is like a miniature movie narrative of its own, and the analogy between Stewart's voyeurism and that of the cinema spectator is clear. Though this raises interesting ethical questions about the nature of the art form, these have doubtless preoccupied critics far more than they did Hitchcock himself. Note: Hitch eschews non-diegetic music in this film, as in The Birds: it is the music emanating from the open-windowed apartments that provides the backing for individual sequences, among which can be heard the chase music from Waxman's A Place in the Sun.
Country: US
Technical: col 112m
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey
Synopsis:
A photographer is confined to his flat during a heat wave when he is injured in a fall, and whiles away his time watching his neighbours' lives unfold, first with the naked eye and then through his viewfinder. When he thinks he has seen evidence of a murder he endangers both himself and his long-suffering fiancée.
Review:
Classic Hitchcock, a film so referenced and revered by subsequent directors (Antonioni and De Palma more or less use its ideas) it almost competes with Psycho for influence. On its own terms it is a brilliantly constructed suspense thriller confined to one set, which the director had meticulously constructed at the studio. Each of the dramas unfolding around the courtyard is like a miniature movie narrative of its own, and the analogy between Stewart's voyeurism and that of the cinema spectator is clear. Though this raises interesting ethical questions about the nature of the art form, these have doubtless preoccupied critics far more than they did Hitchcock himself. Note: Hitch eschews non-diegetic music in this film, as in The Birds: it is the music emanating from the open-windowed apartments that provides the backing for individual sequences, among which can be heard the chase music from Waxman's A Place in the Sun.
Country: US
Technical: col 112m
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey
Synopsis:
A photographer is confined to his flat during a heat wave when he is injured in a fall, and whiles away his time watching his neighbours' lives unfold, first with the naked eye and then through his viewfinder. When he thinks he has seen evidence of a murder he endangers both himself and his long-suffering fiancée.
Review:
Classic Hitchcock, a film so referenced and revered by subsequent directors (Antonioni and De Palma more or less use its ideas) it almost competes with Psycho for influence. On its own terms it is a brilliantly constructed suspense thriller confined to one set, which the director had meticulously constructed at the studio. Each of the dramas unfolding around the courtyard is like a miniature movie narrative of its own, and the analogy between Stewart's voyeurism and that of the cinema spectator is clear. Though this raises interesting ethical questions about the nature of the art form, these have doubtless preoccupied critics far more than they did Hitchcock himself. Note: Hitch eschews non-diegetic music in this film, as in The Birds: it is the music emanating from the open-windowed apartments that provides the backing for individual sequences, among which can be heard the chase music from Waxman's A Place in the Sun.