The Rear Window

My blog entry is going to be incredibly bias due to the fact that I am a sucker for Alfred Hitchcock movies. Although I must say my all time favorite Hitchcock film is "To Catch a Thief", which also stars Grace Kelly, I really enjoyed "Rear Window". I noticed how the director always uses an element of lighting in his films to make some sort of statement. As he does in "To Catch A Thief" when Grace Kelly is taunting Cary Grant's character John Robey aka "The Cat" by wearing an enormous diamond necklace, Hitchcock dims all lights and focuses a luminating light on her chest where the diamons lay sparkling. Similarly in "Rear Window" our main character L.B. Jefferies played by James Stewart was constantly wheeling himself in and out of the moonlight from his window while he spied on his neighboors, so they could not see him looking. Hitchcock also plays with light in the various apartments L.B. is looking into. Also very interesting was the use of symbolism with the main character being a photographer and using his camera lens to look into the lives of his neighboors. The window he looks out of is the eye and each window is a portal to which we see the outside world, and how we are seen ourselves. Secrets would never be let out the "front window", because it is where information is protected, screened, and filtered. But the back or "rear" window is where people let their guard down and secrets are divulged, because they may think no one is watching. Hitchcock packs his movies full of symbolism, motif, and irony. He plays heavily off of perspective and point of view, making for a very interesting and suspenseful picture.