Monday, November 30, 2009

The Classics: Rear Window


Boredom can do funny things to a person. What if you were confined to your home for weeks on end? You'd probably start cracking up, invading others privacy, spying on the people outside your windows just to get a small taste of the outside world.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window tells the story of photographer L.B. Jefferies, who is confined to a wheelchair within his apartment for eight weeks. During those eight weeks the man takes up the hobby of watching his neighbors through his window, and eventually he witnesses what he believes to be a murder.

The film was directed by the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. Hitch gave this film the proper amounts of comedy, romance, and suspense to keep the audience enthralled, but a large component in his achieving this came through the magnificent script.

Hitchcock was known for always pressuring his writers into writing what he deemed a perfect script. Hitchcock was a perfectionist, and to him the script was paramount; it was what decided whether the film would fail or succeed. The script for Rear Window features tight, witty dialogue that never falls flat, and it flows at a pace that only a classic such as this can achieve. Of course, the film would be nothing without its cast, Jimmy Stewart alongside the beautiful Grace Kelly, both are stellar actors and deliver pitch perfect performances, as well as the rest of this small, yet flawless cast.

It is rare for there to be a film that is so timeless; this film is just as entertaining today as when it was released in the fifties. No matter how much people try to re-emulate the film for a modern age, they always fall by the wayside.

Rear Window is a true classic through and through, and it is easily worth seeing.

I give Rear Window an A+!



(P.S. This is the Unicellular Review's 200th post! Go ahead and celebrate!)

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