Arbogast1960's Movie Review of Rear Window

Rating of
4/4

Rear Window

"What have you done with her?"
Arbogast1960 - wrote on 03/27/08

Rip-roaring entertainment and deeper meaning? Godard and Haneke might pay attention. The study of voyeurism and the act of movie-watching is fascinating, and it's Hitchcock so there's never a dull moment. While some complain about the ending, wishing James Stewart would have been mistaken in his assumptions regarding his neighbor, this would have smacked of simplistic, gotcha storytelling too lazy for Hitchcock to countenance. Instead, Hitch faces the moral ambivalence squarely and beautifully. The viewer is implicated in the character's misdeeds by his viewing, and the decline of modern civilization/civility is seen in the willingness to spy on one's own neighbors, who are viewed as broad stereotypes rather than human beings. At the same time, the character's (and viewer's) suspicions of his neighbor's evil, so rashly formed, are correct, so how bad can voyeurism and interpersonal hostility really be? Where uncovering a crime is involved, do two wrongs make a right? And can we complain when we watch what we shouldn't watch and end up seeing what we don't want to see? All this is accomplished with one of the master's wittiest scripts (John Michael Hayes' genius for dialogue was never better showcased). No woman has ever looked more beautiful on film than Grace Kelly does here. And Hitchcock masterfully creates an entire world, populated by sharply defined characters, out of a single set. Breathtaking, pure cinema.

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