🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸’s review published on Letterboxd:
Part of the Alfred Hitchcock Sound Era Films In Chronological Order project.
Contrary to popular belief, Rear Window is not a perfect film. It's a film, after all, that has James Stewart seriously considering breaking up with Grace Kelly because she's too perfect for him.
I do wonder if LB Jefferies was an inspiration to Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David when they wrote Seinfeld, what with all the disastrous dates and relationships that were broken up in that series over the most mystifying of reasons. I wouldn't be surprised to find out this was the case. But Rear Window is one of those films whose influence has not just been confined to thrillers, mysteries and even 'one location' films - its influence can be seen across different genres even to this day.
No, it's not perfect, but I guess how close it gets depends on how you look at films in general. I can see why some might not be able to regard it in quite such lofty terms because it is, after all, only about an incapacitated Stewart spying on his neighbours and developing a suspicion that Ironside may have bumped off his wife. It really isn't actually anything more than that.
When I saw it for the first time, back in about 1997 after about 1am on Christmas Eve, I was fairly sure back then that it was about as close to the perfect film as I may ever see. I have very fond memories of that viewing because I wasn't a big Hitchcock nut back then and watching this wonderful film unfold at an hour when I would normally be asleep (not once did I threaten to drop off) and, once it had finished, going to the window to find that it had been snowing, all add up to one of my very fondest film viewing memories.
On this, about my fifth or sixth viewing, I am quite sure that I have seen and heard everything that I need to see and hear from the film although it did strike me for a while during this viewing that it may have been quite a departure for Hitchcock, confining himself to an apartment and making the film more dialogue heavy than we had been used to - and then I remembered Lifeboat. Oh, and Dial M For Murder.
He was never afraid to revisit ideas (or just films as a whole considering what I'll be rewatching once I've seen To Catch A Thief and The Trouble With Harry) and I'm surprised that his few critics don't use that against his work more, actually. The dialogue is absolutely crackling with humour and subtle barbs that make Rear Window a far funnier film than it is given credit for, but I think the humour in his films is far too often forgotten anyway.
Stewart's performance here is extraordinary. I've never done a jot of acting in my life so I can really only speculate on this point, but surely having to act with just your facial expression and body language is far more difficult than when you have some dialogue to work with. His performance covers both areas beautifully and, yes, it did distract me from Grace Kelly. Some of the time.
I absolutely love her character here. She is a high society fashion model who, as Jefferies probably correctly points out to her, probably wouldn't want to be tramping round some foreign land while he takes some snaps - yet the way she throws herself into involving herself physically and mentally with the pursuit of the truth as to what Raymond Burr may or may not have done with his wife is a lovely turn of events, both for her the character and the actress playing her.
This viewing has thrown up two new questions for me, though:-
1) Is the scene, or are the collection of scenes, where Stewart initially starts to suspect Burr as he makes several trips out in the middle of the night now my favourite(s) in any film I've ever seen?
2) Am I putting it in my Letterboxd top 4?
I'll have to sleep on it, I think. Blinds closed, though.