Hindsight

The guilty pleasures of Rear Window

by Chris Fujiwara

REAR WINDOW (1954). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Written by John Michael Hayes. With James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, and Judith Evelyn. A USA Films release. At the Brattle.

Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 Rear Window, now being revived in a faithfully and attractively restored print, makes an interesting choice for restoration because it relies less than almost any other color Hitchcock film on scenic and decorative splendor. In Rear Window, Hitchcock limits himself to two settings: the apartment of L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies (James Stewart), a news photographer stewing with his leg in a cast after an accident; and his apartment complex -- mainly the three sides visible from Jeff's courtyard window. The settings are deliberately drab. The exterior walls of the complex are red brick -- in this restoration, queasily purplish. We see the sky rarely: first, in daytime, as a gray-blue rectangle between the rooftops and the top of the frame; later, as a smoldering orange-yellow rectangle.

We're not in one of the more fashionable parts of New York -- like the one Jeff's girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly), comes from. Lisa haunts Jeff's apartment and the film with the reminder that such things as luxury, pleasure, and beauty exist -- a way of life that exhibits itself in a controlled, stylized way in society columns and fashion magazines instead of being exposed involuntarily, as Jeff's neighbors are to his gaze. This gaze focuses increasingly on salesman Lars Thorwald (a white-haired Raymond Burr), through whose window Jeff picks out details that make him suspect that Thorwald has murdered his wife.

The story of Rear Window is so enclosed, so interior, and our immersion in Jeff's psycho-optical conditions so complete, that one imagines that the film would be just as fascinating if it were exhibited in the form of black-and-white storyboards. But to see it in a good print on the screen is to realize how great a part its tonal restraint plays in our involvement. Thanks to the homogeneity of colors and textures and the wealth of subtle sound-detailing (left intact, thank God, by the same restorers who devised a fraudulent new soundtrack for their last Hitchcock "restoration," Vertigo), Jeff's courtyard world becomes a lulling spectacle. We're invited to skate over it with our eyes, to drift in and out of it the way Jeff drifts in and out of sleep in his wheelchair.

Much of the film's visual excitement comes from Grace Kelly. Amid the general somberness, her black dress, her red lipstick, and the yellow warmth of the three lamps she turns on in Jeff's apartment are intensely charged. As she leans down to kiss Jeff, her shimmering face seems to hover and come toward him in waves -- a stunning effect that should be one of the legendary Hitchcock moments but isn't because it's so unexpected in this otherwise realistic context. It's important to the film that Lisa be perfect -- "too perfect," as Jeff complains to his hard-boiled nurse, Stella (Thelma Ritter in a quintessential Ritter performance). By making the non-perverse satisfactions that are available to Jeff so appealing, Hitchcock implies that the attractions to which Jeff keeps returning through the rear window must be irresistible.

All movie viewers know they're voyeurs, thanks to Rear Window. The often-reproduced image of Jimmy Stewart staring anxiously from behind a telephoto lens has become one of those images that mean The Movies, like Clark Gable looking down at Vivien Leigh. But the Rear Window image connotes not a dream plenitude of incredible satisfactions, but the gnawing doubt of someone forced to look at himself. Hitchcock's famous "indictment" or "implication" of the audience has the blunt, fabulous power of myth, and is worth questioning as a myth. Like Jeff, we want the faceless, innocuous Mrs. Thorwald to be violently killed, just so we can have something exciting to do for two hours. It's a commonplace of Hitchcock criticism that through the ordeal Jeff goes through as he seeks to confirm his suspicions about Thorwald, the director chastises our cold-heartedness, our desire for thrills without involvement. But isn't it just as true that Hitchcock flatters us by leading us to identify with Jeff? After all, he's courageous, charming, driven, and able to inspire love from Grace Kelly.

Hitchcock disturbs us just enough to make our uneasiness a source of pleasure. The shame and the shock that tinge Jeff's pursuits make them titillating to us. But Rear Window is more than just an allegory of naughtiness punished. It's one of the most perfect Hollywood entertainments. It's an insightful survey of the American urban anti-community. It asks ethical questions about our responsibilities to others. Above all, it creates a richly textured, magnificently artificial, total world -- one that's essentially filmic. Through Jeff's interaction with this world, Rear Window invites us to share in creating it, to become co-directors with Hitchcock. This most delusive of the pleasures of the movie is also the most glorious.