I Rewatched Rear Window

A few years ago I reviewed it but to be honest that review was no good so let me just copy and paste what I wrote about the film today on Letterboxd and state that I'll return tomorrow night.

Here's yet another review I am doing over, as I originally had up something far too short for a movie I give the highest possible rating to. I have seen this a few times before and luckily one of them was on the big screen. Still, it was something I hadn't seen in far too long and via my local library I sat down to watch it on DVD.

To think that this movie was filmed on a giant soundstage and almost all of the action was either shot looking into or looking out of one room in an apartment, and most of the sound is ambient and natural to the world and yet it is a masterpiece... Hitchcock has had so many classic films during his long career, but in my opinion this is the very best. The tale of photographer L.B. Jefferies recovering from a broken leg alone (aside from a few occasional visitors) in his apartment and deciding to engage in voyeuristic intentions and look at the lives of some people that live in the complex, until he sees what he thinks is a salesman and the aftermath of him murdering his wife.

Besides the story always being intriguing and you wonder if the greatly named Lars Thorwald actually did kill his invalid spouse, everyone in the cast does a great job playing those interesting characters, from the people who you see in the apartment of Jefferies to the individuals that are seen by the eyes of L.B.; those include a newlywed couple, a young dancer, an older woman living alone, a wacky couple, a woman with a dog, a musician (the guy that created Alvin & the Chipmunks), and of course Lars and the wife; even though you only occasionally overhear them they all get little stories that have a beginning, middle and end. Even Jefferies has a relationship to deal with and his fears of whether he has enough in common with his rich girlfriend Lisa and if opposites would attract and stay attracted forever.

The movie also says a lot about such things as the dangers of being a Peeping Tom and trying to look at the hidden lives of people in the privacy of behind closed doors. It was a hot New York summer so that's why the windows are all open but maybe he should have read more books instead of spying on people; you can actually sort of understand the antagonist's reaction at the end.

Everything about this movie is done so well, even though it's been alluded or parodied probably hundreds of times by now in the 60 years since it first came out, if you haven't seen it in awhile or if you actually have never seen it period, I give it my highest recommendation.