Rear Window
Lauren Riley Professor Piana February 26, 2012 Rear Window Last class we viewed the film called Rear Window. The main plot behind this film is the main character, Jefferies, has a broken leg therefore he has to spend 6 weeks in a wheelchair in his apartment. The one form of entertainment he has is to window watch all his neighbors. Jefferies has a girlfriend named Lisa but tells his nurse that he does not want to marry her. After a few weeks Jefferies catches onto his neighbors business. He seems to think one of his neighbors named Thorwall murdered his wife.
He gets this perception from weapons being brought into the apartment and a random disappearance of his wife, while some of her belongings stay at the apartment. From here he spends the rest of his time trying to solve this “murder” mystery. He gets help from his girlfriend, a friend and his nurse. Towards the end of the movie the action increases dramatically. Lisa sneaks into Thorwall’s apartment to look for evidence of the murder. While she is in their Thorwall comes back and finds her in his apartment and begins to beat her. The police are then called and Lisa is brought to jail for trespassing.
Next Thorwall sneaks into Jefferies apartment and begins to beat him up even though Jefferies is helpless because of his leg. He then pushes him out the window and survives but then breaks his other leg and has to go 6 more weeks’ window watching in his apartment. Important scenes play a big role in films. The first important scene is when Jefferies first discovers Thorwall’s wife is gone. This is when he comes up with the idea of the murder. This is the scene that begins the conflict in the film. Another important scene is when Lisa sneaks into Thorwall’s apartment and gets caught. This scene is the climax of the film.
A final important scene is when Lisa is let out of jail and the policeman catch Jefferies out of the window and he breaks his other leg, this shows irony and a predicted future for him. Throughout films we see repeated elements. First we see girls wearing dresses. Back then girls were always dressed nicely. This is repeated throughout the whole film. A big element repeated is when Thorwall leaves his apartment 3 different times during one night when it was rainy out. He has his suitcase with him every time as well. This portrayed the first image of suspicion. Another repeated prop was binoculars.
This was important because it helped them figure out the murder case and was an essential tool in this film. This film portrayed neighborly conflict. As we have seen in prior films, everyone must love they neighbor. I believe this was broken in this film. First we see someone’s dog was killed and she immediately starts blaming and asking which neighbor killed her dog. Another time where we don’t see loving neighbors is when Thorwall uses violence against Lisa and Jefferies. Respect for neighbors was not followed in this film. Within this film we see a lot of marital and serious relationships.
We are portrayed with the image that the girl cooks dinner for the man every night and sets up a nice table and helps him relax after a long days of work. Unfortunately Jefferies sees a lot of this, but continues to believe in not marrying Lisa. Towards the end of the movie though his perspective changes. It shows Lisa and Jefferies happily relaxing in his apartment together. Within this film Hitchcock used Montage editing. This was a new concept back then and Hitchcock did a fantastic job using it. We saw frames from lots of different angels and frames put in order to create meaning.
