So, I try to start these write-ups with an anecdote, either about my own experience with the film in question or about the film itself with something that probably won’t fit anywhere else. But this time, well, let’s take a different route: how I got to watch it. I have a lot of streaming services at my disposal. You’d think Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous works would be streaming somewhere. But honestly, it’s been hit or miss. I actually have two Hitchcock box sets with a good chunk of the director’s filmography. I had, however, loaned one to my niece when it looked like she might become a film buff herself since she liked thrillers. Then she didn’t watch ’em for one reason or another. Eh, it happens. But when I started this challenge, I found that finding Hitchcock streaming somewhere without paying extra for a rental was a little harder than I thought, but as my parents were coming for a visit, I asked my mom to find and bring along the Hitchcock box set so I could at least get my copy of Rear Window back before it came time to watch it for the countdown.
Then for December (and possibly January), The Criterion Channel put up a Hitchcock collection that included Rear Window and Vertigo. I had to pay to rent Vertigo. Same with Lawrence of Arabia, and that just popped up somewhere too. I just can’t win with Hitchcock, apparently.
OK, that’s not quite right. I did find North by Northwest in my other box set, and either Max or Tubi had the other Hitchcock films I had to see for the challenge. But this isn’t just a bitchfest for me to complain about all the different films I had to scramble to even see. This time, I need to cover Rear Window, and while I talked up the suspense that the film is known for the first time I covered it for a challenge like this one, what do I say about the second? Well, mostly I am wondering why it’s so high on Stacker’s list. Now, I do consider Rear Window to be a genuinely great film. I’m just not sure it’s #4 on a top 100 list level of great. Heck, I’m not even sure why it’s the highest ranking Hitchcock film on Stacker’s list. While it does have a number of standard Hitchcockian tropes like the ordinary man caught in extraordinary circumstances, the tension, and an attractive blonde leading actress (Hitchcock did have a type), I don’t know that I have ever heard of anyone claiming Rear Window is the director’s best work. I’ve said before my personal favorite is Psycho. I’ve seen claims that Vertigo is in contention for one of the greatest films of all time (I disagree, but I covered that extensively when I wrote up that film again not too many entries in this challenge ago). And if we’re going for the standard Hitchcock film about an ordinary man being caught up in extraordinary circumstances, that describes North by Northwest far better than it does Rear Window.
As for the AFI list I used in 2018, that list ranked Psycho highest with Rear Window appearing in the 40s, behind only Psycho and North by Northwest. None of Hitchcock’s work made it to the top ten for that list When the American Film Institute changed things up with a new list to celebrate 100 years of American film, while none of Hitchcock’s films were removed from the list as new films were added, Vertigo moved up from the 60s to the top ten, Psycho moved up a few slots, North by Northwest dropped way down to #55 from #40, and Rear Window likewise went down a couple slots, but seems to have stayed more or less in the same spot. Now, Stacker and the AFI use different criteria for how they rank films, but the point is, I think the AFI got it right for Rear Window. That said, Stacker uses IMDB scores in part to rank their list, so maybe Rear Window is just more of a crowd-pleaser than the others.
I can somewhat see that. For one thing, the AFI only listed four Hitchcock films. Stacker had six. The AFI confined itself to American films while the Stacker list had some European and Asian films in the mix as well. If anything, I find Stacker’s list a lot more eclectic in what was and wasn’t included. For one thing, I am generally baffled any time The Wizard of Oz isn’t included on any sort of greatest films list. It’s probably the greatest family film ever made, at least in English, and I don’t see it on the Stacker list for some reason. I would have thought it was universally beloved. Regardless, this is the list I am working with for this challenge, and so far, with there being only three entries left after this one, I have said barely anything about Rear Window itself.
I think part of the problem for me at this point is I need to find something new to say, and by “new,” I mean “new to me” and not just something no one else has said about Rear Window before. I don’t read a lot of film criticism, and by that, I mean the stuff serious scholars have to say about a given film, not the standard review you’d find linked to Rotten Tomatoes. I am somewhat concerned I would accidentally plagiarize something, to be perfectly honest. My “research” is often film lore I remember from somewhere or something that could have been gleaned from a quick skimming of Wikipedia, and I usually leave Wikipedia open just to make sure I spell names correctly and get a few other facts right here or there. As such, the biggest observation I have for Rear Window, something I am sure I am not the first to point out, is that in many ways, Jimmy Stewart’s L. B. “Jeff” Jefferies is basically like the standard cinema-goer: he’s observing the lives of others from what seems like a safe distance.
He may also be living out some sort of male fantasy since his girlfriend is the fabulously forgiving and beautiful Grace Kelly, an actress 21 years younger than Stewart, and she just really wants to marry him. The film also acts like he is somehow a younger man than he actually is, even up to the point where he and his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) seem to disapprove of an age gap between the woman they dubbed “Miss Lonely Hearts” and this man she made a dinner for. Hitchcock and Stewart worked together quite a bit, and one of the things I respect Stewart for was he supposedly swore off any more romantic leads when he hit his 50s and realized the actresses cast opposite him were still in their 20s. There’s a part of me that wishes Sean Connery realized the same thing towards the end of his career. Or if he had, then maybe he would have cared. I actually give Harrison Ford some props for having actresses closer to his own age when he does have a romantic partner in films these days, even if it is just Karen Allen reprising Marion Crane again, and Allen is still about a decade younger than Ford.
I think the point here is this film feels at least a little like the actual experience of going to see a film in that there’s a remove for Jeff from his neighbors as he puts the clues together to prove his across-the-courtyard neighbor Thorwald (Raymond Burr) murdered his bedridden wife. Some of the evidence maybe hasn’t aged well (basically everything Kelly’s Lisa says about how women treat jewelry, handbags, and make-up may be a bit suspect in 2023), but it really is kind of like the experience of cracking a murder while watching a murder mystery, right down to the elaborate apartment set that Hitchcock filmed everything in and the small subplots that the other tenants all have
You know, until Thorwald realizes Jeff has been spying on him and is home alone and helpless. That’s not something that happens when you go to see a film.
Oh, I suppose I could also say this film is probably the perfect representation of COVID lockdowns, but I know I’m not the first one to come up with that one.
NEXT: I may not know why some films scored as high as they did on the Stacker list, but I actually think the next film is probably at about the right spot. Up next is one of the greatest romances ever made in American film, 1942’s Casablanca.
0 Comments