VISIONARY VOYEURISM
A scene from 'Rear Window'
Courtesy Photo
"REAR WINDOW"
**** stars Restoration reissue
114 minutes | Rated: PG
Opened: Friday, February 4, 2000 (SF)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Themla Ritter, Raymond Burr & Wendell Corey




 FEATURE LINK
Interview with
James C. Katz & Bob O'Neil, restoration producer and head of Universal's restoration department



 COUCH CRITIQUE
   SMALL SCREEN SHRINKAGE: 30%
   LETTERBOX: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Even more than other Hitchcock films, "Rear Window" is extremely visual (it's about voyeurism after all!), so it's well worth seeking it out in widescreen. It's a keeper, too. You could watch it 3 times in a row and not get bored.

   VIDEO RELEASE: 3.13.2001
 DVD SPOTLIGHT
Compltely fascinating documentary goes behind the scenes with anyone it can find who has "making of" knowledge. Covers everything from costumes to camera angles to the fact that they had to tear out the stage floor and build into the basement to make the set. Engrossing interview with screenwriter packed with personal insite, too. Only complaint: The film frame is 1.66:1, but it's letterboxed at 1.85:1, meaning there's a black patch to the left and right of the screen.

NOTABLE BONUS MATERIAL
Montage of production stills, posters and lobby cards. Trailers. Production notes.
SPECS

  BUY IT HERE
1.66:1 ratio; 2.0 Mono
DUBS: Spanish, French
SUBS: English, Spanish
DIGITAL TRANSFER
Picture is flawless, but there is that ratio problem noted above

DVD RATING: ****




 REVIEW CROSS-REFERENCE



Immaculately restored Hitchcock masterpiece 'Rear Window' more relevant than ever

By Rob Blackwelder

Seeing the restored "Rear Window" on the big screen again gave me goose bumps. This voyeuristic mystery is a masterpiece of meticulous detail -- the kind of detail that just doesn't come across on a TV, I don't care how big the screen or how sharp the picture.

All but four of the characters spend the entire movie 50 feet away from the audience's vantage point. They have little audible dialogue. Yet Alfred Hitchcock, genius that he was, managed to portray the littlest nuances of their personalities as James Stewart -- our bored, peeping hero, laid up with a broken leg in his sweltering New York flat -- spies on them all in their apartments from his window.

The story, of course, centers around stir-crazy Stewart's intense scrutiny of one of these neighbors, after witnessing the aftermath of a possible murder. Raymond Burr (sporting badly dyed gray hair), plays a scowling, barrel-chested salesman who steps out several times late one night carrying very heavy luggage and returns with the same bags much lighter. When his bickering, bed-ridden wife is conspicuously absent the next morning, Stewart's analytical imagination goes into overdrive.

The precision with which Hitchcock unveils piecemeal the evidence of homicide gives this picture a sense of high anxiety that sneaks up on you, because the mischievous director lulls his audience into a sense of comfort and familiarity with sharp banter (between Stewart and the snappy Thelma Ritter as his busybody nurse) and other delightful distractions. For instance, the luminous Grace Kelly, at her most intelligent and desirable as Stewart's attentive and adventurous society girlfriend.

While not as crisp as a picture produced today would be, this print of "Window" has uniformly restored its Technicolor splendor and the remarkably precise sound design which helped win the film a pair of technical Oscars.

Hitchcock (who won Best Director) makes the audience strain, just as Stewart does, to hear voices across the courtyard between buildings and over the din of the city. The effect helps to mount tremendous tension as Kelly and Ritter start taking risks to expose Burr's crime -- like sneaking into his apartment to look for clues while Stewart watches helplessly from his window.

Hitchcock's most timeless masterpiece, "Rear Window" is more modern as ever in today's voyeuristic times (witness trashy TV talk shows, "The Real World," "Cops" and "Blind Date"), and its battery of modest, natural performances is equally ageless. Stewart and Kelly have never been more human then they are in this film.

"Rear Window" is also a testament to the suspense master's boundless talent for simple, gripping storytelling.

He establishes the basis of Stewart's character in a single camera pan -- across the cast on his broken leg, over a stack of magazine covers and a smashed camera (evidence of the accident that landed him in a cast), and up to a wall of framed, action-packed pictures divulging his intrepid photojournalism career.

In another shot, he sets up summer in New York, passing across the screen Stewart's sweaty brow, a thermometer displaying 94 degrees and a couple across the courtyard sleeping on their fire escape.

Just watching the bamboo shades on Stewart's windows roll up in the title sequence to reveal nearby buildings full of fascinating neighbors betrays the director's brilliance at a fundamental level.

As is always the case with Hitchcock, this is a movie that only gets better as the trepidation builds. I've seen "Rear Window" at least a dozen times, and my shoulders still get tense as it approaches its ominous climax without ever venturing far from Stewart's windowsill.




ORDER IT NOW


Buy from Amazon

Rent from Netflix

or Search for
 





Buy the Poster at AllPosters.com
Buy this Poster
 



SEARCH SPLICEDwire
 
powered by FreeFind
SPLICEDwire home
Online Film Critics Society
©SPLICEDwire
All Rights Reserved
Return to top
Current Reviews
SPLICEDwire Home