Rear Window
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock's film 'Rear Window' was made at Paramount Studios in 1954. With a highly talented cast including James Stewart, Grace Kelly and Raymond Burr, Hitchcock hyped the film with taglines such as "See it, if your nerves can stand it after 'Psycho'..." In-keeping with much of Hitchcock's work, the horror and suspense is not of an entirely visual nature that we may be used to in more recent thrillers. He is more a master of suspense, paranoia and nerves. This is why I have chosen to concentrate on the very first ten minutes of the film, where the foundations of the storyline and its accompanying ambiguities are laid.
The opening credits of a film can often tell us a lot about the forthcoming storyline and is indeed a great opportunity for director to set the tone of the film, establish an ambience and maybe to give us an idea as to what we can expect.
English: Studio publicity photo of Alfred Hitchcoc...
Cropped screenshot from the trailer for the film R...
Cropped screenshot of James Stewart from the trail...Behind the credits of 'Rear Window' we can see three bamboo style blinds rising very slowly. Already we can draw a lot from this; The blinds conjure images of the theatre, rising like the curtains at the start of the show. This theme of drama and a 'theatrical reality' is one that we can pick up at many points in the film. The blinds are translucent, we can make out general shapes and colours, but can't see the true image of what is behind them. This is a very obvious link to the storyline, we don't know from the start what is going to happen or if Jefferies is dreaming up his suspicions about Thorwald or if what we are seeing is reality or in fact, a deluded point of view from Jefferies. The rate at which the blinds rise...