Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

In Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock took a plot-driven short story and transformed it into a character-driven movie. Although differences must exist between text and film, because of the limitations and advantages of the different media, Hitchcock has done more than translate a word-based story into a visual movie. Aside from adding enough details to fill a two-hour movie, Hitchcock has done much to change the perspective of the story, as well as the main character. The novel’s Hal Jeffries, a seemingly hard-boiled and not overly intellectual man contrasts sharply with the photojournalist J.B. Jeffries of the movie. The addition of supporting characters, such as Lisa, diminishes somewhat the loneliness of the short story character. The character in the short story has more in common with Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade than with Jimmy Stewart’s Jeff. That Hitchcock took a story written in a style similar to Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, and chose not to make a film noir detective story speaks much to Hitchcock’s purpose here. Rather than creating a conventional detective story, Hitchcock creates an everyman, whose injury prevents him from action. The impotence the character feels heightens the tension of the film, as well by forcing the viewers to identify with his frustration. The movie disguises the many of the darker moments with humor, a device commonly used to lessen the shock of less acceptable aspects of a story. While the story was merely the narrative of one man, the film portrays different concepts of, and stages of love, in the images of the people across the way. The story is a guiltily related narrative of one man’s voyeurism, repeatedly rationalized by him. B...

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...that we, not Jeff, have been spying on the neighbors across the way.

While both the story and the film contain aspects of voyeurism, as well as a physically limited character, Hitchcock’s film does more than simply add enough filler to complete a movie. He adds facets to the character not included in the story. He provides the character with a career and social life and motivation. Additionally, Hitchcock uses the visual aspects of the film to convey more about the characters. By associating Thorwald with the color red, and using light and shadow to highlight Jeff’s ambivalence about Lisa, we get hints about how we are supposed to feel about the various characters. Hitchcock has taken an adequate short story and transformed it into a fascinating and funny character study that seems to comment on the isolation of life in a modern urban environment.