Rear Window

H English 12

Period 1

Final Exam ECR

Giancarlo Bellido

Rear Window is a movie about a photographer on a wheelchair who spies on his neighbors from his apartment window. The whole movie is told from the perspective of the photographer's apartment. Rear Window shows us how the lives of regular people can be sometimes unexpected.

Rear Window goes through some of the common American stereotypes: The Musician, the popular dancer, the depressed person, a married couple, etc. They all have problems, and secrets, and the movie develops every of them. One of the techniques that Hitchcock used the most was foreshadowing, because just by using images and sounds he let the audience know what could happen.

Hitchcock shows us life on each shot. To show how dynamic it is, scenes change from one character to the other while the main conflict, the murder, is being observed. The camera moves from apartment to apartment imitating human perception, also at the moment when the killer gets into the photographer's apartment, he uses his camera flash to momentarily blind the killer, and you can see in the screen how his eyes slowly recover vision.

The movie is full of content and everyday conflicts. Almost every part of the film has an implied meaning, and a purpose. Using only the camera, and sometimes a few words the director let the audience interpret the symbols in the movie. Things like the thermometer, the sound of the stairs as the killer approaches, the phone calls, the pictures, the broken camera, and the piano music; all these things are telling us something.

The movie gives us the impression that no life is ordinary. Every character has its own conflicts, different stories and different endings. This makes the movie interesting, because it is not just about the murder, but it mixes different situations. Hitchcock put suspense on every situation, you are always asking what is going to happen next, even though you may guess, there is still the possibility that you are wrong.