Rear Window
Actions Speak Louder
I don’t know how you handle being sick, but I have to go to work. Have to. If there’s any way I can get to work, I will. Not because I’m passionately dedicated to my job or afraid I’ll be fired or anything like that, mind you, I just don’t like daytime TV, and I’m not going to sit around and watch it if I can help it.
There was no daytime television in 1954 to speak of, not that I’m an expert. The people that live in Jimmy Stewart’s neighborhood in Chelsea aren’t watching TV all day long, and good for them. They’ve got their windows open; it’s summertime, and there’s no AC units to be seen. Stewart is laid up with a broken leg, he’s a risk-taking photographer who got a little too close to a speeding racecar. You’ll hear the phrase “confined to a wheelchair” in most Rear Window reviews, which is a phrase that makes real wheelchair users wince; they’re not “confined” to their wheelchairs any more than you’re “confined” to your Toyota in rush hour. In Stewart’s case, though, the tired old trope is accurate. He sits in his wheelchair as though he were nailed there. (He’d have to navigate three steps just to get out of his apartment, and I bet the doors to the kitchen and bedroom are too narrow for his chair, and there probably wasn’t one single curb cut in New York City in 1954.)
Anyway, we all know what happens next. (At least anyone who watches The Simpsons knows what happens next; they did a wonderful satire.) Stewart gets bored to tears and starts looking out the window at his neighbors as they live their lives. One’s a composer, one’s a sculptor, one’s a ballerina, one is severely lonely and depressed, and one is maybe a murderer. Stewart picks up a clue here and a clue there and concludes that the salesman on the second floor killed his wife, and drags all of his friends into his obsession.
The plot ought to be familiar to all of you by now, and if you’ve not seen it, then I won’t spoil it for you, choosing instead to concentrate on the overall excellence of the acting. For my money, Jimmy Stewart turns in one of the most impressive acting performances of all time. There’s one scene where he’s in his wheelchair, and Grace Kelly is in his lap. They’re kissing, but the script requires him to keep talking about the murderous neighbor across the way. Stewart does this like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and is perfectly convincing as the sort of man who could ignore Grace Kelly to concentrate on a pointless, voyeuristic hobby. That’s acting.
Kelly herself is no slouch in the acting department. The script really doesn’t require her to act, just lounge around Stewart’s apartment in those fetching Edith Head costumes and look like a knockout. But act she does, and her breathy voice gets wrapped around some great lines. She and Stewart trade dark one-liners back and forth at first, until she becomes convinced of the neighbor’s guilt as well.
The wonderful thing about the acting in this movie is that so much of it is silent, that so much of it has to be transmitted through body language and expressions and gestures. We only hear the things Hitchcock wants us to hear, the rest is drowned out by the music from the composer’s apartment or other sources. All of the actors in the apartment building across the street do a wonderful job of letting Stewart, and us, know exactly what’s going on.
For example, there’s a newlywed couple across the way that keep their blinds down. Every once in awhile, the husband will come out, stand by the window, get some fresh air, and smoke a cigarette. This will last three seconds, until his wife notices that she doesn’t have all of his attention. We see this in just one little tiny span of time, and yet his body language and his expression speak volumes.
The actor from the other building who has the most to do is the suspected murderer, Raymond Burr. (He looks for all the world the way Russell Crowe did in The Insider, and has the same amount of bottled-up rage.) The thing about Burr, throughout his work as Perry Mason, was his voice, stern and authoritative. Most of the time he’s onscreen, though, we can’t hear what he’s saying, but he’s compelling and good and wonderfully ambiguous in his actions, which speak louder than even his booming voice.
Of course, the main reason to see Rear Window isn’t the acting, it’s the Hitchcock suspense. Actually, there isn’t that much of it, most of the suspense is concentrated in the last reel. What’s there, though, is first-rate, worthy of the master.
In fact, everything about Rear Window is first-rate, and it deserves to be seen up on the big screen, where I saw it tonight.