Blog #3: Rear Window

As the third time watching "Rear Window",  I still seem to notice different things each time. The opening scene of Rear Window, where we first are exposed to a story of some sort, later is a big part of the plot of the main character Jeff. We learn from the opening scene that Jeff is a photographer that was injured badly due to a racetrack crash he desperately wanted to photograph. We also see, that I didn't notice the first times watching, a picture with a negative coloring effect that we learn is Jeff's "girlfriend" Lisa. That opening scene pretty much tells us the story behind the whole plot before even starting the film, including introducing another character. This is one thing that Hitchcock adds to the film Rear Window is the romance between Jeff and Lisa. I think the romance added something more for the audience to engage in rather than the simple plot of Jeff looking out his rear window.

We can assume that Jeff is very dedicated to his photography work as he did mention on the phone that he really didn't need to get that photograph of the racetrack, but still did it anyways. This attitude plays out in the rest of the film as he is determined to figure out this mystery of his neighbor, Lars. At times I felt like Jeff was being too dramatic about the whole situation but I think that's what Hitchcock wanted. I think he wanted us to go against Jeff at times so we can later be surprised in the long run.

One of the sequences that uses a unique camera movements is the scenes where we see the pan movement looking out at the all neighbors. Even though this movement is not that steady, I wonder if we are suppose to be looking at Jeff's point of view during those scenes or just a third party. Since we see a lot in Jeff's point of view, at times it feels like it carries on way too long in that angle. It is a good thing that the other characters like Lisa and Stella came into this film giving the film more to work with. Besides the obsession Jeff has with the mystery across at his neighbors, these other characters bring out more of Jeff than we see. Lisa brings out his romantic side. Lisa is also some way his opposite since they have different outlooks in the beginning of the film.

One thing that some people may not notice the first time watching this film is the progress of the neighbor's song. At first the neighbor's song is very sloppy as we see him aggravated throughout the whole film. But the way I saw it is that the progress of solving the Lars mystery, is the same as the progress of the song. After Lars gets arrested, we then see that the piano player finishes song and even shares it with one of the female neighbors whose life was saved by the song. I thought it was neat how Hitchcock played the whole piano player's song into this film making it a part of the story as well as a part of the background music.

I find it hard to believe that this is the only neighbor to spot Jeff doing what he was doing considering he was peeping on everyone majority of the time. But I question if Hitchcock had this scene of Lars being the first to spot Jeff to make it more suspenseful that a neighbor finally spotted him and it just happen to be Lars on very important scene.

Every time a scene was followed by this scene, I assumed that we were looking from Jeff's point of view. Even though most of the time we were looking through a black hole to represent the lens, I was mistaken a few times there was no black hole.