I am having a writer’s block

Rear Window

Perhaps you have realized already that I tend to find it difficult to write about movies. I actually truly believe so, because whatever you want to write, it feels like it doesn’t do its movie justice. “Rear Window”, however, is the type of movie that is really, really easy to write about. First, I didn’t find it difficult to give a rating to it (it’s a masterpiece) and second, it is quite easy to explain why I have found the film to be a masterpiece.

When I was younger, we have studied the film in french class, and so I have known about the majority of what happens in the movie. But at that time, I didn’t know anything about movies at all and I found it utterly boring. (My my, how people can change, right?) Today, I can see perfectly why this would be the type of film you study in class: Content-wise, it has a simple story with many deeper layers you can analyze, and everything technical from direction to cinematography supports the content of the movie. There are thousands of details that fit together in this movie – and every high school teacher can see them and talk about this in class.

Even though I still remembered how the story would end, I forgot how it happened exactly, and so I was very, very curious to see how the story unfolds. Sometimes it felt like the story had some plot holes, but ultimately it all made a lot of sense. It does not surprise me that this story qualifies as a suspense thriller even though it does not look like it on the first glance and I haven’t felt the suspense back then when I watched it the first time at all.

I knew about the depth of the story, both concerning the people in the courtyard as well as the ethical problem of voyeurism, but I have never expected it to be so incredibly well-executed and funny. Apart from Stella’s hilarious comments, so many different types of funny situations and dialogue lines full of black humour appeared throughout the whole film, I was so surprised.

Finally, as always, I would also comment on the female main character ;) Well, Grace Kelly is such a beauty! When I was younger, I have always confused her with Ingrid Bergman (Why actually?), but have found her to be a splendid actress. Today, I still think so, and I think she fits this role of a smart, loving and absolutely wonderful woman perfectly. Considering that this is a 1954 film, I find it amazing how she emancipated is portrayed – not by showing more flesh, but by displaying obvious superiority to the man she loves both in terms of capability and intelligence.

When it turned out that the DVD for “Play it again, Sam” was broken, we were really depressed because it started off so great, but the greatness of “Rear Window” made me forget about this sad incident completely. I can’t believe Hitchcock never got an Oscar, especially considering that for a long time, he was the only movie director I knew (because of Three Investigators, in fact XD). The film is just so great on many, many levels and it makes me want to watch it again and read about it more. Next time, I also should finally watch “Vertigo”, “Psycho” and “Dial M for Murder”, but I already have this feeling that none of them would surpass “Rear Window” for me.