The pure art of storytelling

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, October 4th.

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Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Next on The World and Everything in It, the 70th anniversary of a movie from the master of suspense. It’s a film that may have an important lesson for us in the age of social media. Our reviewer is Max Belz.

MAX BELZ: In the 1950s, English movie director Alfred Hitchcock was at the height of his creative powers, and 1954 might have been his best year.

In the spring, his movie Dial M for Murder came out. It starred Grace Kelly, and told the story of a man who schemed to murder his wife to collect her inheritance.

AUDIO: Do you really believe in the perfect murder? Yes, absolutely. On paper, that is. But I doubt if I could carry it out. Why not? Well, because in stories, things usually turn out the way the author wants them to and in real life they don’t.

The movie was shot almost totally in one room and its technicolor storytelling hinted at coming greatness when Rear Window hit theaters later that summer.

AUDIO: This is the apartment of a man named Jeffries, a news photographer whose beat used to be the world. Right now, his world has shrunk down to the size of this window. He’s been watching the people across the way.

In Rear Window, Hitchcock uses the camera like a painter with a brush, telling the story through pictures, uncluttered by dialogue. Take for example, the opening scene. We see the courtyard of an apartment building. The camera then shows us the neighbors and their daily movements, before landing on LB Jefferies played by Jimmy Stewart.

We see his broken leg in a cast, then a busted camera and photos of race cars and explosions. Next, a portrait of a beautiful woman on a magazine cover. All of this takes about 3 minutes and yet, Hitchcock establishes most of the movie's conflicts during that time.

AUDIO: Congratulations, Jeff. For what? For getting rid of that cast. Who said I was getting rid of it?

Again, we have a crime on our hands: Jeffries suspects one of his neighbors of killing his wife. First the man’s wife is ailing and later she disappears, the bed neatly made. Jefferies can’t help but solve this mystery from a distance.

Grace Kelly plays the part of Lisa, Jeffries's sophisticated girlfriend. But trouble is brewing between them, something Jeffries confesses to the nurse tending to him.

AUDIO: She’s not the girl. She’s perfect. She’s too perfect. She’s too talented. She’s too beautiful. She’s too sophisticated. She’s too everything but what I want.

His appetite for excitement stands in contrast to Lisa’s desire for stability and success. They want different things, he as the globetrotter, she as the Manhattan socialite.

AUDIO: Someday, you may want to open up a studio of your own here. How would I run it from, say, Pakistan? Jeff, isn’t it time you came home?

We are bound once again to a single setting. An apartment building is a clever way to have one narrative that contains other stories—each window he sees is another story all its own. In this setting, his thirst for adventure and his cabin fever drive him to look through his telephoto lens at his neighbors, to the chagrin of Lisa and his nurse.

AUDIO: We become a race of peeping toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes, sir. How’s that for a bit of homespun philosophy. Reader’s Digest April 1939. Well, I only quote from the best.

His snooping leads him to spy on the people around him, speculating about their motives. But he neglects his own friendships. Hitchcock presents a tendency we face in our own lives: it is easy to choose the fake over the real, the mediated to the actual, fantasy to reality. LB Jefferies prefers to go on dreaming rather than face the music.

AUDIO: That’s no ordinary look. That’s the kind of look a man gives when he’s afraid somebody might be watching him.

He only starts giving Lisa the attention she deserves when she sneaks into the suspect's apartment and enters the "show" he's watching.

AUDIO: C’mon, c’mon. Get out of there!

Throughout the movie, the camera takes Jefferies’ perspective, showing us what he sees— often quickly cutting to his reaction. This technique is absorbing for the viewer: what does he see? What does he think about what sees? Is he interested?

AUDIO: I just can’t figure it out. He went out several times last night in the rain carrying his sample case. Well, he’s a salesman, isn’t he? Well, what would he be selling at three o’clock in the morning?

But enough dubious happenings bring Lisa and the nurse in on the action, and the story keeps you in suspense till the end. Jefferies and Lisa repeat the facts of the case to each other, absorbed by it all, as are we, the audience.

AUDIO: Let’s start at the beginning again, Jeff. Tell me everything you saw and what you think it means.

Since movie ratings didn’t exist in 1954, Rear Window earned a PG rating later on even though it touches on some serious themes. The music by Franz Waxman sets the tone and the costumes by Edith Head are stunning. All of Hitchcock’s classic touches are here, but it’s his pure storytelling through the camera that will keep drawing audiences back to this movie. And like the best stories, it shows us something true about the human experience. Take a look, but remember it’s just a movie. Reality is even sweeter.

AUDIO: Mr. Jeffries. The music stopped her.

I'm Max Belz.

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