Alfred Hitchcock - Rear Window (1954), 6/10

Rear Window is a charmingly unique thriller both in substance and progression. Of course, the film has many things to say about a few important subjects and most of them are successful. The premise itself is the most engaging aspect of the story, and while its story is an outstanding one any meandering from that story feels like filler, of which there is a decent amount. Not the tangential stories, these are fantastic and actually almost entirely vital, and serve as miniature pieces of the grander narrative, but the aesthetic ones in which Jefferies and Fremont start to become strange alternate versions of themselves in their dialogue. Maybe this is partially a shortcoming of acting, although it seems more so in its writing. The larger narrative can be jagged and inconsistent in effect, even working against the progressiveness of the superb filmmaking. Still, as a narrative with a new premise and as a technical project it is very successful and engaging almost without fail, so despite its shortcomings, its status as a classic is understandable. If nothing else, moments like the Thorwald’s entering Jefferies’ apartment feel utterly intense and are forcefully effective. Not my favorite Hitchcock film, but certainly among the most innovative films of the fifties.