I think what I am starting to like about older movies is that they keep things very simple. Today a modern director would some how manage to contrive to shoot Rear Window in five or six different locations across the world, with a huge array of both extras and special effects, costing millions. Yet what makes Hitchcock's movie so good is that everything is filmed from the same spot, which makes the film much more believable and therefore maintains the suspense right up until the end.
Like Jimmy Stewart I love watching (or should that be spying on) my neighbours. I don't watch them in a voyeuristic way, but I do find myself pondering about them, what they are doing and who they are as people as they move about their flats across the way. Sadly however I don't have a broken leg as an excuse!
The daily routine of others is quite comforting and incredibly disconcerting when the person you expect to see out your window or on your way to work doesn't appear. I think this is what draws me into the movie - I am effectively Jimmy Stewart. As he watches the world go on around him from his bedroom window you can't help but be drawn into his simple world. The lives of those people in the windows become your life as you wait to see what happens next for the musician, the newly weds and the lonely-hearted lady.
Rear Window is such a simple movie as both an idea and as a whole movie, and as a result it is brilliant. So far this is the only movie I have rented that I am definitely going to be buying for my own collection. Top100? More like Top10...
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