{"id":78,"date":"2013-02-07T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T06:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/?p=78"},"modified":"2024-10-17T07:15:11","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T06:15:11","slug":"grace-kelly-in-rear-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"Grace Kelly in <em>Rear Window<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by NEIL SINYARD<\/p>\n<p>According to Hitchcock\u2019s associate producer, Herbert Coleman, \u2018it was the most beautiful shot of a woman I have ever seen in my life.\u2019 It is one of the most entrancing entrances of any screen character- a moment when, in a reversal of convention, a sleeping hero is awakened by a kiss from a Fairy Princess.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\"  id=\"_ytid_42848\"  width=\"584\" height=\"329\"  data-origwidth=\"584\" data-origheight=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gl0yPuI7EVs?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nIn <em>Rear Window<\/em> (1954), a professional photographer, L.B. Jefferies (James Stewart), in a wheelchair with a broken leg after an accident at one of his assignments, is asleep in his apartment. Suddenly a sinister shadow falls across his face, which puts us slightly on our guard. Hitchcock cuts to a shot of a stunningly beautiful blonde coming into seductive close-up. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sinyard_RearWindow_01-e1360097115165.png\" alt=\"Sinyard_RearWindow_01\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-84\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sinyard_RearWindow_03-e1360097235539.png\" alt=\"Sinyard_RearWindow_03\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-85\" \/><\/p>\n<p>He then cuts to a close profile shot almost in slow-motion to accentuate the dreaminess of the atmosphere as hero and heroine kiss.  \u2018Who are you?\u2019 asks Jefferies, jokingly. Taking up the playful tone, the heroine introduces herself- \u2018Lisa Carol Fremont\u2019-, on every name switching on a lamp as if to emphasise the warmth and light she has brought into the room.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sinyard_RearWindow_04-e1360097294758.png\" alt=\"Sinyard_RearWindow_04\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-86\" \/><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sinyard_RearWindow_07-e1360097343237.png\" alt=\"Sinyard_RearWindow_07\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-88\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Delighted with her contribution to <em>Dial M for Murder<\/em> (1953), Hitchcock was keen to work with Grace Kelly again, a feeling that was mutual: she turned down the offer of a role in <em>On the Waterfront<\/em> (1954)- which was to win Eva Marie-Saint an Oscar- to make <em>Rear Window<\/em> instead. This time Hitchcock was keen to create a part that was closer to her actual personality. \u2018She\u2019s stiff on film,\u2019 he told the screenwriter John Michael Hayes, \u2018and we have to open her out somehow.\u2019 Hayes spent some time with her and wrote a part which brought out the gaiety and wit of her natural temperament. Hayes\u2019 wife had been a professional model and that helped to create a background for the character that was authentic but also, to Jefferies, provocative. <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sinyard_RearWindow_08-e1360098881100.png\" alt=\"Sinyard_RearWindow_08\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-89\" \/>Grace Kelly\u2019s performance has not only sparkle but shade, and the antagonism between Lisa and Jefferies (intimated by that initial shadow of his face when she first appears) in the film has several intriguing dimensions. Kelly looks gorgeous in the costumes Edith Head has designed for her (under Hitchcock\u2019s watchful eye), but the character is far more than just a clothes-horse for glamorous garments. She is a successful and intelligent career-woman, and the hero\u2019s mocking remarks about her life-style (\u2018You should list that dress on the Stock Exchange,\u2019 he says about the $1100 dollar dress she is wearing when she greets him), reveal a touch of envy and masculine insecurity on his part. Lisa wishes to marry him but is being kept at arm\u2019s length, ostensibly because he does not think she could share the rough and tumble of his life as a magazine photographer, subconsciously because he seems to fear marriage itself. What he watches from his window- vignettes of loneliness, desire and disappointment &#8211; only serves to reflect and perhaps deepen that fear, particularly when he begins to suspect that one of his neighbours, Thorwald (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife.   <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sinyard_RearWindow_10-e1360097651812.png\" alt=\"Sinyard_RearWindow_10\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-90\" \/><br \/>\nAlthough the action of the film is seen almost exclusively from Jefferies\u2019 point of view, <em>Rear Window<\/em> subverts the usual Hollywood active male\/ passive female narrative stereotypes. Whereas Jefferies is immobile and mostly helpless throughout the film, Lisa is one of Hitchcock\u2019s most active and resourceful heroines. When she begins to share Jefferies\u2019 suspicions about Thorwald, she has no compunction about crossing the courtyard and climbing into Thorwald\u2019s room through the window, thereby demonstrating that, contrary to Jefferies\u2019 assertion, it is possible both to dress immaculately and be effectively adventurous. And, as in <em>The Man Who Knew Too Much<\/em>, feminine intuition provides the solution to the mystery. Lisa has always contended that no woman would go on a trip without her wedding ring and when she finds Mrs Thorwald\u2019s ring amongst her husband\u2019s belongings, it clinches his guilt.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\"  id=\"_ytid_73978\"  width=\"584\" height=\"329\"  data-origwidth=\"584\" data-origheight=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1Ez6dw3ywcc?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sinyard_RearWindow_12-e1360097668865.png\" alt=\"Sinyard_RearWindow_12\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-94\" \/><br \/>\nThe visual revelation of that moment is brilliant. Whilst searching his room, Lisa has been attacked by Thorwald but rescued in time by the arrival of the police. Whilst they are being questioned, Lisa signals her discovery of the ring to Jefferies by wearing it on her finger and pointing to it behind her back (Thorwald will notice the gesture and later come across to confront Jefferies). As Francois Truffaut has noted, the moment serves a dual function of implicating Thorwald whilst also reinforcing Lisa\u2019s desire for marriage: she finally has a wedding ring on her finger. At the back of our mind, though, is a disquieting thought: it is a murdered woman\u2019s wedding ring &#8211; and, moreover, it fits.<\/p>\n<p>The ending is one of Hitchcock\u2019s most adroit, and particularly interesting in relation to Lisa and the other female characters. During the film Lisa has particularly identified with two other women across the square whom Jefferies has spied on- Miss Torso (Georgine Darcy), with her constant stream of admirers (\u2019She\u2019s doing a woman\u2019s hardest job\u2026juggling wolves,\u2019 says Lisa, as if she knows what she is talking about); and Miss Lonelyhearts (Judith Evelyn), who acts out imaginary dates but who is then taken to the point of near-suicide when an actual date tries to assault her. These two side-stories are happily resolved: Miss Torso\u2019s amusingly diminutive Army husband returns home; and Miss Lonelyhearts has struck up a friendship with the frustrated songwriter whose song has now been recorded and whose music has meant so much to her (and to Lisa). <\/p>\n<p>The temperature has dropped; normality seems to have been restored, though the newly-weds are now bickering, as if potential Thorwalds in the making; as at the beginning of the film, Jefferies is asleep with his back to the window but, after his encounter with Thorwald, now has two broken legs, making him doubly impotent. Hitchcock now pans to Lisa, in casual slacks and blouse, reading \u2018Beyond the High Himalayas\u2019. Has she capitulated, then, to Jefferies\u2019 requirements of a female partner? Not a bit of it. Noting he is still asleep, she puts down the book and picks up her preferred reading matter, the fashion magazine \u2018Bazaar\u2019, implicitly affirming her right to live according to her own lights and values. The last word we hear on the soundtrack is from the songwriter\u2019s composition and it is the single word \u2018Lisa\u2019- allowing the heroine, as it were, the last word.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sinyard_RearWindow_15-e1360098183721.png\" alt=\"Sinyard_RearWindow_15\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-126\" \/><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sinyard_RearWindow_16-e1360098324385.png\" alt=\"Sinyard_RearWindow_16\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-127\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It is a scintillating characterisation and Grace Kelly plays it with a combined elegance and vitality, immaculate manner and yet sexual self-confidence that utterly enchanted Hitchcock. No wonder Rear Window remained one of his favourite films. He said it was because it was an example of \u2018pure cinema\u2019; I suspect it was also because he had found in it his perfect blonde.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by NEIL SINYARD According to Hitchcock\u2019s associate producer, Herbert Coleman, \u2018it was the most beautiful shot of a woman I have ever seen in my life.\u2019 It is one of the most entrancing entrances of any screen character- a moment &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/?p=78\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[86,17,46],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-alfred-hitchcock","tag-grace-kelly","tag-rear-window"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":56,"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/neilsinyard.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}