Rear Window (1954)
Introduction and commentary by Linda DeLibero, director, Film & Media Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Wendell Corey. A wheelchair-bound photographer entertains himself by spying on his neighbors across the courtyard and subsequently believes he’s uncovered a murder. Hitchcock deemed this his most “purely cinematic film,” and indeed, few movies can match its masterful, highly entertaining exploration of the nature of cinema. But observe the delicious exchanges between Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart and it’s clear that Rear Window is just as notable for its brutally clear-eyed dissection of the war between the sexes. This was, after 1948’s Rope, Stewart’s second collaboration with Hitchcock, and Stewart’s obsessive voyeur further explored the darker ambiguities of the actor’s post-World War II persona, the flipside of his pre-war identity as the quintessential boy-next-door. (112min, Color)

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