Short Films

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Hitchcock in Colour

REAR WINDOW

• Director: Alfred Hitchcock
• USA / 1954 / DCP / Colour / 112’ / English; Turkish s.t.

• Screenplay: John Michael Hayes
• Original Work: Cornell Woolrich
• Director of Photography: Robert Burks
• Editing: George Tomasini
• Music: Franz Waxman
• Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Judith Evelyn, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey, Raymond Burr
• Producer: Alfred Hitchcock
• Production Co.: Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions
• World Sales: Park Circus

1954 National Board of Review (USA) Best Actress (G. Kelly)
1955 Edgar Allan Poe Awards Best Motion Picture
1954 New York Film Critics Circle Best Actress (G. Kelly)

A follow-up to three theatrical colour films, Hitchcock makes Rear Window where he remarkably employs what he describes as ‘pure cinema.’ James Stewart plays a professional photographer who is waiting at home for his broken leg to heal, whereas Grace Kelly plays his lover whom he finds ‘too perfect’ and thus does not consider to marry. Rear Window constructs an intriguing dramatic universe and a very gripping murder mystery at once in a single set comprising a spacious enclosed courtyard and windows opening to the lives of others.  Almost always remaining within the point-of-view of its protagonist, Rear Window transforms its audience into a peeping tom and therefore perhaps establishes an organic bond between the nature of film and voyeurism, resulting in a masterpiece that frequently is listed among best films lists of all times.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.