Hitchcock's ""Rear Window: The Well-made Film

In the process of providing an extensive analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's ""Rear Window"", John Fawell also dismantles many myths and cliches about Hitchcock, particularly in regard to his attitude toward women. Although ""Rear Window"" masquerade's quite successfully as a piece of light entertainment, Fawell demonstrates just how complex the film really is. It is a film in which Hitchcock, the consummate virtuoso, was in full command of his technique. One of Hitchcock's favourite films, ""Rear Window"" offered the ideal venue for the great director to fully use the tricks and ideas he acquired over his previous three decades of filmmaking. Yet technique alone did not make this classic film great; one of Hitchcock's most personal films, ""Rear Window"" is characterized by great depth of feeling. It offers glimpses of a sensibility at odds with the image Hitchcock created for himself - that of the grand ghoul of cinema who mocks his audience with a slick and sadistic style. Though Hitchcock is often labelled a misanthrope and misogynist, Fawell finds evidence in ""Rear Window"" of a sympathy for the loneliness that leads to voyeurism and crime, as well as an empathy for the film's women. Fawell emphasizes a more feeling, humane spirit than either Hitchcock's critics have granted him or Hitchcock himself admitted to, and does so in a manner of interest to film scholars and general readers alike.