Picture Perfect

The success of Rear Window hinges on the everyman qualities of Jimmy Stewart

When questioned once about his approach to acting, Jimmy Stewart suggested one of the most important things was 'to try not to make the acting show.' At first glance the prosaic nature of the remark's only unusual when considering the undoubted depth of the man who said it.

But it's misleading to take at face value. A man who nearly avoided movies altogether to complete a masters in architecture at Princeton would have understood the importance of form and structure, and why an edifice owes as much to the ground it was founded upon as the more subtler aspects.

For a long time I thought this guy represented the quintessential icon of American popular culture; a post war icon, encapsulating family, small town patriotism and conservatism with a small c that was conscientious enough to listen to the liberal voice in its ear. I've been pleasantly surprised to find the evidence to this superficial perspective has sat on my rapidly crumbling shelf (never buy MDF folks. Life lesson right there).

Stewart, kind of appalled, kind of fascinated at once

Although I've owned his films for over a decade, it's fair to say I've only recently become a Jimmy Stewart fan. When I say recently, I really mean in the last week. The film that did the trick was Hitchcock's Rear Window, one of numerous films I own by the rotund Essex gentleman who by everyone's estimate was decades ahead of his contemporaries in understanding the psychology of film (more there shortly). I'm not the first nor best qualified to claim it as a masterpiece, but there you go - there's no sense in disputing it, certainly from these quarters.

Stewart seems an interesting guy full stop. He did Frank Capra's films - many of which I also own (including that one) but before dismissing his work as dreamy sentimentalism, watch them again. Anyone who's a bit of a Capra enthusiast understands the inferences - he knows, as well as his audience, that something fundamental is being lost as the film is being watched; that it's impossible to exist in the nigh-blissful scenes that his characters do and consequently that these films will remain films forever more. I don't believe Frank Capra wasn't really interested in capturing reality - his sniffier supporters might suggest he was better than that. I prefer to think he saw enough reality in real life.

Back to the subject. Stewart is the archetypal Capra protagonist - not naïve but big-hearted, straightforward yet not cruel towards men, and seeming to exist within a moral code miraculously unspoken throughout. These elements are almost believable in his acting, amongst the best I've seen. But Hitchcock made him into something a little different.

Rear Window's a clever piece of work and a more cynical perspective of community life within a major city - witness the emotional outpouring in the dead dog scene for confirmation of Hitchcock's rejection of the Capra code. But Stewart really nails the picture as an everyman with an eye for the narrative thanks to a time and life-consuming job as a magazine photographer. Slowly Stewart sloughs off the shell of disinterested citizen, becoming the recorder and narrator of blithe and unassuming community existing together in a steamy apartment block. Fascination's the seed of the carapace that grows apparently organically over the mundaneness of his lonely wheelchair-bound existence.

Between takes in Stewart's Greenwich apartment

But what prompted the fascination to grow? David Thomson writes really engagingly about a subconscious awakening in American pop culture upon the release of Psycho, the undertones of sexuality, gender and violence providing nourishment to a blooming voyeurism planted by an increasingly pervasive media, mainly thanks to TV. That film was released six years after Rear Window, but you can see the tendrils slowly yet inexorably enfeebling Stewart's perspective to be replaced by one which is created, prescribed and received as gospel.

In spite of that I guess what I most enjoy about this is the general vibe of relentlessness with which Stewart sets Jefferies up in every aspect of his confined life. There's a real element of self-preservation inherent in Stewart which naturally comes from his day job (nb as you'd expect the attention to detail in every aspect of Vertigo is fantastic) but he too is a product of his environment; his class-dominated perspective is a metaphorical straitjacket for him to both defend himself with and attack from. That broken leg is more than broken bones - a literal symbol of L.B's postwar attitude to life, both comfortable with and railing against a society fracturing with every passing world event (detail!)

Grace Kelly, the syrupy-voiced faux-celebrity girlfriend is absolutely brilliant at adapting to his stoic attitude and puncturing holes in his bullish demeanour - more than once it seems there's a boxing match going on between a heavyweight fighter and a quicker, nimbler counterpart who weaves in between the crushing blows. Her opening scene recounting her 'working day' - and Stewart's bored reaction - is hilarious. Both parties seek to concoct stories for L.B's neighbours, L.B in particular appearing almost pathologically addicted to narrative and coherence.

Of course the interest lies in whether his stories bear out the truth or crumble, and it's interesting to observe the camera watch its protagonists. And therein lies the second point, neatly wrapped up by Kelly just when it appears (spoiler!) the villain of the piece will escape unpunished. "Whatever happened to that old saying, 'Love thy neighbour'?" she quips as the corpse of L.B's neighbour's dog is ceremoniously withdrawn into the apartment amid wailing and recriminations. Hitchcock couldn't have guessed how television would make fleeting stars out of the everyday people in his flats and apartments but the draping of fictitious narrative over a real life is amazing to watch - this film is nearly 60 years old but feels as contemporary as ever.

A brief word on the camerawork- it's been covered in more expansive and frankly better detail elsewhere but this is one of the only films I've ever seen that makes it explicitly clear that everything you are watching is being manipulated. The protagonist is a photographer. Many of the film's scenes include views from his binoculars/ camera lens.

But even outside that, Hitchcock achieves a sort of free indirect style with his camerawork, strongly inferring that the visuals reflect Stewart's own interests rather than his. For me that's the distinguishing mark of a masterpiece over merely very good. But even more, it's a demonstration of the talents of a man who understood - whether it was in film or architecture - never let the joins show. Maybe I'll take that on board when I buy my next shelving unit.

Pictures courtesy of The Lightning Bug's Lair and HHHHound.com