How Does Alfred Hitchcock Create Tension In Rear Window

Alfred Hitchcock once said, “If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.” This quote entirely sums up the reasons I loved Hitchcock’s movie Rear Window. Made in the 50s, this film revolves around L.B. Jefferies, an adventurous photographer who has broken his leg and is stuck in a wheelchair, watching his neighbours out his apartment window for entertainment. In his last housebound week, Jeff becomes convinced that a murder has taken place in the apartment across from him. This film is visually stunning: Alfred Hitchcock’s use of light and dark, the actors’ way of communicating feelings without words, and the costumes in the film are three reasons why this movie

Although Rear Window is in bright Technicolor, he still uses this technique. For example, most of the time when Mr. Thorwald- the film’s antagonist and the man Jeff suspects of murder- is on screen, he is cast in darkness. The only sign he’s still awake at night is the glow of a cigarette in his dark apartment; when he enters Jeff’s apartment during the climax of the movie he turns off the lights in the hallway, making him seem in control. Always seeing Thornwald in the dark makes the viewer even more uneasy about his character. Hitchcock also uses light to show his character’s emotions: when Lisa lingers at the apartment door after a fight with Jeff, her indecision about whether to return is represented by her stepping in and out of the darkness. Contrast is a graceful way that Hitchcock made Rear Window a more engaging

The clothing in Rear Window is no exception to this mantra, and Lisa Fremont, a highbrow, elegant fashion model and Jeff’s ill-fitted girlfriend, is the perfect model for these emblematic costumes. Usually wearing beautiful but impractical dresses, when Lisa decides to convince Jeff that she’s capable of helping with his investigation, she opts for a green suit with straight lines and a pencil skirt. Her hair is up in a more sensible French twist, but she’s wearing fussy bracelets and earrings, which draws attention to the missing Mrs. Thorwald’s jewelry- a key clue in Jeff’s investigation of the murder. On the day when Lisa and Stella decide to search Mr. Thorwald’s flower bed, Lisa wears a more practical dress covered in yellow flowers. This is a nod to the yellow zinnias in Thorwald’s garden, where Jeff suspects evidence of the murder is buried. Like the film itself, the costumes in Rear Window are stylish and deep in