Alfred Hitchcock builds suspense whilst never leaving Jefferies apartment in “Rear Window”. the entire film is filled with events that create suspense, three in stand out: Thorwald removing items from his apartment in the very early morning hours, Thorwald walking in on Lisa as she is searching his apartment, and L.B. Jefferies waiting in his apartment as Thorwald tries to enter.
While Jefferies, or Jeff as Lisa calls him, is stuck in his apartment because of a broken leg, he has plenty of time to watch his neighbours. One rainy night in the early morning, Jeff notices Thorwald leaving his apartment with a large case. Thorwald soon returns and then leaves again with the case. He does this multiple times. We as an audience have only limited knowledge of what Thorwald is doing because we are confined to Jeff’s point of view. Hitchcock uses this point of view to build suspense. We are left with questions like “Where is Thorwald going so early in the morning?”, “What is in the case?”, and “Why is he making so many trips back and forth in the rain?”. Hitchcock has drawn us into partaking in his film
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Thorwald discovers Jeff spying on him while the police and Lisa are in Thorwald’s apartment. After the police leave with Lisa, Jeff loses track of Thorwald. This in itself builds suspense because we know that Thorwald has discovered Jeff spying on him and we don’t know where Thorwald is or what he is doing. Jeff’s phone rings. He answers and there is no sound on the other end of the line. This absence of sound builds even more suspense. Could it be Thorwald? Soon we hear the loud, deliberate footsteps of someone, almost certainly Thorwald, coming up the stairs to Jeff’s apartment. Next comes the sound of someone attempting to open the door. The audience is almost positive that it is Thorwald, but it could also be Lt. Doyle. The suspense climaxes when the door opens and Thorwald enters and begins to confront