Stalker Much?

From all of the Alfred Hitchcock films that we studied in this unit, my favorite was definitely Rear Window because it was so closely related to Disturbia, which was like a modern re-make of Rear Window. Anyway, the scene that I chose to analyze was the part when Lisa goes into Thorwald’s apartment to find the Mrs. Thorwald wedding ring. In this scene, when Lisa flashes the ring to Jeff, Mr. Thorwald realizes what she’s doing and he slowly glares up in the direction of Jeff’s apartment and it’s implied that they make contact. It’s really cool because we see Mr. Thorwald through Jeff’s camera, so it was nice seeing images through that kind of perspective. But more importantly, what was so captivating about this particular scene was how Mr. Thorwald not only appeared to be staring back at Jeff, but he was also staring back at us! It was so creepy because while I was watching this, I actually felt guilty and scared at the same time because I felt like a stalker who had just been caught! Totally freaky. So props to Hitchcock for being able to accomplish this cool effect because when the audience is intrigued by small details like this, then you know that it’s a film worth watching.