Suspense In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

Alfred of Hitchcock once said, "There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it." Hitchcock was an English and American film director and producer. He was best known as the "Master of Suspense;" and one of his masterpieces, the 1954 film "Rear Window," truly deserved him the title. The film starred James Stewart, who played as the travel photojournalist L.B Jeffries; and Grace Kelley who played as Lisa Carol Freemont, Jeffries' Manhattan socialite girlfriend. The story surrounded around Jeffries voyeuristic activities to his neighbors while using his telephoto camera lens. Along the process of his voyeurism, he suspected that his neighbor named Lars Thorwald, who was played by Raymond Burr, killed his invalid wife. Together with Lisa and his nurse Stella who was played by Thelma Ritter, they uncovered the murder committed by Thorwald. In "Rear Window," Hitchcock clearly defined suspense through his creation of anticipation and excitement of the audience only through the eyes, even without knowing the story behind those characters. Hitchcock is an auteur of mystery. From the beginning to the end of the "Rear Window," he drafted each of the puzzles …show more content…
The suspense in Hitchcock's works is broadly structured around these moral coordinates and the allegiance they give rise to in the spectator (Allen 164). These moral coordinates involved the identification between the good and the bad. In "Rear Window," it was particularly obvious to state that Thorwald has the evil deed due to his act of murder. Jeffries, meanwhile, was the hero because he was able to pursue for the truth and thus serve justice for the late Mrs. Thorwald. Yet what is fascinating with Hitchcock's approach is that audiences can easily judge even with a bias perception since the narrative can only be taken from Jeffries point of