Peering Into Various Mindsets
This weekend's review: the 1998 version of Rear Window.
I was actually recommended this version of Rear Window by one of my fellow movie lovers here on Livejournal, though it took me several years to get around to tracking it down and watching it. I was particularly interested in the casting choice of the lead, given what I knew about him and what I’d heard about his acting in the movie. In the end, I think his involvement turned out to be a blessing and a curse.
Instead of being a photographer laid up with a broken leg, this time around our hero, Jason Kemp (Christopher Reeve), is an architect who gets in a car accident that leaves him a paraplegic. Convinced that there’s eventually going to be a cure for his condition, Jason soldiers through the physical therapy, then moves to his refurbished penthouse along with two regular caretakers (Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Ali Marsh) and starts trying to live as normal a life as he can. Since his penthouse has huge windows that overlook the apartment complex next door, Jason winds up noticing, then actively observing, the goings-on of the various tenants, to the point of getting video cameras set up so he can observe them more closely. Thanks to this, he observes the man (Ritchie Coster) directly across the way start assaulting his wife (Allison Mackie), which Jason stops by contacting the police. But then a day or two later, the wife disappears, and Jason starts suspecting foul play…
As you can kind of tell from my summary, this movie winds up feeling like it’s two plots smashed into one. Indeed, it takes nearly half-an-hour of a ninety minute movie before the material surrounding the couple really kicks in. The one doesn’t exactly flow naturally into the other, although there are elements that cross over. This is a shame, because both stories have potential. We’ve seen the murder plot before, obviously, but having the “detective” being a paraplegic is a new wrinkle that offers up a lot of possibilities. And a story about a person adapting to their new life as a paraplegic and refusing to give up is, while perhaps smacking of Oscarbait, also potentially compelling. I found the material surrounding Jason’s recovery and the way he used technology to get things done to be interesting, though I don’t know if it could sustain a full movie. And there’s also the possibility that I was just responding to what was going on behind the scenes.
Time to address the elephant in the room. This movie was made after (several years after, actually) Christopher Reeve suffered an accident that left him paralyzed. So this isn’t an actor pretending to be disabled; Reeve actually was disabled, and according to IMDB, a lot of the material surrounding Jason’s physical therapy and recovery was taken straight from Reeve’s experiences. When you know that fact, it becomes very hard to separate the character from the actor, at least until the murder plot begins. As I said in the introduction, this is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good in that it increases your sympathy for Jason, knowing Reeve was dealing/had dealt with the same thing, and it also makes you have even more respect for Reeve for not only learning to adapt to his situation, but also for continuing to act. It’s bad in that this winds up distracting you somewhat from the main plot. Though to be fair, I think the filmmakers themselves sometimes got distracted from the main plot.
I say this because there are quite a few bits scattered throughout the movie that feel off for one reason or another. We meet Jason’s ex-wife Leila (Anne Twomey), but she vanishes after two scenes and adds nothing to the plot except a bit of exposition. The Grace Kelly analogue, Claudia Henderson (Daryl Hannah) also doesn’t fully fit organically into the story, especially when it comes to the romantic aspect. The voyeur aspect of the plot is simultaneously heightened (more people are in on the act, and actual video cameras are involved) and downplayed (people call Jason out on what he’s doing, but it never feels overly serious), with the end result that it loses some of the impact that the original had. There’s a Chekov’s Gun set up involving an elevator that I don’t think was fired, or at least wasn’t fired in the way I was expecting. The ending feels unresolved, even though all the loose ends were tied up. But for me, there was one particular decision the filmmakers made that really bugged me, even though it’s a relatively unimportant detail.
The incident in question is the beginning of the movie. We watch a car driving down a road, and the driver talking on her cell phone. Distracted by the conversation, she veers into the opposite lane, shortly before another car appears. There’s a honk, a flash of light, a reaction shot from the woman…and then we cut to Jason waking up in the hospital. The way it was shot, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a dream sequence. Instead, a few scenes later we’re introduced to Detective Charlie Moore (Robert Forster), a policeman investigating the crash. While talking about the crash with Jason, we learn that Jason has no memory of the accident (in fact, he’s lost an entire week), that they don’t know who’s at fault, and that they can’t ask the other driver because she died in the crash. And then a few scenes after that, Moore talks to Jason again and says they were able to determine that the other driver was at fault. Jason expresses relief, and then the two of them have a jokey conversation about how Jason will contact Moore if he needs him, thus setting up Moore’s involvement during the murder plot. I understand exactly what the filmmakers were doing, but I think they went about it all wrong.
It’s obvious this material is here for two reasons; explain how Jason came to be paralyzed and get a policeman involved in the plot. But why would they shoot it the way they did? You could have the movie open with the scene of Jason waking up in the hospital and just progress that way, with occasional sporadic flashbacks featuring bright lights, screeching tires, hands desperately turning a wheel, and honking horns. Or play the opening credits over a car where we can’t see the driver, before having the car drive offscreen before we hear the sounds of a crash. Then, when Moore says they don’t know who’s at fault, it adds some tension to proceedings, especially if we also get evidence from Jason’s personality that he might be the type who could easily get into an accident. Instead, it’s shot in a way where the audience knows immediately that Jason’s not at fault, so it feels like we’re just waiting for the characters to catch up with us. Furthermore, shooting it this way makes it look like the female driver’s going to be an important character to the story, or at least someone Jason knows, only to unceremoniously kill her off offscreen. I know why they did what they did-they couldn’t show the crash from Jason’s perspective because of Reeve’s limitations-but as I just outlined, they didn’t have to actually show us the crash or the other driver. It might even have been cheaper that way.
I know it’s a little weird that I just spent two paragraphs harping on a small moment, but it was just one of those things that are simultaneously nitpicky while also speaking to larger problems with the movie (though I didn’t know that at the time). It was also one of the elements that made the largest impact on me, so I thought it was best to discuss it. Besides, since it happens right at the beginning, maybe I can warn people in advance so they don’t have the same reaction I did.
I don’t know if I recommend this movie or not. On the one hand, the Rear Window material isn’t handled anywhere near as well as the Hitchcock version (unsurprising, admittedly), so people who came for that aspect will be disappointed. On the other, the material surrounding Jason and his condition is interesting, though it does come with its own drawbacks, as I mentioned. I guess the best I can do is say the first half-hour (minus the very opening) may be worth a look, and then you can decide for yourself if you want to keep going. Though given the behind-the-scenes knowledge, you may find that half-hour a bit too voyeuristic in a very different way…
I was actually recommended this version of Rear Window by one of my fellow movie lovers here on Livejournal, though it took me several years to get around to tracking it down and watching it. I was particularly interested in the casting choice of the lead, given what I knew about him and what I’d heard about his acting in the movie. In the end, I think his involvement turned out to be a blessing and a curse.
Instead of being a photographer laid up with a broken leg, this time around our hero, Jason Kemp (Christopher Reeve), is an architect who gets in a car accident that leaves him a paraplegic. Convinced that there’s eventually going to be a cure for his condition, Jason soldiers through the physical therapy, then moves to his refurbished penthouse along with two regular caretakers (Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Ali Marsh) and starts trying to live as normal a life as he can. Since his penthouse has huge windows that overlook the apartment complex next door, Jason winds up noticing, then actively observing, the goings-on of the various tenants, to the point of getting video cameras set up so he can observe them more closely. Thanks to this, he observes the man (Ritchie Coster) directly across the way start assaulting his wife (Allison Mackie), which Jason stops by contacting the police. But then a day or two later, the wife disappears, and Jason starts suspecting foul play…
As you can kind of tell from my summary, this movie winds up feeling like it’s two plots smashed into one. Indeed, it takes nearly half-an-hour of a ninety minute movie before the material surrounding the couple really kicks in. The one doesn’t exactly flow naturally into the other, although there are elements that cross over. This is a shame, because both stories have potential. We’ve seen the murder plot before, obviously, but having the “detective” being a paraplegic is a new wrinkle that offers up a lot of possibilities. And a story about a person adapting to their new life as a paraplegic and refusing to give up is, while perhaps smacking of Oscarbait, also potentially compelling. I found the material surrounding Jason’s recovery and the way he used technology to get things done to be interesting, though I don’t know if it could sustain a full movie. And there’s also the possibility that I was just responding to what was going on behind the scenes.
Time to address the elephant in the room. This movie was made after (several years after, actually) Christopher Reeve suffered an accident that left him paralyzed. So this isn’t an actor pretending to be disabled; Reeve actually was disabled, and according to IMDB, a lot of the material surrounding Jason’s physical therapy and recovery was taken straight from Reeve’s experiences. When you know that fact, it becomes very hard to separate the character from the actor, at least until the murder plot begins. As I said in the introduction, this is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good in that it increases your sympathy for Jason, knowing Reeve was dealing/had dealt with the same thing, and it also makes you have even more respect for Reeve for not only learning to adapt to his situation, but also for continuing to act. It’s bad in that this winds up distracting you somewhat from the main plot. Though to be fair, I think the filmmakers themselves sometimes got distracted from the main plot.
I say this because there are quite a few bits scattered throughout the movie that feel off for one reason or another. We meet Jason’s ex-wife Leila (Anne Twomey), but she vanishes after two scenes and adds nothing to the plot except a bit of exposition. The Grace Kelly analogue, Claudia Henderson (Daryl Hannah) also doesn’t fully fit organically into the story, especially when it comes to the romantic aspect. The voyeur aspect of the plot is simultaneously heightened (more people are in on the act, and actual video cameras are involved) and downplayed (people call Jason out on what he’s doing, but it never feels overly serious), with the end result that it loses some of the impact that the original had. There’s a Chekov’s Gun set up involving an elevator that I don’t think was fired, or at least wasn’t fired in the way I was expecting. The ending feels unresolved, even though all the loose ends were tied up. But for me, there was one particular decision the filmmakers made that really bugged me, even though it’s a relatively unimportant detail.
The incident in question is the beginning of the movie. We watch a car driving down a road, and the driver talking on her cell phone. Distracted by the conversation, she veers into the opposite lane, shortly before another car appears. There’s a honk, a flash of light, a reaction shot from the woman…and then we cut to Jason waking up in the hospital. The way it was shot, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a dream sequence. Instead, a few scenes later we’re introduced to Detective Charlie Moore (Robert Forster), a policeman investigating the crash. While talking about the crash with Jason, we learn that Jason has no memory of the accident (in fact, he’s lost an entire week), that they don’t know who’s at fault, and that they can’t ask the other driver because she died in the crash. And then a few scenes after that, Moore talks to Jason again and says they were able to determine that the other driver was at fault. Jason expresses relief, and then the two of them have a jokey conversation about how Jason will contact Moore if he needs him, thus setting up Moore’s involvement during the murder plot. I understand exactly what the filmmakers were doing, but I think they went about it all wrong.
It’s obvious this material is here for two reasons; explain how Jason came to be paralyzed and get a policeman involved in the plot. But why would they shoot it the way they did? You could have the movie open with the scene of Jason waking up in the hospital and just progress that way, with occasional sporadic flashbacks featuring bright lights, screeching tires, hands desperately turning a wheel, and honking horns. Or play the opening credits over a car where we can’t see the driver, before having the car drive offscreen before we hear the sounds of a crash. Then, when Moore says they don’t know who’s at fault, it adds some tension to proceedings, especially if we also get evidence from Jason’s personality that he might be the type who could easily get into an accident. Instead, it’s shot in a way where the audience knows immediately that Jason’s not at fault, so it feels like we’re just waiting for the characters to catch up with us. Furthermore, shooting it this way makes it look like the female driver’s going to be an important character to the story, or at least someone Jason knows, only to unceremoniously kill her off offscreen. I know why they did what they did-they couldn’t show the crash from Jason’s perspective because of Reeve’s limitations-but as I just outlined, they didn’t have to actually show us the crash or the other driver. It might even have been cheaper that way.
I know it’s a little weird that I just spent two paragraphs harping on a small moment, but it was just one of those things that are simultaneously nitpicky while also speaking to larger problems with the movie (though I didn’t know that at the time). It was also one of the elements that made the largest impact on me, so I thought it was best to discuss it. Besides, since it happens right at the beginning, maybe I can warn people in advance so they don’t have the same reaction I did.
I don’t know if I recommend this movie or not. On the one hand, the Rear Window material isn’t handled anywhere near as well as the Hitchcock version (unsurprising, admittedly), so people who came for that aspect will be disappointed. On the other, the material surrounding Jason and his condition is interesting, though it does come with its own drawbacks, as I mentioned. I guess the best I can do is say the first half-hour (minus the very opening) may be worth a look, and then you can decide for yourself if you want to keep going. Though given the behind-the-scenes knowledge, you may find that half-hour a bit too voyeuristic in a very different way…