Absolutely.
This is "clinched" when Thorwald comes into the "hero's" darkened apartment at the film's climax and -- despite his huge size and menacing face -- becomes rather pitiable, saying:
"What do you want from me? Money? I have no money."
"What do you want?"
Stewart in the dark does not answer, CANNOT answer -- he knows that in a certain way he has invaded the private life of this man.
It is only when Thorwald "turns villain" and says: "Where's that ring she took, I want it back" that Stewart can switch to hero:
"The police have it."
And the fight begins.
Alfred Hitchcock was famous for charming villains and handsome villains(including Norman Bates) and witty villains, but with Lars Thorwald, we get a rather PATHETIC villain. Yes, he killed his wife(How? Strangled?) and chopped her body up and threw pieces in the East River but Hitchcock basically says: he was a man that any of us could have been. Worn down by a wife who mocked him, driven each day to carry his heavy suitcase of costume jewelry and trying to make a living.
No doubt: he's a killer, he tries to kill Grace Kelly, he tries to kill James Stewart but -- Lars has his understandable side.
Hitchcock could do that.
In the 80's , film critic David Thomson wrote a book called "Suspects" about an array of famous movie characters. He gave each of them a back story and some of them a "follow up." For Lars Thorwald, the back story was sad indeed: a back breaking childhood on a Minnesota dairy farm, a loveless marriage, a thankless job. And the follow up? Jeff Jeffries -- with his two crippled legs(from two broken legs -- penance) visited Thorwald in prison and made peace with him. (Jeff himself broke up with Lisa, went to Viet Nam to photograph battles -- and got killed by a bullet when his crippled legs could not run fast enough away.)
reply
share
ecarle (14979)
3 years ago
It's something the 1998 remake utterly botches: in that movie, Thorwald is just a generic thug, the kind of guy you'd expect to be chopping people up in his spare time.
--
The ABC made for TV remake of Rear Window came out in 1998 only about a month before the theatrical remake(by Gus Van Sant) of Psycho. Indeed, "Rear Window is brought to you by...Psycho" said the announcer at the beginning of the show, and they showed a commercial for the Van Sant right up front , with quick clips of the actors:
P is for the private detective
S is for the son
Y is for the young lovers
C is for the ( I can't remember..Cute Embezzler, maybe?)
H is for the Hotel Manager (fine, but no, MOTEL)
O is for "Oh, God Mother, Blood!"
Not a bad TV ad -- I never saw it again.
Meanwhile, the TV Rear Window made the Van Sant look like a masterpiece -- because Van Sant FOLLOWED the orginal Psycho.
The TV Rear Window had no budget for what Hitchcock had mounted in 1954 on a Paramount sound stage. It was "stripped down." It starred Christopher Reeve -- brave but sad playing a man who would NEVER get out of that wheelchair. Daryl Hannah in for Grace Kelly but -- little romance. Robert Forster -- the new shrink in the new Psycho, got the Wendell Corey cop role from the original(and was fine.)
But the killer in the new Rear Window? All wrong. Young. Hip. Sadist. Evil.
I tell you, 1998 (which also had a "Dial M for Murder" remake with Michael Douglas - at least an A list star) was not a good year for Hitchcock beyond honoring him!
reply
share
ElizabethJoestar (946)
3 years ago
In the 80's , film critic David Thomson wrote a book called "Suspects" about an array of famous movie characters. He gave each of them a back story and some of them a "follow up." For Lars Thorwald, the back story was sad indeed: a back breaking childhood on a Minnesota dairy farm, a loveless marriage, a thankless job. And the follow up? Jeff Jeffries -- with his two crippled legs(from two broken legs -- penance) visited Thorwald in prison and made peace with him. (Jeff himself broke up with Lisa, went to Viet Nam to photograph battles -- and got killed by a bullet when his crippled legs could not run fast enough away.)
--
That sounds like an interesting book, if a bit downbeat. Having Jeff leave Lisa and die in Vietnam seems so needlessly sad, especially since the movie ends on that positive note. It's almost like making a sequel where Norman leaves the mental hospital
Lars probably did have a tough life. By murdering his wife, he probably thought he was finally getting a break. It links him up with film noir protagonists who similarly get driven down the dark path by their own frustrations, like Edward G. Robinson's character in Scarlet Street.
It's weird because when you think about it, Lars is the more pitiable character than Jeffries-- pathetic as you said. Jeffries lives a pretty exciting life, has an attractive girlfriend he does not appreciate, and is pretty nosy and dismissive on the whole. And yet, he's the hero and I do fear for his safety when Thorwald enters the apartment at the end. A typical case of Hitchcock toying with viewer sympathies.
reply
share
ecarle (14979)
3 years ago
And the follow up? Jeff Jeffries -- with his two crippled legs(from two broken legs -- penance) visited Thorwald in prison and made peace with him. (Jeff himself broke up with Lisa, went to Viet Nam to photograph battles -- and got killed by a bullet when his crippled legs could not run fast enough away.)
--
That sounds like an interesting book, if a bit downbeat. Having Jeff leave Lisa and die in Vietnam seems so needlessly sad, especially since the movie ends on that positive note. It's almost like making a sequel where Norman leaves the mental hospital
--
"Its almost like making a sequel where Norman leaves the mental hospital.."
Ha. Yes, I suppose for all of the supposed "brilliance" of David Thomson's "Suspects," he was really just writing "fan fiction" sequels to famous stories and frankly...his endings WERE largely downbeat, or sick. Not a particuary rewarding read.
These characters should stand and fall on their presentation of their lives presented within the contours of their classic movies.
That said, John Michael Hayes, who wrote Rear Window for Hitchcock (from a short story with no Lisa Fremont in it), DID write a treatment for a Rear Window sequel that was never made.
The gist: Jeff and Lisa get married and relocate to the New England seacoast (with cliffs.)
Lars Thorwald escapes from prison and tracks Jeff and Lisa down to kill them. The gimmick: he spies on THEM through various rear windows in the isolated homes and buildings of their coastal village.
Climactic fight on the seacliffs.
I think Hayes wrote this script in the 60's(I read about it in a book about him), when Stewart was too old and Kelly was retired. So I can't imagine it had any traction.
Sequels are just a bad idea. Unless Godfather II or Aliens.
reply
share
ecarle (14979)
3 years ago
Lars probably did have a tough life. By murdering his wife, he probably thought he was finally getting a break. It links him up with film noir protagonists who similarly get driven down the dark path by their own frustrations, like Edward G. Robinson's character in Scarlet Street.
---
Yes. It has been said that the "window lives" we view in Rear Window are "flash card simple" and not fleshed out enough. (Well, Miss Torso is certainly fleshed out -- I figure 1954 male viewers went nuts.) But we get more than enough to feel sad for Miss Lonelyhearts(who gets a happy ending) and for Lars Thorwald(who does not, because he's a bad guy.) We see the invalid wife who makes him wait on her hand and foot; we see her reject his proferred rose on a food tray, we see her mock him, and we see that she CAN walk. But on the other hand, its clear that "poor Lars" isn't so poor he could not land a girlfriend (he's on the phone to her and the "crippled wife" walks out to confront him.) Hitchcock and his screenwriter threw us all sorts of curve balls about Lars Thorwald. Bad guy? YES. Good guy? A little. Complex like most human beings? Yep.
CONT
reply
share
ecarle (14979)
3 years ago
It's weird because when you think about it, Lars is the more pitiable character than Jeffries-- pathetic as you said. Jeffries lives a pretty exciting life, has an attractive girlfriend he does not appreciate, and is pretty nosy and dismissive on the whole. And yet, he's the hero and I do fear for his safety when Thorwald enters the apartment at the end. A typical case of Hitchcock toying with viewer sympathies.
---
Hitchcock practically demanded a level of complexity among his heroes and villains -- flawed, ornery heroes and charming and/or sad villains -- that modern day thrillers don't much allow(I think that started with the ultracruel villain of Dirty Harry.)
I don't think that Jeff is rich -- his apartment isn't that of a rich man -- but his girlfriend IS well off, and he travels the world and at times, Rear Window is about "pampered rich people making life hell for a poor working stiff."
I think this is why Hitchcock has Thorwald kill that sweet little dog. Kill and dismember a mean, nagging wife? Audiences could understand. Kill a sweet little dog?( We see his sweet little broken corpse.) EVIL.
When Thorwald enters Jeff's apartment in the dark -- after an excruciatingly long suspense build up of footsteps approaching and Jeff trying to prepare -- we are certainly scared for Jeff (his "window world" is now REAL -- a REAL man has come to hurt or kill him.) But we also feel some comeuppance for Jeff, too. He was just too giddy about his snooping, just too cowardly when Lars grabbed Lisa across the courtyard and Jeff SAID NOTHING(he could have yelled out.) Its a photo finish of a climax, and Hitchocck "punishes" Jeff a little with another broken leg.
reply
share
HarlemEagle42 (17745)
a year ago
Good call. It's an easy trick to get audiences to turn on a character. Have them kill a dog-or any other pet. But dogs are the most effective.
reply
share