Everyday Canvas

Grace Kelly’s Role in Hitchcock’s Rear Window

Prompt: What Hollywood classic movie remake would you like to have the leading role in?

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This is a tough question. As much as I jiggle the idea in my mind, I can’t come up with a female leading role I’d like to do. All that I like are the male leaders. This doesn’t say much about how Hollywood has treated the females, does it!

Yet, I always liked Hitchcock’s movies, in which case, maybe Grace Kelly’s role as Lisa in the Rear Window would be great. I thought she was very real, plus stylish, elegant, and courageous there. Now if I only looked like her! Still, as Hollywood goes, in this movie, too, women are shown as impossible-to-ignore sex objects, both the murdered woman and Lisa, but only at first glance.

I liked Lisa’s taking the helm here with her relationship with Jeff (James Steward) when she brings Jeff dinner and later, makes the first romantic move, inviting herself over to dinner and spending the night. Then, she is the one to go snooping in the murderer’s apartment, risking her life.

In this movie, as a whole, although the gender roles agree with the general consensus of the time, Lisa has the more active role than Jeff, while Jeff with a leg broken is shown as a weak and immobile man, even if with an active mind and stubbornness of character, who is isolated and helpless (however temporarily).

I liked this movie a lot when it first came out because it was a love story as well as a murder mystery with Hitchcock producing it to make sure every detail is attended to and every supporting character perfectly portrayed. Thinking about it, I find lots of metaphors and symbols in it, which today’s moviemakers seem to miss.