Sunday, July 17, 2011

Great Movies of Summer: Rear Window [1954]

Sweltering temperatures are set in the opening shot. The carefully choreographed noise of children playing layered over traffic in the background, make summer in the city palpable throughout the film. During a sultry rainy night, the sound through open windows of water spattering on the concrete below makes you smell the dog’s breath of downtown humidity.  When Thelma Ritter says "You'd think the rain would've cooled things off, but all it did was make the heat wet", we know just what she means.   Orchestrated skies of vivid oranges and violets, showing waxing, waning & setting sun behind the buildings of West 9th Street makes this a movie to wait for midsummer to watch.






















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