Jeff was a jerk!
How could he just sit there quietly while she was getting assaulted?? Solving the mystery was more important than his own girlfriend's safety?
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MovieChat Forums > Rear Window (1954) Discussion > Jeff was a jerk!
What would you have done?
shareAfter all, the guy's leg was in a cast.
shareThat's what I'm thinking. What Jeff did was probably the best that he could do given the situation but it's an honest question. Maybe there's some other ideas floating out around there. I can't discount anything but I don't see him as having many options open to him.
shareHe could have called the police.
shareHe did call the police.
shareI agree with the OP.
The moment when Jeff just sits there(granted, he's in a wheelchair) whining and murmuring and actually asking the nurse, "Stella, what do we DO?" is a moment of cowardice in screen history that I doubt many movie actors would have agreed to do. I can't see, say, William Holden(whom Hitchcock always wanted to work with) or Humphrey Bogart playing this scene.
But James Stewart -- always willing to play ornery or weird or weak -- was willing.
Jeff calls the police...but they barely get there in time. Thorwald could have strangled Lisa or beaten her head in during that period.
What Jeff SHOULD have done was to scream out to the whole courtyard and alerted Thorwald he was being watched.
But he didn't want to reveal he'd been spying on everybody.
At least, that's what I think.
On further consideration, perhaps if "exposed" Thorwald would have moved to use Lisa as a hostage or simply killed her in rage but -- I still think that Jeff's actions PLAY very cowardly.
That seems like some pretty valid points.
But I will disagree about Bogart. He certainly did play some roles that weren't very virtuous. Captain Queeg and Fred Dobbs come to mind.
But I will disagree about Bogart. He certainly did play some roles that weren't very virtuous. Captain Queeg and Fred Dobbs come to mind
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That's very true. I suppose its the inherent WEAKNESS of Stewart here, his unwillingness to do anything but watch and fret and his practically BEGGING Stella to come up with an answer.
Bogart could play villainous -- and Queeg lost his nerve at sea -- but this scene with Stewart has stuck with me ever since I first saw it -- particularly with Thorwald clearly roughing Lisa up(the SECOND Thorwald starts hurting Lisa, a "real man" should have yelled out) and particularly as it is Jeff's "fault" that Lisa went over there in the first place(yes, she "volunteered" but he caught her up in his quest.)
Hitchcock worked with Cary Grant and James Stewart four times each...but in the fifties he tried to get William Holden a time or two, too. I can't see Holden playing this scene -- Stewart probably got work because he was willing to do stuff like this. He's crazy and bullying in Vertigo; a smug "armchair murderer" in Rope(talks about it, never does it.)
And here, well...just weak.
Absolutely no disagreement here, ecarle, with any point in either of your posts. It's a scene in which Jeff is displayed at something considerably less than his most noble self. I'll add that it's also at odds with the picture he paints to Lisa while dissuading her from the idea of accompanying him on his job:
"Did you ever get shot at? Run over? Did you ever get sandbagged because somebody got unfavorable publicity from your camera?"
When Lisa is first in Thorwald's clutches and does what Jeff won't - yells across the courtyard - his reflexive reaction is panic at being exposed.
But I'll say this as well: the entire scene is one of the two most authentic portrayals of paralyzing fear and helplessness I've ever seen on the screen. I've had a couple moments in my life (not quite life-threatening ones) when something causing shock and alarm was taking place before my eyes, I felt I needed to do something, but was paralyzed by uncertainty, confusion and the helpless sensation they brought about. Weak and cowardly or not, Stewart's enacting of that sensation comes across as completely real.
It so happens that the other authentic portrayal is from the same actor in the same film, when Thorwald has Jeff in his grip and his maneuvering him toward the open window, and all Jeff can do is whimper in terror.
Those moments may not be Jeff at his best or bravest, but they're certainly Stewart at his best. And as you suggest, his bravest as an actor.
But I'll say this as well: the entire scene is one of the two most authentic portrayals of paralyzing fear and helplessness I've ever seen on the screen. I've had a couple moments in my life (not quite life-threatening ones) when something causing shock and alarm was taking place before my eyes, I felt I needed to do something, but was paralyzed by uncertainty, confusion and the helpless sensation they brought about. Weak and cowardly or not, Stewart's enacting of that sensation comes across as completely real.
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This is true...and reflects the "realism of Hitchcock" and his ability to capture within his audience certain "feelings of identification" with the weaker side of manhood(or womanhood.)
As you wrote your above statement, doghouse, I flashed back on one specific instance in which I was too paralyzed with fear to DO something(help someone). And it wasn't a good feeling(the person wasn't being hurt, just spoken harshly to.) I will say I have toughened up since that incident, because my memory of it was always shameful to me. I have intervened a few times when the younger me maybe would not have.
And so Hitchocck captures such a moment here, with Stewart's Jeff. I'll remind also that Hitchcock rather punished Jeff severely for his actions, even if they brought a killer to light: Jeff ends the movie with TWO broken legs, more days of immobility ahead, likely life with a pain and a limp.
Sudden thought: a more "intense" representation of this effect comes in the climactic "up close and personal" battle between Nazis and Americans in Saving Private Ryan. One Nazi is overpowering one American and driving a knife blade ever closer to the Yank's chest, finally burying it into the Yank's chest and killing him. But nearby stands another American soldier, too frozen and terrified to intervene -- if he does, the Big Brute Nazi just might kill HIM, too.
Its an act of terrible cowardice, but we think: "If I were drafted and physically unfit for fighting, and had witnessed combat death, would I not be afraid to engage in a life-or-death fight?" If we haven't been there, we don't really know.
It so happens that the other authentic portrayal is from the same actor in the same film, when Thorwald has Jeff in his grip and his maneuvering him toward the open window, and all Jeff can do is whimper in terror.
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Yes. Stewart makes the strangest sound during this sequence -- probably something only a truly great actor could pull off. As Thorwald wrenches him towards the window and breaks Jeff's grip, Jeff goes "ddddd...dddd...duh ddd duh..ddddididdiddd..." hah, I mean something like that , a strange sound that communicates physical effort and terror. Strange.
On the other hand, Jeff manages to yell "LISA! DOYLE!" before the fight begins. He sure could yell to the courtyard THEN! (Actually DID he yell for Lisa, too? Doyle, I recall...if Lisa, too...what a wimp.)
Those moments may not be Jeff at his best or bravest, but they're certainly Stewart at his best. And as you suggest, his bravest as an actor.
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I continue to struggle with the "idea" of James Stewart as an actor. A new generation seems to find him just plain too "old looking" in the 50s, certainly too old to be winning Grace Kelly and Kim Novak. He lacks the "insta-handsome looks" of Grant and Holden and Tyrone Power, nor did he have the kind of stocky animal power of a Tracy.
What he did have was a great voice and a capacity for emotion and rage that, said Cary Grant, made James Stewart the Brando of his generation.
And I get that but...I still don't much like it.
It all comes to a head in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," in which Stewart looks wimpy and foolhardy(thinking the Law will stop a badman like Lee Marvin from killing him), as John Wayne strides around as the only man in the movie on the "good guy side" who can possibly take Marvin. Its another brave performance by Stewart, almost sacrificial.
Its his movies without a romantic interest in which Stewart shines as a kind of unique being. The amiable, daffy Elwood Dowd in Harvey; the slippery bachelor lawyer and fisherman in Anatomy of a Murder; the grizzled, angry pilot crashed in the desert in "Flight of the Phoenix," and the ornery Civil War widower and patriarch in Shennandoah.
Stewart seemed to function best...alone.
I hate thinking about that scene in SPR
shareCheck out Bogart in "In A Lonely Place". He is amazing and had a lot of guts to play less than saintly characters.
https://moviechat.org/tt0042593/In-a-Lonely-Place
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042593
Ngl, I did question his manhood.
shareI wondered myself why Jeff didn't cry out & alert Thorwald that he was being watched. But what the critics on this board forget is that this is a Hitchcock suspense film. An entertainment, not a documentary. If he'd cried out, they'd be no suspense about what's going to happen to Lisa, will the police get there in time. Or the shot of her pointing to the wedding ring; then Thorwald seeing that; then his looking right at Stewart. I saw RW in the theatre back in the 80s when it was re-released. Those shots caused the audience to gasp out loud. Great cinema.
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