Gateway lets film fans snoop on Hitchcock classic ‘Rear Window’

Through the course of his academic career, Rutgers University professor John Belton has made a habit of showing Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” to his students.

“For the last 15 years, I’ve been teaching it every semester,” said Belton, a noted film scholar who edited a book of essays about the 1954 thriller starring James Stewart.

With so many screenings during such a long span of time, one might think that a stray student didn’t care for the film — but the professor says otherwise.

“There has never been a student in any of those years who wasn’t totally enraptured in the film,” Belton said. “They’re blown away.”

This weekend, as part of the Gateway Film Center’s annual Hitchcocktober series, “Rear Window” will be screened using a 35 mm print.

Based on a story by Cornell Woolrich, the film stars Stewart as L.B. “Jeff” What: “Rear Window”

Where: Gateway Film Center, 1550 N. High St.

Contact: 614-247-4433, www.gatewayfilmcenter.org

Showtimes: 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and 7 p.m. Monday

Admission: $12

Jeffries, a photojournalist confined to a wheelchair because of a broken leg. While sidelined in his Greenwich Village apartment, Jeffries uses a camera fitted with a powerful lens to snoop on his neighbors and becomes an accidental observer to a crime that seems to have taken place in a nearby apartment.

The cast also includes Grace Kelly as Jeffries’ girlfriend, Lisa Fremont, and Raymond Burr as his up-to-no-good neighbor, Lars Thorwald.

Belton divides Hitchcock’s career into two main categories: Some films, like “Vertigo” (1958), can be thought of as more personal in their exploration of what Belton describes as “perverse human desires and behaviors.”

“There’s a little bit of that in ‘Rear Window,’” Belton said, but, on the whole, the film belongs to the more audiencepleasing side of Hitchcock’s filmography.

“(The film) strikes a perfect balance of excitement and satisfaction of commercial interests and audience desires,” Belton said.

“It introduces a narrative that runs like a well-oiled machine,” he added, “but not in a boring or automatic or mechanical way, but in the amusement-park-ride analogy that Hitchcock quite often uses that it’s a thrill-a-minute for the audience.”

“Rear Window” was the first film Hitchcock directed at Paramount Pictures after a period at Warner Bros. — a significant milestone for admirers of the Master of Suspense.

“It could be that the Paramount period, which runs through ‘Vertigo,’ is one of the richest in terms of Hitchcock, who achieves the peak of his powers in the mid-1950s,” Belton said.

Equally important were the contributions of screenwriter John Michael Hayes.

“This is the film that begins his collaboration with (Hayes), the screenwriter (and) radio writer who also worked on ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ and ‘To Catch a Thief’ until their relationship sort of soured,” Belton said.

Adding to the film’s realism is the minimal use of music by composer Franz Waxman.

“There’s a little bit of the score during the credits,” Belton said, “but after the credits, primarily we hear diegetic music — that is, music coming from radios or record players.”

In identifying with Jeffries, “Rear Window” allows the audience to play the part of voyeur, but Belton notes that the character is the only figure who pays a penalty for his spying. The audience? We get off scot-free.

“As usual,” Belton said, “somebody is punished for our own pleasure.”