What does L.B. Jefferies (Jimmy Stewart) see through his binoculars as he stares out of his apartment window? It’s a mystery that powers Alfred Hitchcock’s breathtaking Rear Window, a 1954 Oscar nominee that ranks among the all-time greats from the Master of Suspense. This is pretty great, as well. Vimeo user Jeff Desom splices together a time-lapsed vision of everything in Jefferies’ eyesight. It was shared on Twitter by @jonathanwakeham, and we have it for you below:
It’s like Rear Window for someone with attention-deficit disorder – a cubed layout of Hitchcock’s grand design that shows how Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze might tackle the recognizable back alley outside Jefferies apartment if they were tasked with adapting Cornell Woolrich’s short story.
I do love when Grace Kelly’s character makes her move on Raymond Burr’s apartment, though without Stewart’s pained reaction shots., the suspense of the thriller is scrubbed away.
Where did Desom find the time? One has to wonder if he, too, broke his leg and is limited to a wheelchair, giving him the hours/days/weeks it must have taken to time-lapse all of the alley footage from Hitchcock’s masterpiece. It’s a neat trick, but all it makes me want to do is pop in the original and relish in Hitchcock’s turn-the-screws intensity. How about you?
