Artist Jeff Desom reconstructs the view out the rear window of James Stewart's New York apartment in Alfred Hitchcock's 60-year-old masterpiece.
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Artist Jeff Desom reconstructs the view out the rear window of James Stewart's New York apartment in Alfred Hitchcock's 60-year-old masterpiece.
I still recall watching Rear Window for the first time. 12 or 13 years of age, I was obsessed with cinema and had just discovered the vast filmography of Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Psycho was the obvious first on my list, and Rear Window was next. Living in a small country town in Belgium amongst farms and cornfields stretching out as far as you can see, the idea of being able to look out the window and closely observe the lives of the surrounding community was extremely fascinating. In hindsight it also marked my first vivid introduction to the City of New York (not counting the city-turned-maximum-security-prison in Escape From New York). Even though the entire film was shot inside a Hollywood studio, it gives a powerful sense of the city's atmosphere: noisy, exciting and full of life.
20 something years later I'm planning my first trip to the city of cities. The city where 60 years ago, Alfred Hitchcock unveiled his suspenseful thriller with James Stewart and Grace Kelly embraced as a classic by critics and audiences alike. 30 years ago Stewart flew to Sydney to present Rear Window as the Opening Night film of the Sydney Film Festival, the first film in a rapturously received Alfred Hitchcock retrospective.
Simultaneous with my trip overseas the Hub celebrates the 60th anniversary of both the iconic film and the Sydney Film Festival with the premiere of 'Rear Windop Loop', with creator Jeff Desom attending from Luxembourg. The installation is a beautifully crafted tribute to the film, that allows you to see the world as it appeared to Stewart's paranoid, wheelchair-bound photojournalist. "I dissected all of Hitchcock's Rear Window and stiched it back together in After Effects. I stabilized all the shots with camera movement in them", Densom explains on his website. "Since everything was filmed from pretty much the same angle I was able to match them into a single panoramic view of the entire backyard without any greater distortions. The order of events stays true to the movie's plot." It's extremely clever, and a fascinating new angle on a true cinema classic and one of Hitchcock's best.
Rear Window Loop won Best Remix in the Vimeo Awards and Golden Nica at Ars Electronica and will be installed at the Sydney Film Festival Hub at Lower Town Hall, every day between June 6th and 14th, 5-6pm and 10pm-midnight.