Hitchcock was really ahead of his time in so many ways and this was one of them! The 2 Lesbians that were on that roof getting frisky and taking off their tops. Whoa.
shareI just watched it and must've missed this.
http://letterboxd.com/guccipix/list/my-top-100-favorite-films/
It was at the beginning when James Stewart was spying on his neighbors.
shareOk
shareThis film is 60 years old. In that time, I've read many reviews of it and talked to a lot of old movie buffs like myself about it. Until now, I've never seen or heard the word "lesbian" applied to the two sun-bathers in question. In college, I knew three frat. brothers who sun-bathed on the roof of our frat. house in the nude (completely nude). I can tell you not one of them was gay -- and nobody even discussed the possibility that they were.
It shows ta go ya, how obsessive we've become in applying our own obsessions to anything and everything which could, however unlikely, be suggestive of aberrant sexual behavior -- even as it may apply to totally irrelevant "window-dressing-like" characters. I mean, haven't we got anything more important to think about regarding the drama unfolding on screen -- or, in our own lives for that matter? Whew!
You are really getting HOT AND BOTHERED by this for NO reason. All of that for nothing. Welcome to my Ignore list.
shareWhat you're calling "hot and bothered" is just a little social commentary. We're all entitled aren't we? (Your own, for example, re the "lesbians" -- so called.) The only thing in RW that I've ever gotten hot and bothered about is ... Grace Kelly. But, to each his own, I suppose.
shareMaybe Hitchcock was just very modern in his thinking and they were gay and he just didn't make a big deal of it?
Either way, I wouldn't call it "abberant" behaviour.
Excellent point about the viewer shaping the action. But, gay behavior on a rooftop is "abberant" (aberrant) behavior (outside the norm) in a society 97% straight.
shareIt can mean "straying from tne right or normal" aswell as just not being the "norm". (Mind you how do we really know what the norm is? Howmany are not aware of their sexuality or havent 'come out''?).
Anyway, i take your point.
(I actually studied this film and other hitchcock films at uni so have thought a lot about 'themes in hitchcock films'. ) 😊
"Mind you how do we really know what the norm is?"
Well, in some matters I would agree that knowing "the norm" is difficult, maybe impossible. But, in many matters the norm is pretty clear (Eg., if homosexual behavior were the norm in a society, that society's population would inevitably decrease as opposed to increase.)
But, I thank you for the thoughtful response... I take your point, too.
Amen.
shareSometimes sunbathing topless is just sunbathing topless.
Especially when it's done by 1950's-era dames.
They weren't lesbians. They were getting sun. Period. Don't impose early 21st century experience on a simple movie scene made probably 50 years before you were born.
I grew up in NYC at a time when if you didn't live in a private house you lived in an apartment "house" (we all called them houses then) and spent summers on the roof doing exactly what they were doing.
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In Brooklyn we called it "Tar Beach".
The neighbors gathered there to enjoy the sun and the sunset and then sit in the cool of the evening and drink beer. It was noisy for the apartments on the top floor of the building with all the kids running around. That black tar roofing sure was hard on bare feet when it got hot !
Topless sunning was out because it was a big apartment house and family atmosphere.
I think they're just sunbathing. They don't want tan lines!
shareI think they are lesbians as well. This is off of the top of my head and there may be more but there were homosexual characters in his movies.
Rope: The two leads in the movie who are killers is obviously gay. This movie was based off of Leopold and Loeb
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/qt/Leopold-Loeb.htm
Rebecca: Mrs. Danvers (mrs. was prefix added to housekeepers) was lesbian. When Mrs. De Winter drops her gloves and both she and Mrs. Danvers reach down to pick them up, their faces are photographed in a "kissing" position; The scene where Mrs.Danvers is talking about Rebecca while she caresses her piece of clothing on her face, fondles her underwear still astonished by how beautiful and delicate they remain, repositions her brush, how she seems to be the happiest while talking about her undressing, the way she handled and looks at her negligee while saying "did you ever see anything so delicate", putting her hand through the negligee and saying "look you can see my hand" and when the De. Winter walks away she continues to look at it for couple seconds before going to talk to her some more ect made it clear in my opinion. Here is the scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6mt0ChEPLY
But in "Rebecca", the homoeroticism between Rebecca DeWinter and Mrs. Danvers is central to the plot. The (presumably) bisexual Rebecca fuses the relationship between herself and Mrs. Danvers (in the book, it is pretty clear that it was more than just a maternal relationship) with the relationship between the Maxim DeWinter and the narrator (traditional, straight marriage.) The book was written by a bisexual writer who wrote a lot about sex with men, which she referred to as "Cairo", and sex with women, which she referred to as "Venice". Rebecca, although she had several male lovers, seemed to have a preference for "Venice", because, according to Mrs. Danvers, she and Rebecca liked to share a laugh as soon as a male lover had left the bedroom.
Lesbianism is an underlying theme in "Rebecca", but it serves no purpose in "Rear Window".
You may cross-examine.
Probably Raymond Burr's idea.
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