Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock - 1954

Rear Window's opening credits is with a static shot of a window from the inside of a room and the blinds on the window are going up one by one.

The camera then tracks towards the window as though it is going to leave the room, however the camera pans down and stops tracking when it reaches the window sill. Rear Window's opening credits are with the static image of a window from inside an apartment. As the opening credits finish the camera tracks down towards the window but stops just before it leaves the apartment. It then cuts to a long take in long shot of a cat walking on the ground floor path below the apartment. Using a crane the camera then tracks upwards along with a pan upwards to reveal an urban city setting. The camera then continues to pan left to reveal the setting to the audience. It is as though cinematographer Robert Burks is creating the effect that it is a first person point of view shot from the eyes of the main protagonist. However it tricks the audience when the camera pans fully left back into the apartment to stop in a close up shot of the protagonist face sleeping next to the window.

It then cuts to a close up shot of a thermometer revealing really hot temperature showing to the audience that it is summer, backed up by the sweat on the main characters forehead. The camera then pans left followed by a pull focus to show a man shaving in the apartment outside on the right and then followed by another cut to reveal a couple waking up from having slept outside on the fire exit. The camera then begins to track down to reveal a young female getting ready for breakfast in her apartment, followed by another pan down to the left and a track backwards into the apartment of the protagonist. We know he is the protagonist as the shots of him are close up whereas all the other shots of the characters in their apartments have been long shots taken from inside the apartment. Here, it also tricks the audience again into believing the long takes are meant to be first person point of view from the protagonist (the use of the pans can reflect the characters eye movement). However when the camera tracks back into the apartment he is still resting on his sofa next to the window revealing to be a third person point of view. Here cinematographer Robert Burks is creating the effect of making the audience become voyeur, succeeded by the track allowing the audience to peer into the neighbours of the protagonist windows unaware and into their personal lives.

The camera pans down to reveal that the protagonist's leg is in a cast and here the audience discover the name of the protagonist as someone has written on the cast "here lie the broken bones of L.B. Jefferies". There is then a quick track back which eventually allows the audience to look into the flat of Jefferies followed by a fast pan left with the camera focuses on a broken photography camera then followed by a pull focus of photography from what seem to be taken from dangerous events. This reveals to the audience that Jefferies profession could be that he is a journalistic photographer and he has injured himself while out doing a job for his profession. All within the first three minutes of Rear Window with the use of cinematography alone the setting has been revealed to the audience, which is important as the film is always based in the same set. Also the protagonist, his profession and possible characteristics have as well been revealed.

It then cuts to show Jefferies actual point of view in first person when he is awake on the phone. Here there is no trick of the camera and is shown in a more obvious way, it cuts to show James Stewarts character Jefferies physically look at the other characters actions in their apartments and then cuts to a first person camera shot to show what he is looking at. The camera also allows the audience to know that it is a first person point of view shot as it is a static long shot from within the apartment with only the use of some pans and tilts.  There is use of high-key soft lighting making the overall lighting to be natural defending that it is a summers day, on Rear Window this was created with toplights as it was filmed in a built set in a studio. Inside of Jefferies apartment the soft fill coming from outside of the apartment shining on Jefferies allows shadowed corners of the room and the frame, this defends that it a bright day as it seems no lighting is coming from within the apartment.
What highly interested my with the cinematography in Rear Window was use of manipulation and false point of view's that tricked the audience into who's view point the camera was showing, or if it was from an 'actual being' within the narrative at all. I'm going to research and find more interesting examples in which this technique has been used, I might yet develop an idea to produce into my film.