Rear Window Timelapse

So, when this hit the internet this past week, citizens went crazy! And for good reason, this timelapse video of Hitchock's classic suspense thriller, Rear Window, is genius! It stitches together all the different shots of the NYC neighbourhood courtyard into one big picture, and speeds it up so you're watching Rear Window in its visual entirety in under 3 min. It's so cool! Go Technology! And yes i wrote that sentence, exclamation mark included sigh.


As Desom describes on his website: "I dissected all of Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' and stitched it back together in After Effects ... 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."
So anyway, I'll shut up and you should go watch it already!

Rear Window Timelapse from Jeff Desom on Vimeo.

Despite my long-held love for Old Hollywood and classic films (honestly, i was obsessed with Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, et al back in my high school days) I'd never actually watched a single film from the master, Alfred Hitchhock. I was more of a Selznick girl. So while i had a general idea of the story of Rear Window ( although i think i confused it a bit with Kim Novak and Vertigo in my head) - the voyeurism, spying on your neighbours through a telescope, the alleged murder- I wasn't entirely sure on the details of the plot. Desom's video piqued my interest to go read up on the plot, which I promptly did on Wikipedia, and seeing as I'm a huge sissy, I promptly freaked out and got the heebie-jeebies. From just READING the plot synopsis in the comfort of my own bed. I'll just say that the person behind the Wiki entrant was good at telling stories, OK.  It was scary.



And it just so happened that the routine Simpsons episode screened on TV last night was the  Rear Window pastiche! The one where Bart breaks his leg and is stuck holed up in his sweltering room all summer (while Lisa becomes Miss Popular due to having a huge pool in their backyard) and is spying on neighbours through a telescope, and notices suspicious activity from the  Flanders house which seems to indicate that Flanders has murdered his wife.

It's a classic episode and just another example of how, as a Gen Y kid, I've come to learn about so many, SO MANY, cultural icons through The Simpsons. Instead of going oh, that episode reminds me of Rear Window, I say, Hey! That happened in the Simpsons! I love this cultural melange that's so rich in every single Simpsons episode, the references, the nods and winks. For example, the episode where Homer reveals his past history as a member of a barbershop quartet, the B Sharps. As a kid it was always one of my favourite episodes for its story and music, and it wasn't until i was a teenager that it hit me that..hey, wait a minute, this is THE BEATLES episode! so many jokes and references i finally got: "Number 8... Number 8...Number 8..", Barney and 'Yoko', Chief Wiggum = Pete Best, the Abbey Road visual gag, and of course the last scene where the band reunites for one last rooftop performance. I LOVE THIS EPISODE!

Haha. Other Simpsons cultural education spots that come to mind at the moment include the last scene of the Graduate being parodied in the 'Grandpa gets married' episode, many Godfather references when Fat Tony's around, and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-tale Heart."