(foreboding piano music)
- [Narrator] In The Woman in the Window,
Anna doesn't just love film noir,
she basically lives in one.
We investigated and found every noir,
as well as every film reference.
Did your favorite classic film get referenced?
Which elements does a film need to be considered noir?
Let us know in the comments.
(woman screaming)
First, The Woman in the Window
shares a title with a 1944 film noir directed by Fritz Lang.
While not the same premise,
both films are centered around a troubled psychologist,
each with a presumed knowledge of Sigmund Freud.
The film uses many slow pans to establish its world.
Having learned this during the silent era,
Hitchcock often used camera movement
instead of dialogue to tell a story,
like he did in Vertigo and Rear Window.
Some call it show, don't tell.
He called it pure cinema.
Speaking of Rear Window,
it's what's being shown right here.
In it, Jimmy Stewart played a man
stuck in his apartment due to a broken leg,
much like Anna who's trapped in her place
due to a recent condition.
- I'm agoraphobic.
I can't go outside.
- [Narrator] Also like Rear Window, as well as 12 Angry Men,
the film creates a sense of claustrophobia
by taking place almost entirely
within the confines of Anna's New York City brownstone.
- Oh man, hate to be stuck inside a house this shitty.
- [Narrator] The Woman in the Window's color theme
is overall very warm and jewel-like.
It also makes extensive use of reds and greens,
in both the rooms of the house and Amy's wardrobe.
The film takes direct inspiration
from Vertigo's color palette.
Anna snoops on her neighbors.
We see their carefully orchestrated movements
through various window frames,
kind of like a living storyboard.
This is very much the case in Rear Window,
as is the theme of voyeurism.
- She has some serious privacy issues.
(glass shatters)
- [Narrator] When the wine soaks into the paper,
it looks like blood.
Not only would Hitchcock use red to foreshadow danger,
he was also known for using food
to simulate the look of blood,
like he did with chocolate syrup in Psycho.
Anna watches Laura, a 1944 noir that,
much like Woman in the Window, involves mistaken identity.
Also like in many noir films,
The Woman in the Window often uses a dark atmosphere
and dramatic shadowing.
- I like it dim.
- [Narrator] And it wouldn't be complete
without a genre defining Venetian blind shadow,
like in Double Indemnity and the Maltese Falcon.
- [Woman] Let your mind go back to your childhood.
- [Narrator] The movie playing is Spellbound,
another Hitchcock film,
starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.
The film also involves psychoanalysis,
trauma induced phobias, and mistaken identities.
Seeing a pattern yet?
- I got it. I got it.
- [Narrator] Anna's place has several frosted glass doors.
You'll often find these in noirs involving private eyes
like the Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart.
It's a good fit for Anna
as she becomes a bit of a sleuth herself.
Anna meets a woman named Jane Russell.
- What makes you say that?
- [Narrator] This is also the name of an actress
known for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,
in her breakthrough role in Howard Hughes' The Outlaw.
- I like your earrings.
- [Narrator] Jane Russell is also connected
to a yellow rose earring which serves as a plot device,
or if you want to sound legit, a MacGuffin.
Flowers are commonly used as a motif in Hitchcock films
and even served as a major clue in Rear Window.
By the way, did you know that Julianne Moore
was also in the 1998 remake of Psycho?
- Oh wow. Okay. Subject change.
- [Narrator] Throughout the film, there is a consistent use
of Dutch angles, meant to create a sense of skewed reality.
This enduring technique can be seen in the cabinet
of Dr. Caligari, and film noir, The Third Man.
(frantic violin music starts)
Featuring lots of frantic violin,
Danny Elfman's heart racing score
was inspired by the work of Bernard Herrmann.
Herrmann did the music for Vertigo,
North by Northwest and Psycho.
This may be a good time to mention
that Women in the Window features numerous POV shots.
This visceral technique is heavily used in film noirs,
like Lady in the Lake and Dark Passage,
which just so happens to be the film Anna is watching
in this scene.
The actress on screen is Laura Bacall.
The movie makes another appearance soon after
with Houseley Stevenson.
The red apple on the dark computer screen
resembles the trippy dream sequence from Vertigo,
as does the technicolor flashing coming from Anna's TV.
It seems that Ethan's father, Alistair,
is extremely protective of him
and wants him nowhere near some stranger.
- Stay away from my son.
- [Narrator] Norman's mother
seemed to have a similar parenting style in Psycho.
- [Norma] I won't have you bringing strange young girls
in for supper.
- [Narrator] This scene's lighting is overwhelmingly red.
Not only is this another nod to Vertigo's dream sequence,
it's also used in the 1977 horror film, Suspiria.
Spoiler.
- I don't know how you can live with yourself
if you let something happen to a child.
- [Narrator] We find out that Anna's family isn't estranged,
they're dead.
- Oh. That's a twist.
- [Narrator] If there's one thing
Hitchcock films like Psycho have been known to do,
it's throw out a major curve ball, if not several.
- You killed your mother.
- [Narrator] It turns out that it wasn't the parent
who was the killer, it was the son.
The same thing happens in Psycho,
as the mother was played up to be the killer
when it was really Norman.
- Oh. That's a twist.
- [Narrator] He also happened to like knives.
The final confrontation takes place on a rooftop
in the rain.
This is a very common type of weather in noirs,
whether it be in a classic like The Big Sleep
or in a neo-noir like Blade Runner.
Ethan falls to his death.
Hitchcock films often have characters
fall from great heights,
including The Man Who Knew Too Much, Jamaica Inn,
Foreign Correspondent, Rear Window and Vertigo.
Was there something we missed?
What film inspired by the classics should we do next?
Let us know in the comments.
- See you around?
- Yes. See you around.
(tense music)