Jimmy Stewart: American Everyman…?
As one of America’s most cherished icons, Jimmy Stewart was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1980, and his recent death in 1997 was mourned nationwide. In a post-mortem tribute, CNN writer Paul Tatara reflected on his status as “an American icon, the embodiments of the dreams and myths of [this country]” and “a manifestation of our collective dreams.” Though he played a wide variety of different roles throughout his Hollywood tenure, he retained always a certain everyday sensibility that audiences could not help but fall for. Stewart had several distinct periods in his long career that can be characterized to an extent by collaborations with directors as varied as Frank Capra, Anthony Mann, and Alfred Hitchcock. The director who made him famous and established the core of the Jimmy Stewart persona was Frank Capra. With seminal works like The Shop Around the Corner (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), he became a true American “Everyman”, known for his shy naivete as much as his honor and moral integrity. He was loveable and accessible, but at the same time heroic and courageous in his strict adherence and defense of morality and values. The first film to truly establish this persona in the canon of Hollywood Stars, though, was Capra’s Oscar-nominated Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in which Stewart plays an “overgrown Boy Ranger” (Feaster) who becomes a senator and saves Washington from corruption. His character, Jefferson Smith, is the embodiment of the Jimmy Stewart archetype.
On and off-screen during these early years, Stewart was the poster-boy for patriotism. Raised in a small-town, he went to Princeton University, and then joined the Air Force a full year before the attack on Pearl Harbor. On-screen he is remembered for his patriotic portrayal of Senator Jefferson Smith. Upon his appointment to office – at a banquet steeped in patriotic songs and symbols – he is thrilled to go to Washington, the representation, he believes of American ideals of liberty and equality. He loses track of time staring up at the Lincoln Monument and hearing a young boy recite the Gettysburg Address. In his unforgettable filibuster speech, he cries, “There’s no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties!”
He is also known for portraying characters who have an easygoing, shy demeanor. There is childlike, small-town sensibility about him, his speech dotted with colloquialisms like “Gee, whiz!” and, “Boy, that’s something!” He is vulnerable and sensitive. When he is framed in Mr. SmithâÂ?¦ and nobody will listen to him, he cries. Throughout this film, and all his films during this period, he is, as Saunders tells him in the movie, a man of “plain, decent, everyday, common rightness.”
It is this American Everyman that Hitchcock both employs and plays against in films like Rope (1948), Vertigo (1958), and Rear Window (1954). Hitchcock sculpted every detail of his films, and used his star’s persona as another formal strategy to manipulate. He used it to create suspense, and often irony – key elements in any Hitchcock film. Hitchcock carefully selected which elements to play, and which elements to subvert in order to develop his character and, ultimately, his theme. His collaborations with Jimmy Stewart bore no exception.
A major motif throughout Hitchcock’s works is the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the extraordinary. In all his films, the central character is an average, everyday man in an extraordinary or unexpected situation. Like the Soviet filmmakers before him, Hitchcock was interested in mass emotion. Ultimately, he endeavored to integrate his audience into the world of the film so that they might experience the film with the protagonist, and thereby, as the protagonist learns about himself, so do the audience members. To accomplish this, the audience must identify with the main character. Essentially the epitome of the “everyman,” Jimmy Stewart is the perfect Hitchcock protagonist. It is not surprising, then, that after a successful collaboration on Rope, Hitchcock again called on Jimmy Stewart to play L.B. Jeffries in Rear Window.
In Rear Window, Hitchcock both embraces and subverts the Stewart persona. Like all Hitchcock characters, Jeffries is shaded with moral ambiguity, which is definitely a subversion of type. Yet, because his presence already implies a certain degree of morality and decency, Hitchcock does not need to spend much time in developing the virtues of the character, and can thus allow more time to uncover the more sinister nuances of Jeffries. Also, even when “awash in contradictions,” notes Tatara, Stewart serves as a “constant reminder of who we are and who we would most like to be.” Because he is Jimmy Stewart, it is no challenge for Hitchcock to persuade audience identification. In fact, in this role, Stewart almost mirrors the audience – he too is a spectator.
It is in the characterization of a Jeffries’ darker side where we see Stewart playing against type. Like all of Hitchcock’s characters, Jeffries is not whole. Always a visual storyteller, Hitchcock introduces Jeffries in a wheelchair and places a significant emphasis on the cast, allowing the camera to pause on it in order for the audience to truly grasp its implication. Obviously Jeffries has a broken leg, but more than that, he is a broken man.
Usually the personification of integrity and ideals, in Rear Window Stewart’s morality becomes suspect. As though the voyeurism was not shameful enough, he shows little, if any, compassion for the subjects he so obsessively spies on. He feels no sympathy for the lonely bachelor musician or “Miss Lonelyhearts”, and objectifies the beautiful “Miss Torso”, watching her dance with lust. This is certainly a long way from his wholesome cries of “love thy neighbor” in Mr. SmithâÂ?¦. Jeffries, awash in selfish pity, shows very little concern for anyone but himself. Even when his girlfriend goes to huge lengths to please him, he frequently interrupts or disregards her until she joins his voyeuristic pursuit.
The quintessential Stewart character is shy and often unsure of himself, but always hopelessly optimistic. Hitchcock’s L.B. Jeffries, though, is opinionated, confrontational, and cynical. When falsely accused by Taylor and his stooges, Jefferson Smith’s initial reaction is to run away and cry. In Rear Window, though, when everyone calls him foolish for thinking a woman was murdered, he does not even think of backing down. Instead, he immediately begins convincing them he is right.
In many ways, Stewart’s established persona is subverted from the beginning. We are introduced to him first in wheelchair and cast, symbols of his confinement. This is very different to “Boy Ranger” Stewart in Mr. SmithâÂ?¦who is constantly moving and can hardly sit still. Continuing the introduction, we see the broken camera, an indication of his voyeuristic nature, followed by photographs Jeffries has taken of dangerous events like car crashes and explosions. Suddenly we see the irony of the situation. This man is not normally confined to a passive state of inaction but has, instead, spent his life traveling the world photographing spectacular events. The danger and pace associated with that lifestyle is another divergence from the Jimmy Stewart persona. Hitchcock’s Stewart is no simple country boy.
Ultimately, Jimmy Stewart brought more than great acting to his collaborations with Hitchcock. He brought with him an audience that continued to sympathize with him no matter how ambiguous his character. Because of these sympathies, if we attempt to judge harshly the morality or ethics of his voyeuristic obsession in Rear Window, we must share the guilt accordingly. Discussing the film with Hitchcock, FranÃ?§ois Truffaut notes that, “We’re all voyeurs to some extent” (Truffaut 216). The genius in all of Hitchcock’s work is in his attention to detail. By choosing which elements of his stars’ personas to manipulate and how, he possesses an extraordinary power to direct his audience almost as much as he does his actors.
Works Cited
Feaster, Felicia. “James Stewart Profile.” Turner Classic Movies. August 2004.
. (8 Nov. 2004).
Tatara, Paul. “Jimmy Stewart: Embodiment of the American Dream.” CNN. 1997. . (8 Nov. 2004).
Truffaut, Fran�§ois. Hitchcock. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1984.
