Rope (film)

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This article is about the Alfred Hitchcock film. For other uses, see Rope (disambiguation).

Rope (1948) is an Alfred Hitchcock classic film notable for its single location covered in long takes, many of which appear to be continuous shots. It is based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton, which was said to be in turn inspired by the real-life murder of a young boy in 1924 by two college students named Leopold and Loeb. Hamilton though always denied the link between his play and the case.

Hitchcock was the producer and director of the film. Rope is the first movie for which Hitchcock received a credit as both producer and director (he was the uncredited producer on Number 13, Suspicion and Notorious).

Plot

Two brilliant aesthetes, Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Philip Morgan (Farley Granger), plan the perfect murder in the spirit of lectures on the art of murder once made by their erstwhile housemaster, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart). They invite a former classmate, David Kently, to their apartment for drinks, strangle him, and hide his body in a chest, thus, they believe, demonstrating their superiority. Straight afterwards they throw a party in their apartment. Among the guests are the victim's father and aunt (his mother does not turn up), his fiancee and her former boyfriend. Rupert Cadell also attends.

To impress Rupert and to gain his approval, Brandon subtlety drops hints throughout the party about the murder of David, and begins a discussion on the art of murder. David, his connection to the guests and his curious absence forms much of the conversation during the evening.

In contrast to Brandon, Philip gets more and more nervous throughout the party. At the end Rupert is handed David's hat by mistake and consequently perceives what has happened.

Highly suspicious by the end of the party, Rupert returns to the apartment after everyone has departed, claiming he has misplaced his cigarette case. When he arrives back in the apartment, he plants his cigarette case, finds it, but then stays to theorize about the murder of David, encouraged by Brandon who seems eager to have Rupert discover it. When Rupert lifts open the chest to reveal the body still tucked inside and realizes that his two former students have indeed murdered, he is horrified — and ashamed of his own rhetoric that had led them to perform the morbid deed.

Facts

• This was Hitchcock's first color film.
• It was shot on a single set, aside from the opening establishing shot street scene.
• Each shot ran continuously for up to ten minutes without interruption. Camera moves were planned in advance and there was almost no editing.
• The cyclorama in the background was the largest backing ever used on a sound stage and included models of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Within the course of nine reels the cumulus clouds made of spun glass change a total of eight times.

Hitchcock filmed each scene in segments lasting up to ten minutes (the length of a reel of film at the time), each segment continuously panning from character to character in real time. Several segments end by panning against or zooming into an object (a man's jacket, or the back of a piece of furniture, for example) or by having an actor move in front of the camera, blocking the entire screen; each scene after that starts a static shot of that same object. In this way Hitchcock effectively masked some (but not all) of the cuts in the film.

(This technique has been used frequently since to "hide" edits, for instance in the Eagle-Eye Cherry music video "Save Tonight," and also in Steven Soderbergh's film Erin Brockovich: Julia Roberts appears to get into a car, drive down the street, and get hit by another car, but in fact the camera lingers behind on the road after she leaves, and at that point the film cuts when Roberts is replaced with a stunt driver).

Although it is commonly believed that all the cuts in Rope are hidden, in fact, only half are. Another misconception is that all the shots last ten minutes. Actually, of the ten shots used for the film, only three approach or exceed the ten minute mark. Five of the shots range between seven and eight minutes, and the penultimate and final shots last only about four-and-a-half and five-and-a-half minutes, respectively. A description of the beginning and end of each reel follows, with the approximate duration of the shot given in parentheses.

• R1 CU strangulation to Blackout on Brandon's back. (9:34)
• R2 Black, pan off Brandon's back to CU Kenneth: "What do you mean?" (7:51)
• R3 Unmasked cut, men crossing to Janet to Blackout on Kenneth's back. (7:18)
• R4 Black, pan off Kenneth's back to CU Phillip: "That's a lie." (7:08)
• R5 Unmasked cut, CU Rupert to Blackout on Brandon's back. (9:57)
• R6 Black, pan off Brandon's back to Three shot. (7:33)
• R7 Unmasked cut, Mrs. Wilson: "Excuse me, sir."to Blackout on Brandon.(7:46)
• R8 Black, pan off Brandon to CU Brandon's hand in gun pocket. (10:06)
• R9 Unmasked cut, CU Rupert to Blackout on lid of chest. (4:37)
• R10 Black, pan up from lid of chest to End. (5:38)

Hitchcock used this long-take approach again on his next film, Under Capricorn.

Homoeroticism

Rope may be considered a homoerotic movie, even though the film version never indicates that the two murderers in the film were having an affair. Even though homosexuality was a highly controversial theme for the 1940's the movie made it through censorship. However, many towns chose to ban it independently, memories of Leopold and Loeb still being fresh in some peoples' minds. Both Dall and Granger were actually gay in real life, as was screenwriter Arthur Laurents — even the piano score played by Granger (Mouvement Perpétuel No. 1 by Francis Poulenc) is the work of a gay composer. Granger's role was first offered to another homosexual actor, Montgomery Clift, who turned the offer down, probably due to the risks of coming out in public. Leopold and Loeb, whom Rupert and Brandon are based upon, were also gay.

In Hitchcock's Films Revisited, critic Robin Wood points to several instances in the film that could be interpreted as homoerotic. He suggests the opening strangulation reflects the euphoria of an orgasm and the subsequent limpness; and he sees masturbatory overtones to the scene in which Brandon excitedly fingers the neck of a champagne bottle.

In Hamilton's play, the dialogue is much more homoerotic, as is the relationship between the students and their teacher. Many of these "risky" elements were removed from the script as the play was rewritten for the film, due to the censorship of the time. Despite this, Hitchcock managed to supply much subtext which made it past the rigorous tests of the censor.

Three other films, Compulsion, Swoon and Murder by Numbers, were also based on the Leopold and Loeb case.

Nietzsche

Much of the film is based around the idea that one might murder someone just to prove that one could. Some film scholarship has found links between this idea and literature and philosophy. Suggestions have been made that Crime and Punishment and its hero Raskolnikov form a subtext to the film- whereby the film parallels the idea of murdering just for the sake of performing the act. References to Nietzsche abound throughout the film- particularly to his doctrine of the superman. One of the most interesting things about the film is the ease that Brandon has in dominating other people without seeking to relate to them- a theme very much present in the novel and advocated in Nietzsche.

Trivia

• Hitchcock ended up reshooting the last 4-5 segments because he was dissatisfied with the color of the sunset
• He shot about one segment a day
• The film's budget was $1.5 million
• Hitchcock makes a cameo appearance walking down the street at the beginning of the film
• Hitchcock's caricature is on a neon sign visible from the apartment window. Below his caricature is the word "Reduco," recalling Hitch's cameo in a newspaper ad for "Reduco" in Lifeboat.
• The film was co-written by an uncredited Ben Hecht.
• Throughout the movie, Brandon and Rupert chain smoke.

External links

• [Classic Movies: Rope (1948)]
• [Rope trivia and review]

 

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