On Monday, May 21, 2012 at 12:12:12 PM UTC-7, calvin wrote:
This was buried within another thread; reposted
here with no changes:
(SPOILER WARNING)
I watched 'Rope' again today, and I don't understand
why people seem to think that Hitchcock's 'gimmick'
detracts from the movie. I always start by paying
special attention to the the continuous 8 to 10 minute
takes, but then get so caught up in the play that the
gimmick is often forgotten, until it calls attention
to itself again, as when the camera passes behind
someone's back, which fills the frame for an instant,
allowing an end to the take, and the beginning of the
next one.
In some cases, especially the one that I mentioned in
the first post, a long take is extremely effective.
While we listen to a conversation off screen, we
watch the housekeeper working continuously, clearing
off the chest, going back and forth, then bringing books
from the dining room that she intends to put back into
the chest. The people having the conversation aren't
paying any attention to her, as she relentlessly
approaches the critical moment. In high Hitchcock style,
we are amused and willingly manipulated into hoping that
the body is not discovered, at least not yet.
The movie is quite effective in showing James Stewart's
gradually growing suspicions that something is seriously
wrong with this party. The two gay (not stated, but
clearly presented) young men are very well played by a
reptilian John Dall and emotional, paranoid Farley Granger.
What's wrong with this movie is not the gimmick, but the
hypocrisy of the James Stewart character in the end. He
was not involved in the murder, but he had been very much
intellectually complicit in the Nietzschian rationalizations
that led to it. Earlier in the play he had expressed these
views to a horrified Cedric Hardwicke. His words in the
end express proper shame, but his manner is that of an all-
American crime fighter doing justice for all.
In spite of this flaw, though, 'Rope' is one of the better
Hitchcock movies, and his difficult-to-film 'real time'
takes add up to a fascinating and successful experiment,
in my opinion.
Am I the only one who was surprised that ROPE was in color?
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