Rope Film Review

Rope Film Review

 (Fig1: Rope Poster)

Rope (1948) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock is a murder mystery movie starring John Dall as Brandon, Farley Granger as Phillip. The movie is set in an apartment where two college students Brandon and Phillip are exploring the Nietzschean philosophy which claims that murder is an art committed by the intellectual superior. To test the theory they strangle their friend David and puts him in an antique chest and use the chest as a dinner table  just before they are about to host a dinner party where David’s  father (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), aunt (Constance Collier), and fianc (Joan Chandler), and their former teacher Rupert Cadell (Jimmy Stewart) are invited. Throughout the whole movie Brandon the more sociopathic out of the two keeps dropping hints and bringing the topic murder up perhaps to test how far he can get without being caught where as Philip on the other hand looks like he is going to breakdown and tell the truth any minute. "Brandon, consistently calm and collected, experiences great stimulation in the result, and exudes a confidence and power over it that plays like ecstasy (he even lights up a cigarette as a celebratory gesture after the deed is done)."(David Keyes )

               (Fig 2: Movie Still) 

As a master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock creates a lot of tense moment throughout the movie. One of the tensest moment occurs when the dinner party’s guest are having conversation at the background but the camera is focused on the maid clearing out the dinner table (as shown in Fig 2). The camera stays on the dinner table as the maid clears the table few item at a time leaving the viewer’s anxious about whether she is going to discover the dead body.

           (Fig 3 : Youtube Still)

Over all Rope Is highly experimental movie with brilliant camera work when seen feels like the whole movie was shot in one take. "Hitchcock was interested in seeing whether he could find a cinematic equivalent to the play, which takes place in the actual length of time of the story. To do this, he decided to shoot it in what would appear to be one long, continuous "take," without cutaways or any other breaks in the action, though in fact there would have to be a disguised break every 10 minutes, which was as much film as the camera could contain."  (Vincent Canby) When the murder scene is being described the camera is slowly moved across the set which gives the viewers a sense of being in the apartment and seeing things through the characters point of view. (as shown in fig 3).

Illustrations

Fig 1. Rope [Poster] [online] Available at: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Rope2.jpg [Accessed 27 Jan. 2015].

Fig 2: Movie Still  . [online] Available at: http://cdn.filmschoolrejects.com/images/11-Rope2.png [Accessed 27 Jan. 2015].

Fig 3 : Youtube Still [online] Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUe3sMyYUjw [Accessed 27 Jan. 2015].

Bibliography 
Nytimes.com, (2015). 'Rope': A Stunt to Behold. [online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/060384hitch-rope-reflection.html [Accessed 28 Jan. 2015].

Cinemaphile: Rope / **** (1948). [online] Cinemaphile2010.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://cinemaphile2010.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/rope-1948.html [Accessed 28 Jan. 2015].