Film Review
Just like
Lifeboat (1944) before it,
Rope was conceived by its director,
Alfred Hitchcock, as primarily a technical challenge. The
intention was to shoot the film in such a way that it appeared to be
one continuous take, something that had never been attempted before
(and has rarely been tried since). Shooting the film in one take
was a practical impossibility at the time, since the maximum length of
an unbroken take was limited to how much film could be loaded in the
camera, which was around ten minutes' worth of footage. To get
round this, the film was shot in ten segments (of between five and ten
minutes in duration), with each shot beginning and ending on a close up
of either the jacket of one of the characters or the lid of the trunk
containing the corpse, creating the illusion of one continuous take.
This technical feat proved to be a logistic nightmare for all concerned
on the production, cast and crew alike. The movements of all of
the actors had to be meticulously worked out beforehand on a model and
then rehearsed on the set many times before each take. The walls
of the set and the furniture were mounted on castors so that they could
be shifted during the recording to allow the huge cameras to move
around the set on a specially constructed dolly. The actors not
only had to hit their marks precisely and avoid fluffing lines (i.e.
give the equivalent of a faultless theatrical performance) but had the
additional problem of avoiding tripping over the mass of cables that
festooned the set.
And there were other challenges. This was Hitchcock's first
colour film, made when Technicolor was still pretty much an
experimental medium. The biggest problem this posed was getting
the lighting right for the view of the New York skyline seen through
the window of the apartment. In the course of the film, the
lighting had to change gradually to reflect the transition from
afternoon to early evening and then night. Hitchcock was
dissatisfied with the appearance of the sunset in the first shoot and
so re-shot the last five segments of the film.
Not only was the film treading new ground technologically, it would
also break the mould in other ways, with its unveiled allusions
to homosexuality - an area which Hollywood had hitherto religiously
avoided. This stemmed from the play
Rope's End on which the film was
based. Although the play's author, Patrick Hamilton, denied it,
it appears to have been inspired by the case of Richard Leopold and
Nathan Loeb, two rich Chicago adolescents who cold-bloodedly murdered a
14 year old boy in the 1920s simply to prove to themselves that they
could kill. The same case inspired two later films: Richard
Fleischer's
Compulsion (1959)
and Tom Kalin's
Swoon (1992).
The most notable thing about Hamilton's 1929 play is that the
protagonists (two Oxford undergraduates) are implied
homosexuals. This allows the play to be interpreted as an
allegory on the fear of discovery by those who indulged in homosexual
acts (a criminal offence at the time). The dead body in the
trunk represents either the guilt-ridden aftermath of illicit
love-making or the repressed sex drive of the covert homosexual - in
either case the prospect of discovery is a cause of fear and anxiety,
similar to what might be felt by someone who has murdered in cold
blood. One of the characters in the play shows the thrill of a
gambler risking his entire fortune in a casino, the other is paralysed
with terror once the euphoria of the moment has passed.
Surprisingly, many of the homosexual themes present in the original
play emerge in Hitchcock's film, making it the first American film to
treat the subject in so blatant a manner.
Rope is significant in that it
was the first film that Hitchcock made for Transatlantic Pictures, the
film production company that he founded with Sidney Bernstein.
The
company made just two films (
Rope
and Hitchcock's next film,
Under
Capricorn) before folding as a result of poor box office
returns. The commercial failure of
Rope
was attributed to its apparent homosexual connotations (which led to an
outright ban in some regions of the United States), and it is
interesting that it fared much better in Europe than in America.
Whilst
Rope is without doubt
a great technical achievement and is fascinating to watch, as a piece
of drama is has one or two flaws that prevent it from being ranked
alongside Hitchcock's greater works. One notable deficiency is
the miscasting of James Stewart, who fails to be convincing as an
inspirational intellectual who might motivate two youngsters to kill
someone; from his doddering performance, it seems far more probable
that he would infect them with terminal narcolepsy or an urge to take
up crochet. Part of the problem is that Stewart's character is
poorly developed. In the original play by Hamilton, it was
implied that the character had a homosexual relationship with the two
boys when they were under his care, which would explain the influence
he had over them. In the film, the character motivation is pretty
well lacking and Stewart looks like a spare rib.
Whilst James Stewart's performance disappoints, the same cannot be said
for his co-stars. Both Farley Granger and John Dall are
excellent, portraying a pair of odious amoral characters in a way that
retains the audience's sympathy, allowing the suspense to function in
the best Hitchcockian tradition. There are also notable
contributions from the supporting cast - particularly Cedric Hardwicke
and Constance Collier (the same Constance Collier who co-wrote the play
Downhill
with Ivor Novello, which Hitchcock adapted in 1927). Granger
developed a particularly good working relationship with Hitchcock and
would star in his subsequent film,
Strangers on a Train (1951),
which shows many thematic similarities to
Rope.
© James Travers 2008
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Next Alfred Hitchcock film:
Under Capricorn (1949)
Film Synopsis
In their top floor New York apartment, two well-heeled students,
Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, have just strangled one of their
college chums, David Kentley, with a rope. They place the body in
an old chest, intending to dispose of it later that evening.
Their motivation for the killing? To prove that they had
the superior intellect and will to accomplish such an act.
Phillip is shaken by what he has done and his friend's bravado, which
smacks of recklessness. Brandon has arranged a cocktail
party, to take place in the apartment within a few minutes.
The guests include not only the dead boy's girlfriend and father, but
also the killers' former prep school housemaster, Rupert Cadell, whose
lectures on Nietzschen philosophy were the inspiration for the
murder. As the party begins, Phillip becomes increasingly
agitated, and this, together with David's mysterious absence, arouses
Cadell's suspicions that something may be wrong...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.