Hitchcock's most experimental film (Rope (DVD))

Member Name: johnpaul

Product:	Rope (DVD)
Date:	07/05/01 (324 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An unusual piece of filmaking, Boldly experimental, Moments of trademark Hitchcock suspense

Disadvantages: Necessarily 'stagey'

"Murder is an Art, and as such the privilege of committing it should be reserved for those few who are really superior individuals."

In what is possibly HItchcock's most overlooked film, John Dall, (Brandon) and Farley Granger, (Phillip) play two 'friends' who go way back to prep school, living together in their fashionable downtown apartment.

The arrange a rather peculiar dinner party, in which they test the arrogant teachings of their old professor, James Stewart, to their very limits. They have strangled their old school friend, David, and put him in the trunk in the living room, and excitedly await the arrival of their guests. The entire action of the film, bar the opening shot leading to the apartment window, taking place in the apartment itself.

Rope was a first for Hitchcock in many ways - his first colour film, and a film he wanted to be as close to theatre as possible.
No suprise then that he chose a play by Patrick Hamilton - 'Rope's End' to adapt for this film. Arthur Laurents was the screenwriter, who HItchcock came to wanting a playwright for this particular take on theatre.
As Laurents says today - when the originally English play was re-written for an American setting it became overtly homosexual. The word itself 'homosexual' was referred to 'it' on the set - that the film was about 'it' and that the actors were 'it'.

The film had to be based on the original real life Leopold-Loeb murder case from 1924, where two rich, gay, jewish boys in Chicago decided to murder another boy for 'the spirit of adventure', although this link was never made directly.
As the film censorship laws at the time forbade showing a married couple in the same bed, understandably there is no direct disclosure of the boy's relationship.

Cary Grant was originally wanted for James Stewart's teacher character, and Montgomery Clift as one of the b
oys. Both turned down the role as they didn't want to be associated with homosexual characters. The intention was that the teacher had influenced them with Nietzche's teachings of the superman, and even had an affair with one of the boys.

It was a very experimental film for HItchcock, as he attempted to shoot the whole film in one continuous shot, that required the set to have fly-away walls on silent casters so that the huge technicolor camera could follow the actors into other rooms, and swirl around them to follow them back. The longest reel of film that would fit in the camera was about ten minutes so Hitchcock had to contrive objects or people to pass infront of the camera and momentarily fully block out the lens so that they could cut, reload, and start shooting again from exact same position.

The model backdrop of the city, seen through the apartments large window had clouds spun from glass, and miniatures of the New York skyline lit with thousands of individual lights which slowly darkened to evening as the film progresses, but when the film was printed Hitchcock had to re-shoot the entire last section again as the colour of the evening skyline had come out in the wrong colour.

There are moments of classic Hitchcock suspense as the dinner party continues on and Philip becomes more drunk as the realisation of what they have done dawns on him.

Perhaps it was viewed as a failure at the time, but I find it really very engaging now. It's 'failures' or contrivances now seem to be what sets it apart and makes it a fascinating slice of film-making, let alone an intriguing, veiled glimpse of homosexuality at the time. (the story was appropriately re-told in the nineties by gay filmmaker Tom Kalin in 'Swoon'.)

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