Rope, 1948

With Rope, Hitchcock is well into his American films and is his first color movie. It was filmed in extended scenes without much cutting. Many criticize Hitchcocks decision because the cuts are obvious and forced. I did find several of the cuts distracting; they should have been smoother so that the effect of the extended scenes would not be distracted by the cuts. However, Hitchcock is the auteur and I think this may be his stamp on the movie. One can definitely watch Rope as a homoerotic movie. The two main characters are based on Leopold and Loeb to some extent, the actors were gay in real life, the screenwriter was gay, the composer of the piano piece was gay, the part of Rupert Cadell was originally offered to a gay person and turned down by Cary Grant because of surrounding homoeroticism, and the screenplay was heavily edited to remove sayings from the original British play which when interpreted were heavily homoerotic. But, they managed to get it by the censors of the time with what it is now. If you look closely, though, there are enough remnants that viewing the movie with a homoerotic slant is not out of the question; theres still some dialog to examine and several instances of phallic imagery namely the wine bottle. My main contention with the movie comes at the very beginning. Hitchcock decided to show the murder. The movie is highly suspenseful even with the showing of the murder, but it would have been much more so without it. It would then be the Macguffin of this film. The extended sequences would then work to an even greater effect by having the holding place in cameras view and the viewer would constantly be wondering, Is he in there or not? Even better, never reveal whether there was anyone in there or not! Ultimately, I enjoyed watching the movie. But I dont think the extended shots and Macguffin were used in conjunction to the extent I would have liked. So, Rope brings me up a little short.

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This film (seemingly) is one long, unedited cut. The technical side of this is amazing, for sure, and incredibly groundbreaking, but what is truly amazing is the way Hitchcock manages to build suspense, tension and dramatic energy without using any editing techniques. Every moment that you feel deep in your gut is accomplished through the pacing of the action, the content of the dialogue, the character's movement and their understanding of the people they are portraying. And aside from technique, this plot is intensely macabre and surreal, unlike anything you'll see in today's mostly cookie-cutter cinema. (The film is not one long cut; Hitch cuts approximately five times by zooming in on things, like a characters back, cutting, and then zooming out from their backs. There were no digital cameras in those days, and there wasn't a camera that would allow that much film in it at once. If there was, I'm sure Hitch would have done the whole film in one take.)

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