Rope (1948)

I haven’t been watching Hitchcock movies for a very long time yet (about a year or 2). The movies that i did see (Rear Window, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Birds, I confess and some more) by the master of suspense really show that he deserves that title. With Rope he decided to make a movie out of a play. The whole story is set within an apartment and is the first movie he shot in color.
What really stands out when you watch this movie are the extremely long takes (like we also know from Orson Welles’ Touch of evil (the opening shot is very impressive) or a movie like Children of Men). The complete movie only has 10 segments for which the transitions, for the most part, are concealed by making clever use of the back of an actor or something else.

Some takes are 10 minutes long. The reason for this length is that the film that it was shot on had a maximum of 10 minutes, so Hitchcock didn’t have any other choice. Such long takes of course do mean a couple of things. Firstly you will have to keep it interesting for the viewer, so you can’t use a fixed camera. The big Technicolor camera had to be moved constantly so this had to be rehearsed extensively with the actors. They had to know where the camera was going and where they had to be.

To make room for the camera some parts of the set had to be moved and placed back while they were shooting. You don’t notice any of this at all.

Another thing you have to do is have excellent actors that don’t make any mistakes and keep such long takes interesting. James Stewart, John Dall en Farley Granger (and the others) are capable of doing this.
Of course the story itself also has to be interesting, which it was to a certain degree. A homicide has been committed and the two who did it try to hide it, but at the same time are too proud of it and want to talk about it, which of course can lead to mistakes.

I thought the movie wasn’t as good as other Hitchcock movies I’ve seen. Technically it’s a very interesting film, but the story is not special enough to keep the suspense on a high level. For those who want to start watching Hitchcock movies, it’s not the first movie they should see. It’s better to start with one of the movies i mentioned earlier.

Score: 7