Enter ‘Rope’, a film presented as one shot (though is technically three or four) about two intellectuals who murder ‘because they have the privilege to’, and then hide the body in a table. They then host a party moments after the murder and give hints and clues about the murder and the body – poking and prodding at their guests as they bolster their pride. However, their professor was also invited, and he begins to catch on. Being that Rope is a Hitchcock thriller, you can imagine how the film unravels.
What really struck me was that Rope has almost every single problem that Hitchcock films tend to have, yet I still loved it. I really have a hard time explaining even to myself how it could have hade wooden acting (even from James Stewart, yes) and convenient explanations that tie everything up. I still view these as flaws in Rope, but they are not nearly as damaging as they are with his other films, and don’t really overtly affect the film. I still loved it in the end.
Rope has plenty of suspense throughout, with near discoveries of the body and of course the murderers constantly pushing their luck with what they say and do, constantly hinting towards their crimes. One thing that really helped was that the film was presented as one shot, so it felt as if it were real time and we were in the room with everyone, watching it all unfold with a birds eye view. Of course, I was easily able to predict exactly how it would ending by reading a five sentence plot description – and was right – but I guess Rope was a case of the fun being in the journey instead of the destination. I may have known where it was going, but I still loved seeing how Hitchcock brought us there.
Rope as a film has it’s fair share of problems, as I’ve outlined, but because of the very original and engaging plot (a sort of hybrid of the game ‘Clue’ and the story ‘A Tall Tell Heart’), the equally unique and attractive one shot format, and the fact that it was really entertaining and thought provoking seeing James Stewart piece it all together made this one of the better Hitchcock’s I’ve seen, and one of the only ones I’ve truly felt satisfied about watching even days after the deed was done. I will be putting this one right under Psycho if anyone asks me to rank the Hitchcock filmography. But going back to my critique on Hitchcock, how did Rope escape the holes Hitchcock seemed to dig for his own films? I do not know. Maybe I’ve fallen under his charm after all. Maybe he was somehow able to create some element of his film that overshadowed the biggest flaws and make me forget they were even there. Too bad this charm and mastery didn’t work for me on some of his other films, because
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