Hitchcock's Finest

Rope was Alfred Hitchcock's first film as a director independent of the suffocating studio system. Based in concept on the Leopold and Loeb murders, the film centers on two men who murder a friend of theirs for fun. To make the crime more interesting, they put the body in a trunk, and serve dinner off it to his father, girlfriend, and other friends. Throughout the evening, they make allusions to the crime, and slowly one of the guests pieces it together.

Even Hitchcock himself has often dismissed this film as a failed experiment, but this is really an unfair and inaccurate evaluation. The film succeeds where others like it failed (such as Compulsion and To Catch a Thief), or merely passed, due in part to the excellent cast, and in part to the astounding direction and editing.

First the cast: John Dall and Farley Granger are both incredible as the killers. Dall is all arrogance and charm, thinly disguising sociopathic menace. Granger is impressive as the weaker willed of the two, slowly breaking down over the course of the film. Jimmy Stewart is, as always, great as the old teacher of the murderers and their victim, who through idle philosophizing unwittingly put the killers' plans in motion.

As fine as the cast is, the star of the film is the direction. Shot in eight minute continuous shots (the maximum amount of film the cameras could hold at the time), the film is edited together to give the impression of one 80 minute tracking shot. Every eight minutes the camera focuses on a dark object or passes behind something so as to hide the cut (except for two points in the film, where the projectionist would have changed reels). This boosts the film's feeling of claustrophobia and anxiousness. Amazingly enough, Hitchcock makes us empathize with the killers, and we feel their tension as the guests come close to discovering their truth, feel relief when the party breaks up, and their terror as … well, I won't give it all away.

Small touches add to the oppressive atmosphere. The metronome on the piano as Stewart interrogates Granger, the lack of standard movie close-up shots, and the camera trailing the characters as they walk from room to room.

Truly, this movie must be seen to be appreciated. While somewhat dated by today's standards, it still holds up to scrutiny, and is spectacular example of when a director should break all the rules.