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The guest who's dead on time
May. 6th, 2008 06:43 pmRope (1948), Alfred Hitchcock. May 4, 8pm. View count: Two or three.
I find Rope to be a lot of fun. It's a stage-play style production, with a very limited set, and it's made more stagey by the use of only a few very long takes (imdb says ten). Which are artfully done, and sometimes wonderfully single-minded (the shot of the maid clearing the 'table', for one). I think it's arguable that Jimmy Stewart doesn't quite fit in this movie, though; his harmless, vaguely befuddled air doesn't mesh well with his espousement and then denunciation of convenience murders. Also, seriously, what are you doing telling impressionable idiot overprivileged college students that it's a good idea to kill people? I had a hard time buying this as a premise, although it's possible that another actor could have made me believe it.
HOWEVER he was also supposed to have, in the original play (tenth trivium down), had an affair with one of the killers? Man, seriously. Hitchcock, you have COPPED OUT.
I find Rope to be a lot of fun. It's a stage-play style production, with a very limited set, and it's made more stagey by the use of only a few very long takes (imdb says ten). Which are artfully done, and sometimes wonderfully single-minded (the shot of the maid clearing the 'table', for one). I think it's arguable that Jimmy Stewart doesn't quite fit in this movie, though; his harmless, vaguely befuddled air doesn't mesh well with his espousement and then denunciation of convenience murders. Also, seriously, what are you doing telling impressionable idiot overprivileged college students that it's a good idea to kill people? I had a hard time buying this as a premise, although it's possible that another actor could have made me believe it.
HOWEVER he was also supposed to have, in the original play (tenth trivium down), had an affair with one of the killers? Man, seriously. Hitchcock, you have COPPED OUT.
