Rope

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, from the Patrick Hamilton play
Starring John Dall, Farley Granger, James Stewart, Constance Collier
USA, 1948
Rated PG (violence, mature themes)

A-

EXPERIMENTS: THE GREAT AND THE MACABRE
Brandon (John Dall) and Phillip (Farley Granger) commit a murder just for the heck of it, and their victim is their friend, David Kentley. Brandon, a cool young man who is the brains of the duo, regards murder as an art, one that only the privileged should enjoy, and gets these philosophies from his college professor, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart). Rupert’s belief in the Nietzsche saying "Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman-a rope over an abyss" is thrown around almost jokingly in a discussion at a party he is invited to that the two murderers hold in their apartment to culminate the killing. They daringly leave the dead body in a chest, and use the top as a table for the buffet dinner. Obviously, Rupert’s theories are taken very seriously by Phillip and especially by Brandon, who sees himself as one of the intellectuals who deserve the right to kill.

The film, Rope, is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most adventurous experiments with the film medium, and it’s unfashionable to like it and regard it as a great piece of cinema. I think, while it is inevitably bogged down by the demands of its experimentation, it’s wonderfully dark and becomes an excellent work of storytelling. Based on a play by Patrick Hamilton, Rope is rather theatrical. It is all located on one set, and Hitchcock utilizes real time by making the film comprised all of continuous ten minute takes, having the camera move behind the dark back of a character’s suit, or to the lifted top of the chest, to cut only because it is necessitated by the ending of a reel. The strategies used to cover up the cuts are so obvious, but Rope has a fine flow, and we even see the sky get darker outside the apartment window as the film progresses.

Hitchcock himself agreed with the film’s many critics that it was an interesting experiment, but nothing more. I think the film is one of the Master’s most chilling moral thrillers. It isn’t as clearly tragic as Vertigo, or as blissfully entertaining as the 1956 The Man Who Knew Too Much, and even the suspense is at times hit-and-miss, without big swellings of tension, but Rope was the beginning of the second phase in Hitchcock’s career, which would bring about his greatest works, including both Vertigo and The Man Who Knew Too Much, not to mention Rear Window, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. (It was his first color film and his first time working with Jimmy Stewart, whom he would go on to collaborate with a few more times.)

Despite the meticulous work that went behind the scenes, Rope comes across as a very casual film about domination, influence, and dangerous misdirection. Brandon and Phillip are two very pathetic creatures, and even dear Professor Rupert, who is the film’s supposed conscience, is quite threatening. Phillip, the film’s weakling, is dominated by Brandon, who is dominated (unintentionally) by Rupert, whose nonchalance with the Nietzsche quotation and theories of the dominance of the world’s elite over the undesirable ignorant have clogged Brandon’s brain. It’s an emaciating, nauseous three-way bond.

The film is actually a rope itself, connecting the human elements of sex to violence to food, all controlled by the freaky, academically-oriented lives of the killers. Donald Spoto, whose marvelous essays on Alfred Hitchcock’s work are compiled in The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, assumes that Brandon and Phillip are lovers (it is never clear in the film; I suppose they were in the Hamilton play.) Assuming that, the assassination can be seen as an extreme, sexual consummation of their very unhealthy relationship, with Brandon fetishistically keeping his boyfriend in bondage. The references are pretty evident. After the murder is completed during the film’s first scene, the two men are exhausted. Phillip inquires, "How did you feel during it?" And Brandon answers, "I don’t know. I don’t know if I felt very much of anything—until his body went limp, and I knew it was over and I felt tremendously exhilarated." The human need for food, and the inescapable sexual and violent impulses we feel as humans, are all satiated here, so by the film’s end, we feel everything has come tumbling down to a moment of idealized moral inevitability.

Brandon believes his professor’s theories of elite domination because they’re erotic; he likes to feel empowered, like Hitler, like the fascists. The tragedy and the macabre element of the story comes in how Rupert is unaware of how literally his words have been taken, by students who do not know how to live life and are brainwashed by books and academia. He conveniently rids himself of responsibility by giving a long, righteous monologue at the film’s finale about the inhumanity and grossness of his two student murderers, which feels like one of those morals Hollywood forced dark films to tack on at the end. Jimmy Stewart, who is very effective in his role, metamorphoses into Spencer Tracy at his condescending worst. But that can all be twisted to become an advantage for Rope, and it makes Rupert just as, if not more, sick than Brandon and Phillip. He again uses domination to get out of being responsible for his influence on the men.

In one scene, Brandon (who is played by John Dall with an on-target snarly smoothness) gives David Kentley’s father a stack of books, and ties them with the same rope he killed David with. The film links academia and obsessive studiousness to violence for thrills, and the professor is a symbol of dominance and powerful influence in that world of book education. Brandon always feels the need to challenge himself, to see how much he can hide. Rupert’s refusal to take responsibility for his careless use of his theories can be seen as a metaphor for the glamorization and sexiness of violence in some movies, that put ideas of brutal heroism in (young) viewers’ heads, with producers and executives denying responsibility for the dementia that ensues and falling onto the mattress of the "it-was-all-in-the-name-of-entertainment" excuse. Rupert’s mattress is his bookish, cop-out humanity and integrity.

So, Rope’s characters are not what they seem, and they are, and the film itself is, a contradiction. Hitchcock believed in the power of editing and montage, and wasn’t the kind of director that made talky films with only one set. Also, the film’s mood is in contrast with its solemn subject; it has a dull, yellowish palette without a trace of ominousness in its use of Technicolor. Rope, while it was unique, wasn’t influential. Hitchcock’s main purpose here was to try something different, and it’s cause for celebration that the film’s story is also worthwhile. Its toying with real time shouldn’t be attempted too often. Rope is a semi-self-conscious play with added intimacy. It’s Art for Art’s sake about ‘art’ for ‘art’s’ sake.

By Andrew Chan

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