Those are most of the faults that I had to find with Rope; in my next post I'll discuss what worked for me about the film, which is quite a lot, actually.
My feelings about Alfred Hitchcock movies tend to be somewhat ambivalent. I recognize that they're very skillfully made, but they mostly leave me cold. For some reason, most of his characters never really come off the screen for me... I never get emotionally involved in them or their problems/struggles. I should add that I haven't actually seen all of his films yet; I don't often deliberately seek them out. But I have seen The Birds, The Lady Vanishes, Rear Window, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, To Catch A Thief, and- of course- Rope. Of that list, I actually enjoy The Lady Vanishes, the earliest of them (1938), the best as the characters are warm and sympathetic, unlike most of them in his later films that I've seen. I do wish to see Lifeboat and North By Northwest at some point, but have no urgent desire to do so at present time. With Rope, my feelings are, as stated, rather mixed; I enjoy its premise and the ideas it explores more than I like the actual execution of the film. I think part of the problem stems from Hitchcock's decision to film it the way he did, with very few cuts- only when absolutely necessary, when the film ran out. This may sound like an interesting gimmick, but it meant that, if something had to be reshot, that whole portion of the film would have to be redone, not just a few lines fixed in editing. This method sometimes makes the movie feel a little staged- as though you're watching a film of the actors performing a play. It seems the actors involved may have felt this to a degree as well: Jimmy Stewart actually suggested to Hitchcock that they film in front of a live audience. Perhaps- for all the headaches it would have caused- this might have been a good idea, giving the actors a crowd to bounce drama and emotion off of; as it is, the acting sometimes seems a bit stilted and forced. But this might just have been the strain of knowing they'd better not mess up unless they wanted to redo an entire reel of film. Apparently Jimmy Stewart felt himself miscast in his role as Rupert Cadell, publisher and former teacher and, for the first part of the movie, I kind of agreed with that assessment. The part of a shallow, cynical nihilist spouting Nietzschean claptrap sits rather awkwardly on his shoulders; I'm simply not convinced by it. But as the movie progresses and Cadell's suspicion turns to horror as he realizes the evil that he has unwittingly contributed to, Stewart's performance becomes more convincing. As he gives his monologue in the final scene, Cadell's anger, horror, and disgust- both with them and himself- seem much more believable, perhaps because Stewart actually espouses the convictions he articulates here, unlike the contemptuous view of his fellow man that his character expresses earlier in Rope. The murder itself is weirdly ineffective, which is odd because we know that Hitchcock can film a convincing murder scene- Psycho, anyone? But the one in Rope doesn't work. First, outside their penthouse, we hear David let out a terrible scream then, a second later, we're inside and David is already dead, with the rope tight around his throat. This is singularly unconvincing... I mean, how on earth did David loudly scream while being choked to death? It's literally just a moment between when we hear the scream and see the dead body; this doesn't make sense. Also, the actor playing David isn't good at dying convincingly, which rather detracts from the drama. The dialogue between the characters is a bit hit and miss... a lot of it is forgettable though, to be fair, they're at a dinner party and most conversation at social functions is bland and forgettable. The speech by Rupert Cadell near the end of the film is excellent, and there are some good and clever lines scattered throughout. For example, when Rupert's being introduced to someone he hasn't met before, it's explained that he's a publisher, mostly of philosophy books. Janet impishly describes this as "Small print, big words, no sales." Where's the lie? Those are most of the faults that I had to find with Rope; in my next post I'll discuss what worked for me about the film, which is quite a lot, actually.
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