The big strength of ROPE (1948) is that it manages to be Alfred Hitchcock's possibly most experimental movie ever, while exploring one of Hitchcock's favorite themes, guilt, at the same time. It's experimental, because Hitckcock wanted ROPE to have no cuts in it whatsoever, which he almost succeeded in achieving. There's an invisible cut every tenth minute (the camera zooms in on a character's black suit while the cut takes place) which was necessary, because 35mm film rolls only lasts 10 minutes, and there are three visible cuts, which were necessary for practical reasons, because back then, cinemas replaced the film roll three times during a movie. Hitchcock's artistic reason for the not-cuts-allowed rule was to melt the actual time and the fictive time together. The story lasts 105 minutes, and so does the story. Just as with Lars von Trier's Dogme95 rules in IDIOTERNE (1998), the rule helps tell the story. The lack of cuts gives the movie a theatrical feel, which is ironic, because Hitchcock believed that movies were to be told trough images, and not dialog. On the hand, Hitchock has many times disproved this theory, as a lot of his best movies are dialog-based.
Storyline: The two young upper-class intellectuals Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) carry out a vicious plan to strangle their old friend/classmate in their apartment, hide his corpse in a old chest, invite guests over for a party, and use the old chest as a dinner table. While Brandon sees their plan as art and likes playing with fire, Phillip already feels an enormous amount of guilt. They both start getting nervous, as the guests starts wondering where David Kentley (the classmate they killed) is. Their old role model and philosophy teacher, the very intelligent Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), who is also among the guests, senses that something is terribly wrong, as he sees all these little hints that support his theory that David is dead.
ROBE is one of the most underrated Hitcock movies. It's interesting, suspenseful, and James Stewart is as great as in VERTIGO. In the documentary on the DVD the writer says that he thinks Hitchcock shouldn't have shown the two men strangle the friend, because he thinks that the suspense lies in that audiences don't know whether there really is a corpse in the chest or not. I don't necessarily agree. I think that would be unnecessary, and suspense for the take of the suspense, with no meaning behind it. It would remove focus from the Hitchcockian guilt and moral themes. Another (almost) idea left out of the movie was the homosexual theme between the two men, although you still sense that the undertones are there.
Highly recommendable, especially if you're a Hitchcock fan. 10/10
Storyline: The two young upper-class intellectuals Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) carry out a vicious plan to strangle their old friend/classmate in their apartment, hide his corpse in a old chest, invite guests over for a party, and use the old chest as a dinner table. While Brandon sees their plan as art and likes playing with fire, Phillip already feels an enormous amount of guilt. They both start getting nervous, as the guests starts wondering where David Kentley (the classmate they killed) is. Their old role model and philosophy teacher, the very intelligent Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), who is also among the guests, senses that something is terribly wrong, as he sees all these little hints that support his theory that David is dead.
ROBE is one of the most underrated Hitcock movies. It's interesting, suspenseful, and James Stewart is as great as in VERTIGO. In the documentary on the DVD the writer says that he thinks Hitchcock shouldn't have shown the two men strangle the friend, because he thinks that the suspense lies in that audiences don't know whether there really is a corpse in the chest or not. I don't necessarily agree. I think that would be unnecessary, and suspense for the take of the suspense, with no meaning behind it. It would remove focus from the Hitchcockian guilt and moral themes. Another (almost) idea left out of the movie was the homosexual theme between the two men, although you still sense that the undertones are there.
Highly recommendable, especially if you're a Hitchcock fan. 10/10