Rope (1948)
Director Alfred Hitchcock adapts the play of the same name for the big screen with star James Stewart. Two young men murder a friend then have a party straight after to see if they can get away with their crime.
What is interesting about this film is that it is shot to appear as one long take which is a real achievement when you consider the cameras of the time were large, bulky and could only contain 10 minutes worth of film at a time. As an experiment in film making I think the film works pretty well even if you can spot most of the transitions they are not jarring.
The plot is adequate and holds a decent amount of tension, which Hitchcock is well known for. It would have been easy to over use the idea of having the body constantly under threat of discovery but as you would expect from Hitchcock he knows what he is doing and uses this sparingly. Inspiration for the plot came from the real life Leopold and Loeb murder but I do not think that the idea of committing the perfect murder just for the sake of it really provides enough depth to make this an excellent film.
4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment