Review of Rope (1948) by Chris M — 13 Jul 2010

I recently watched Brick, a terrific experiment in film-making, taking a hard-boiled neo-noir into a High School environment. This is if anything an even more daring experiment from Alfred Hitchcock more than 60 years ago.

Set in one apartment apart from the very opening shot, the drama is played out in real time, with seemingly no cuts at all as the camera glides through the apartment and around the party being held there. This is bravura stauff from Hitchcock, as he makes barely any concessions to the technology of the time. Cameras were far bigger and more cumbersome and (most crucially) used actual film reels, meaning they needed to be changed frequently.

Amongst the technical brilliance, John Dall is mesmerising as the calculating, arrogant Brandon, who plots and commits murder to see if he can get away with it and prove his intellectual superiority. At all times the body is in the room, right under our very noses. Farley Granger is also great as the increasingly conflicted and unstable Phillip.

The final sequence of the film is the least compelling, however. I never really liked James Stewart's character, and his role felt contrived. The climax feels distinctly underwhelming, but this shouldn't detract from the 80 minutes that goes before it.