A note on the experiment in ROPE

Alfred Hitchcock's Rope

Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) is the only feature film shot in one continuous action and in real time (that is, the time of the plot is the same as the movie's duration).
    Despite the legend otherwise, there are several cuts in the film. Moreover, commercial television broadcasts would require commercial cuts.
    In the 1960s, French film director, Francois Truffaut discussed all of Hitchcock's films in a published book-length interview. He says,
    "In the history of cinema this [Rope] is the only instance in which an entire film has been shot with no interruption for the different camera setups."
    Truffaut neglects to point out that a cut does follow the murder of the young boy, David. Moreover, this cut is symbolic, since it separates the orderly world outside (we have just seen a car stopped to let pedestrians cross) from the criminal world inside, where there are no moral standards at all.
    But whether there are cuts in the film is a small point against the fact that the film is composed entirely of sequence shots, a rare and difficult achievement. That means all the camera moves and blocking had to be carefully planned, with movable walls and furniture to accommodate the many camera movements. Moreover, one mistake in the staging (a prop falling, a missed cue, wrong framing, etc.) meant a take of many minutes would have to be reshot at considerable cost.
    However a technical trick is one thing, an artistic achievement is another. Hitchcock's long takes involve the viewer in a continuous shift of sympathies: with the killers, with the teacher who humorous taught Nietzsche's idea of the superman, with the father of the dead child as he looks out the window hoping for his son's late arrival, with one of the killer's former girlfriends, etc. Rope shows a morally complex world where the killers, their teacher, and viewers themselves are involved in the "superior" murder of a college youth.
    Moreover, this superiority is a part of our culture in the form of education. Thus the rope used to hang the boy is also used to tie the books given to the boy's father; the killer is also a concert pianist; while the morally superior viewer enjoys some degree of sympathy with the killers, as when the maid comes close to exposing the dead body by clearing the casket in which the boy is entombed. Finally, the teacher who "stands by" his dignity is sitting down when he speaks those words, an example of how mise-en-scene can ironically set off dialogue.
    Despite the fact that Hitchcock thought his "experiment" a mistake, it's his constantly moving camera that links one idea to another in a way that editing could not have done, and which makes Rope a compelling viewing experience.
    For these reasons, students are encouraged to view Rope on their own.

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