"Rope" analysis

During this blog I’m going to be analysing the film "Rope". The film "Rope" was produced in 1948 in the United States of America. The genre that the film is based on is a thriller. Also, the director of this film is Alfred Hitchcock and the writers of this film were adapted by Hume Cronyn from Patrick Hamilton play. Likewise, the dialogue was done by Arthur Laurents. Also, the people that where the main stars in the film were James Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger.

Firstly, the trailer is important for the audience to see before viewing the actual film due to the fact that it will give them a brief idea of what it is about and it will make them want to watch the film as the trailer always spells some of the story and therefore it makes the audience want to know more about the film. The trailer is effective because it gives the effect of a cliff hanger. For example: when the man looks into the box and he shows extremely shocked facial expressions. Also, the trailer is showing the audience some of the main parts of the film and therefore the audience will want to watch all of the film due to the fact that if the audience have already seen some of the main parts of the film then they will be intrigued to watch the rest. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NLsbzhOEHg)

Secondly, in the opening scene it starts of with a gentle bright sunny day and the colours shown are not represented to indicate danger. Also, the music being played at the beginning of the play is non-diegetic as the characters within the play cannot hear it. However the music is slow and deep as it builds up tension and represents that there will be danger. Correspondingly, as the scene continues it stops and stares at a window. When looking at the window you hear a voice scream. The sound is then diegetic and it shows that something has happened to a person within the play. Likewise, the sound of the screaming comes from a man being strangled to death by two men and they are using a 'Rope'. When the two people are strangling the man the colour of the scene is very dark and this represents danger. Also, the two men that are strangling the man are both using brown leather gloves. Both of the men were using brown leather gloves, this shows that they are both killing the man together and have set him up. Start after the two men have killed the man one begins to speak to the other man and asks him to open the box, therefore the sound is diegetic. Moreover, the two men put the dead body in the box and the at this point the music then changes to a very threatening powerful off screen sound that represents that something bad has happened. Soon after the man in the navy blue suit starts to talk to his partner and he then turns on the light. However his partner finds it hard to talk and tells him not to put on the light. The person in the brown suit says "lets stay this way for a minuet". This indicates that he is scared and is tired. We can tell this because after they killed the man they were both breathing very heavy. As soon as they both calmed down one of the men began to light a cigarette as if nothing had ever happened. This shows that the man was behaving like an ordinary man as he was smoking a cigarette. As the man in the navy blue suit is smoking he stops and begins to talk to his partner and dialogue is used for this to show conversation between the two killers. The opening scene ends with the man in the navy blue suit opening the curtains in the room that they are in to brighten up the place and make them fell better. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJo5ih2HkxE)

Thirdly, the background context for 'Rope' is adapted from Patrick Hamilton's 1929 play which itself was said to be based on the grisly Leopold and Loeb case of 1924. Also, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were upper-class Chicago law students who murdered of a teenage boy. Furthermore, similar to snobbish Brandon and Philip in the Hitchcock film, the real life murderers considered themselves 'Nietzschean' supermen whose superiority of intellect exempted them from laws that govern the rest of us. Likewise, "good and evil, right and wrong were invited for the ordinary normal man, the inferior man, because he needs them," claims Brandon, the deluded mastermind of the murder.

Finally, thriller conventions within 'Rope' are used. Also, devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliffhangers are used extensively within the film rope. For example: a cliffhanger is used right at the very end of the film when all the men are sitting in the room waiting for the police to come. Additionally, there are certain thriller conventions that are used in 'Rope' such as Dramatic irony for example: when the audience know that the person has been killed by the two killers and the other people in the scene don't. This wouldn't be more effective if the audience didn't know because this way the audience would are interested in finding out whether the two killers get caught or get away with the murder. 'Rope' was done by 'Technical Features'. Hitchcock wanted to film a 'Continuous play'. Also, 'Rope' pretends to be a one-shot film, also known as: an experiment in real-time. Equally Hitchcock filmed this is ten minuet sequence which is efficient. However, it made it harder for the film makers to make the film as they would have had to add colour to it and this would have token a lot of time. Also, another technique that is used by Hitchcock is this method of editing part of the film's 'Claustrophobic strength'. For example: the coffin/chest is very rarely out of shot and the camera follows the actors around every square inch of the confined set. Therefore, the actors are trapped and so is the audience.