"We agreed that there was was only one crime either of us could commit, the crime of making a mistake. Being weak is a mistake."--Brandon
It's a relatively short film by Hollywood standards, but Hitchcock's
Rope has all the elements you want in a good suspense story.
In the very first minute of the film two friends--Brandon and Philip--strangle a third friend David Kentley with a rope and hide his body in a chest. This takes place just minutes before the first guests are slated to arrive for a party that will take place in this very room, with David's body right there in their New York City apartment. The guests include David's father, his fiancee Janet and, most significantly, their former college housemaster Rupert Cadell, played by Jimmy Stewart.
I'd seen the film several times over the course of my life, but current events stirred me to want to see it again.
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The set itself had moving walls that could be adjusted as the camera rolled.
The body of David was placed inside the chest where the feast was spread
there in the foreground. |
One of the interesting features of several Hitchcock films in this period of his career was the attempt to create a confined space where all the action takes place.
Lifeboat was such an endeavor as was
Rear Window, with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly, his most successful. The former takes place in a lifeboat, the latter in an apartment overlooking the open courtyard of an apartment complex. The characters in the lifeboat are stuck in the ocean, the main character in
Rear Window is bedridden after badly breaking his femur.
What I find interesting in the Wikipedia account regarding
Rope is how much of the discussion has to do with the manner in which it was produced and the critical reception (lukewarm) with little real investigation into what I consider the most significant aspect of this film: the philosophical issue that generated this situation.
When the young men were in college there had been philosophical discussions about Nietzsche's Übermensch and De Quincey's A
rt of Murder, which they interpreted like this. In Nietzsche's argument, the rules that apply to the "common herd" do not apply to the superior men. Combine that with De Quincey's notion that murder can be a work of art and you've got the setup for the murder of David Kentley.
For Brandon, the killing was exhilarating, and indeed an artistically executed masterpiece of design. Philip, on the hand, immediately begins inwardly crumbling, cognizant that this idea in theory was absurd to carry out.
Brandon has the time of his life bringing candles, plates, food and silverware to the living room and placing them directly on the chest with the body in it. The irony here is that the conversation keeps returning to the corpse, or rather, to why David is late to his own party. (Inside joke: he is not absent.)
Though the other guests seem to be oblivious to the clues, Rupert can see that Brandon and Philip are behaving oddly, each in their own way. Philip is drinking heavily and stressing out, Brandon is exhibiting a certain bravado as if he just conquered San Juan Hill.
Brandon even dares to start a discussion on this topic. "I've always wished for more artistic talent. Well, murder can be an art, too. The power to kill can be just as satisfying as the power to create."
David's mother laughs it off, and a little verbal tussle passes between a few of the guests but it's just another passing moment.
As the guests depart, Rupert Cadell takes a fedora out of the closet thinking it his, but then sees the initials D.K. inside the hat. His suspicions are confirmed that something fishy had been going on, but he leaves without saying anything so that he can return to confront the young men with no one else around.
When he returns, Brandon doesn't want to take any chances and pockets a pistol, just in case. As Chekhov famously instructed, you don't put a pistol into the story unless you're going to use it.
The dialogue here is instructive, I believe.
Brandon: Ideas of right and wrong are for the intellectually inferior and don't apply to the intellectually superior.
Rupert: You've given my words a meaning I never dreamed of. Tonight you've made me ashamed of every concept I've ever had of superior or inferior beings. By what right did you feel you deserve to be superior. You've murdered, you've strangled the life out of someone who loved.
Rupert is stunned, horrified and deeply ashamed, realizing that Brandon and Phillip used his own rhetoric to rationalize this senseless act.
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| The gig is up. (L to R) John Dall, Jimmy Stewart, Farley Granger |
Rupert disavows all his previous talk of superiority and inferiority, and after a struggle he acquires the gun and shoots the two young men. No, just kidding. He does manage to secure the gun though and uses it to fire three shots out the window to attract attention. As the police arrive--we hear sirens approaching outside--Rupert sits on a chair next to the chest, Phillip begins to play the piano and Brandon continues to drink.
APPLICATION
I have been thinking a lot about the riots and violence taking place these past two months. I've tried to understand what's going on, why so many people are calling for revolution. I'm fully cognizant that so many of our systems are broken, and understand the criticisms. It is the notion of total revolution that concerns me. I don't believe it is rhetoric. When I read what many of the protesters are writing on Twitter and Reddit, they seem quite serious that their intent is nothing less than overthrowing the whole kit and caboodle. And I believe I understand why (to some extent).
When I was in high school, the team teachers in our U.S. History class did something quite intriguing. They taught U.S. history from the point of view of those who were disenfranchised (the indigenous peoples), and how we acquired lands from Mexico, France, Spain through various wars and ventures. We learned about manipulations and machinations, how Southern wealth was created by the utilization of slave labor, all justified with platitudes.
Turning everything around may have been useful and important, but the 50 years reiteration of this pattern of talk, when overindulged, leaves citizens more ashamed of their country than proud and fails to produce any vestige of patriotic feeling if taken too much to heart.
The net result is a generation that can feel like this: "There's nothing worth defending here. Let the Revolution begin. Let them overthrow this heap of dung."
But is that really what our teachers and academics wanted? Many may well have had quite patriotic feelings, but were seeking to put a perspective on things so we are more humble about our history. Like Rupert, they were discussing ideas, but not really anticipating the consequences. "You're giving my words meanings I never dreamed of," Rupert says to Brandon at one point.
America has helped more people and nations than any nation in history. The whole notion of re-building the economies of countries who fought against you in wars is historically unheard of. How many countries have started a Peace Corps to help impoverished nations in other corners of the world?
Of all the critics, I won't say I have been foremost, but I admit I've been one who's been vocal. I do not believe in "My country right or wrong." The Old Testament prophets were compelled to speak when their leaders were out of alignment with justice and doing what was right. I've never believed in the notion that a revolution would be nothing less than a disaster. I'm old fashioned but "if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."
I share all this because I believe America, specifically the ideals upon which it was imperfectly founded, is worth defending. Destruction is always easier than building something new. There will never be a perfect world, but we can all try to contribute to make this one better.
EPILOGUE
Whereas this film is just a story, it reflects events that have happened in real life. Progressive intellectuals in the 20s and 30s felt that something needed to be done to purify the human race, to clean up the gene pool. Through aggressive lobbying they managed to get eugenics laws passed in 33 states. This bit of our history was all documented. 66,000 people were sterilized, some for as senseless a thing as being a runaway.
How much of what is going on in the global lockdown is the result of a larger chess game being played by power players? What are the belief systems currently at war in all this multi-layered hotbed of conflicting interpretations of events on all sides? What's really going on?
Related Links
Bad Ideas: The Eugenics Movement In America
Eugenics, Revisited
He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People
