If you give someone enough...well, you know the rest

One of the many joys of having a spouse is that they prompt you to do things you wouldn't normally do. I, for example, would not normally watch another Hitchcock film, having been unimpressed with both North by Northwest and Vertigo. In this case, however, the issue was a film my husband had only seen the end of, so when he found it at the library, he was eager to watch. He told me, very seriously and knowing my feelings toward Hitchcock, that he believed I'd enjoy it. He was right. (One of the other joys of having a spouse: they get to know you pretty well.)

The film in question is Rope (1948), starring John Dall, Farley Granger, and James Stewart, and based on the 1929 stage play Patrick Hamilton. In the tradition of The Tell-Tale Heart, Rope is a murder mystery wherein the question is not "Who did it?" but "Who will find out? And how?" It opens with Ivy-league students Brandon (Dall) and Phillip (Granger) strangling classmate David to death and hiding his body in a storage chest in Brandon's living room, roughly fifteen minutes prior to the party Brandon is about to host. We learn right away two things: one, that they killed him for philosophy (more on that later) and excitement (can they get away with it?), and two, that guileless, dominant psychopath Brandon enjoys playing puppet master to confused, conflicted Phillip, a young man who seems to have no foundation of his own. Soon, the guests arrive, carefully determined by Brandon's malicious sense of humour and desire to manipulate. We have David's father, the guest of honour, invited to view and borrow some rare first-edition books. We have David's imminent fiancee, Janet, and her most recent ex, Kenneth, whom Brandon (also a Janet ex) feels is far more worthy than David. We have Brandon, Phillip, and David's former prep school housemaster (old-school talk for dorm RD), Rupert (James Stewart), whose teachings inspired Brandon and Phillip's crime, and whom Brandon seeks to either fool or impress. And, hovering above all the conversations that range from normal and inane (don't you think James Mason is sexy?) to frightening (murder is an art form!), there is the constant speculation amongst the guests on why David hasn't arrived yet.

I've never had a problem with James Stewart, I've just never thought he warranted his high level of fame. His performance here, in one of his least-known films, is enough to warrant it. As the boys former mentor, we see him transform from a carelessly flippant and arrogant intellectual to a desperate man wondering what he's wrought (and frantically trying to distance himself from it) as his suspicions, and horror, increase. He demonstrates himself to the party crowd as a high-and-mighty intellectual, but we also see, through his prodding conversations with poor terrified Phillip, why he was their most influential mentor, as he genuinely cares for the boys. This performance can be described in a way I never thought I'd describe James Stewart: subtle. It's fantastic, has a marvelous flow, and ties the whole film together.

On the more serious side of things, Rope's theme of the power of careless words led me to some hard thinking. Rupert, in his housemaster days, had shared with Brandon and Phillip his philosophy of superiority, which can be summed up as such: morals and ethics are for the common man, not the privileged few who are the true intellectuals, the Nieztche-esque supermen who stand apart and need no such governance. Taking it one step further, Rupert posited that murder should be rightly reserved for those same privileged few, as an art for which only the intellectual can properly govern, as a means to eliminate useless people. You might be thinking, "what a ridiculous, unrealistic premise for a story!" I might be thinking that too, had I not seen, met, and read articles by academics who at least take the first part of Rupert's philosophy very, very seriously. So let's get that out of the way: this is a realistic idea and premise on which to base the tale. But back to the core of the matter. When Rupert realizes what his words have wrought, he tries with all his might to distance himself from them, to insist it's crazy for Brandon to have interpreted them in this way, to put the full blame for what's happened on the boys. Here, we see a man as scared as he is foolish - he seems to have truly believed that sharing such a philosophy during late-night, dormitory, mentor-student bonding chats, would have no real influence on the students in question. It's a powerful portrait of the academic who sits in his proverbial ivory tower, bandying about words with vigor, considering nothing of their practical application in the world outside school walls. Most importantly, this film made me think about my own guilt in these matters. As the film concluded, I thought of the biblical warning that at the end of days, every idle word will be accounted for. As anyone who reads this blog has noticed, I through around a lot of idle words, and am convicted with the guilt of having thrown around a lot of words in a careless fashion. The consequences of Rupert's careless words are extreme - but that doesn't mean that mine don't have consequences of their own. It was very good that I saw this film.

Surprisingly, the same critics or publications who think that North by Northwest is the cat's pyjamas have no love for Rope. In doing some research to see how the film's been received, if found that everyone from Time to Variety to the venerable Roger Ebert is of the opinion that Rope is "a thin excercise in suspense", a "story of meager range", a fluff melodrama whose only value is as an experimental film (in reference to the editing used to create the illusion of no cuts in the real-time film). I suppose if you know that a film has something gimmicky about it, it's easy to dismiss the parts that aren't a gimmick - besides, critics and gimmicks don't typically get along. I also wonder if part of the poor reception is due to the fact that critics are, essentially, professional philosophers and wordsmiths, and Rope is an especially cautionary tale for ones such as they. No one likes to consider ugly truths.

I've had a lot of good experiences with plays translated to film. Proof, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhall, is fantastic, as is the original Sleuth, starring Michael Caine and Sir Laurence Olivier. Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth, remains the only piece of absurdist theatre I've found to be worthwhile (and entertaining to boot!). Rope is quite welcome among these, and I do hope that you're able to find and watch this searing, skillfull, important film.