Rope

Alfred Hitchcock’s first film in colour, and first with frequent leading man Jimmy Stewart, was this audacious experiment in the use of the long take and real time. Based on the notorious Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s, Rope stars John Dall and Farley Granger as university chums (and barely-disguised gay lovers) who set out to prove their Nietzschean superiority by slaying a friend. The film is composed of eight uncut ten-minute takes (the maximum length of a reel of 35mm film stock), invisibly edited together to look like a single, continuous 80-minute shot. The real-time action unfolds over the course of a dinner party, in the very room where the still-fresh corpse has been concealed. Stewart plays the murderous pair's former philosophy professor. The technical challenge was enormous; Rope is a stunning feet of elaborately planned camera movement and carefully choreographed actors, set against a dazzling backdrop which replicates 35 miles of New York City skyline in miniature. It is also well acted and ghoulishly funny. “A virtuoso piece of technique . . . a perverse, provocative entertainment" (Geoff Andrew, Time Out). Colour, 35mm. 80 mins.

+ Two Additional Screenings! 
Sunday, October 17 — 7:00 & 8:40 pm