Notes on ROPE (1948) from Barry Yuen Posters from Barry Yuen’S Collection Are on Display in the Lobby

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Notes on ROPE (1948) from Barry Yuen Posters from Barry Yuen’s collection are on display in the Lobby. ROPE (1948) i s another experimental piece, based on a stage play. Apart from working within a single, confined setting (due to its stage origins) Hitchcock also hit on the idea of a movie done in one long, single take. He had to compromise because movie cameras could only hold one ten-minute reel of film at a time, so he attempted to “mask” the joins from one reel to another. This helps to create an illusion of one long take. The ten-minute takes were still an enormous challenge. If any mistakes were made, they would have to start over again. This eventually led to a blow-up from lead actor James Stewart, but Stewart would end up making three more films with Hitchcock. ROPE is based on the true crime case of Leopold & Loeb, who committed a murder just to see if they could get away with it. (The fact that we know their names means they didn’t.) The ending, where Stewart gets all self-righteous, feels like a cop-out. He denies all culpability in the crime, but it seems clear that he is very culpable, with all of his talk about “superior beings”. As with LIFEBOAT, Hitchcock had to find a novel way to make his traditional cameo appearance. Playing “Spot Hitchcock” can be a fun game. ROPE is also significant for being the first film Hitchcock made in colour. Cinematica Classic Film Series for Summer 2019 Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “The Murdering Mind” This Summer we’re presenting a career-spanning six-film selection of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies that explore one of the master’s favourite recurring story lines: murders that take place in everyday society, in which “normal” people discover the dark truth that someone close to them is a killer. This is a program for Hitchcock fans & true crime enthusiasts alike! The essential R ear Window (1954) kicks o this series, followed by Shadow of a Doubt (1943) (the filmmaker’s own favourite of his 53 films), one-shot-wonder Rope (1948) , style-defining silent T he Lodger (1927) featuring a Live Soundtrack by S pencer Evans, the impossibly clever Strangers on a Train (1951) and finally the “criminally”-underrated Frenzy (1972). Shadows, doubles, false accusations and dark humour will abound on Thursdays at 6pm through July & August. ● REAR WINDOW (1954) - Thursday July 18 @ 6pm ● SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943) - Thursday July 25 @ 6pm ● ROPE (1948) - Thursday August 1 @ 6pm ● THE LODGER (1927) + Live Soundtrack by Spencer Evans - Thursday August 8 @ 6pm ● STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951) - Thursday August 15 @ 6pm ● FRENZY (1972) - Thursday August 22 @ 6pm .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

LYNNE MACEDO Auteur and Author: a Comparison of the Works of Alfred Hitchcock and VS Naipaul
EnterText 1.3 LYNNE MACEDO Auteur and Author: A Comparison of the Works of Alfred Hitchcock and V. S. Naipaul At first glance, the subjects under scrutiny may appear to have little in common with each other. A great deal has been written separately about the works of both Alfred Hitchcock and V. S. Naipaul, but the objective of this article is to show how numerous parallels can be drawn between many of the recurrent ideas and issues that occur within their respective works. Whilst Naipaul refers to the cinema in many of his novels and short stories, his most sustained usage of the filmic medium is to be found in the 1971 work In a Free State. In this particular book, the films to which Naipaul makes repeated, explicit reference are primarily those of the film director Alfred Hitchcock. Furthermore, a detailed textual analysis shows that similarities exist between the thematic preoccupations that have informed the output of both men throughout much of their lengthy careers. As this article will demonstrate, the decision to contrast the works of these two men has, therefore, been far from arbitrary. Naipaul’s attraction to the world of cinema can be traced back to his childhood in Trinidad, an island where Hollywood films remained the predominant viewing fare throughout most of his formative years.1 The writer’s own comments in the “Trinidad” section of The Middle Passage bear this out: “Nearly all the films shown, apart from those in the first-run cinemas, are American and old. Favourites were shown again and Lynne Macedo: Alfred Hitchcock and V.
[Show full text]
Silent Films of Alfred Hitchcock
The Hitchcock 9 Silent Films of Alfred Hitchcock Justin Mckinney Presented at the National Gallery of Art The Lodger (British Film Institute) and the American Film Institute Silver Theatre Alfred Hitchcock’s work in the British film industry during the silent film era has generally been overshadowed by his numerous Hollywood triumphs including Psycho (1960), Vertigo (1958), and Rebecca (1940). Part of the reason for the critical and public neglect of Hitchcock’s earliest works has been the generally poor quality of the surviving materials for these early films, ranging from Hitchcock’s directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden (1925), to his final silent film, Blackmail (1929). Due in part to the passage of over eighty years, and to the deterioration and frequent copying and duplication of prints, much of the surviving footage for these films has become damaged and offers only a dismal representation of what 1920s filmgoers would have experienced. In 2010, the British Film Institute (BFI) and the National Film Archive launched a unique restoration campaign called “Rescue the Hitchcock 9” that aimed to preserve and restore Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent films — The Pleasure Garden (1925), The Lodger (1926), Downhill (1927), Easy Virtue (1927), The Ring (1927), Champagne (1928), The Farmer’s Wife (1928), The Manxman (1929), and Blackmail (1929) — to their former glory (sadly The Mountain Eagle of 1926 remains lost). The BFI called on the general public to donate money to fund the restoration project, which, at a projected cost of £2 million, would be the largest restoration project ever conducted by the organization. Thanks to public support and a $275,000 dona- tion from Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation in conjunction with The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the project was completed in 2012 to coincide with the London Olympics and Cultural Olympiad.
[Show full text]
A Formal Analysis of Hitchcock and the Art of Suspense in "Rear Window" Kevin S
Cinesthesia Volume 8 | Issue 1 Article 5 4-24-2018 Can I Have a Look?: A Formal Analysis of Hitchcock and the Art of Suspense in "Rear Window" Kevin S. Brennan Grand Valley State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cine Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Brennan, Kevin S. (2018) "Can I Have a Look?: A Formal Analysis of Hitchcock and the Art of Suspense in "Rear Window"," Cinesthesia: Vol. 8 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cine/vol8/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cinesthesia by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Brennan: Can I Have a Look?: Hitchcock, Suspense, and "Rear Window" Oscar Peterson was a jazz pianist active from the mid 1940s right up to when he died in 2007. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest and most influential pianists of all time. In Clint Eastwood’s documentary Piano Blues (Eastwood, 2003), produced by Martin Scorsese, Ray Charles is quoted saying “Oscar could play like a motherfucker!” A quick look at any one of a plethora of videos on the internet of him playing will illustrate just what Ray Charles meant in his colorfully insightful commentary on Oscar Peterson’s piano playing abilities; the man’s fingers truly were legendary. An observation of these famous fingers at work clearly displays the level of control one can have over the piano.
[Show full text]
"Sounds Like a Spy Story": the Espionage Thrillers of Alfred
University of Mary Washington Eagle Scholar Student Research Submissions 4-29-2016 "Sounds Like a Spy Story": The Espionage Thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock in Twentieth-Century English and American Society, from The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) to Topaz (1969) Kimberly M. Humphries Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.umw.edu/student_research Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Humphries, Kimberly M., ""Sounds Like a Spy Story": The Espionage Thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock in Twentieth-Century English and American Society, from The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) to Topaz (1969)" (2016). Student Research Submissions. 47. https://scholar.umw.edu/student_research/47 This Honors Project is brought to you for free and open access by Eagle Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Research Submissions by an authorized administrator of Eagle Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "SOUNDS LIKE A SPY STORY": THE ESPIONAGE THRILLERS OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SOCIETY, FROM THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934) TO TOPAZ (1969) An honors paper submitted to the Department of History and American Studies of the University of Mary Washington in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Departmental Honors Kimberly M Humphries April 2016 By signing your name below, you affirm that this work is the complete and final version of your paper submitted in partial fulfillment of a degree from the University of Mary Washington. You affirm the University of Mary Washington honor pledge: "I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this work." Kimberly M.
[Show full text]
Hitchcock's Appetites
McKittrick, Casey. "The pleasures and pangs of Hitchcockian consumption." Hitchcock’s Appetites: The corpulent plots of desire and dread. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 65–99. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 28 Sep. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501311642.0007>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 28 September 2021, 16:41 UTC. Copyright © Casey McKittrick 2016. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 3 The pleasures and pangs of Hitchcockian consumption People say, “ Why don ’ t you make more costume pictures? ” Nobody in a costume picture ever goes to the toilet. That means, it ’ s not possible to get any detail into it. People say, “ Why don ’ t you make a western? ” My answer is, I don ’ t know how much a loaf of bread costs in a western. I ’ ve never seen anybody buy chaps or being measured or buying a 10 gallon hat. This is sometimes where the drama comes from for me. 1 y 1942, Hitchcock had acquired his legendary moniker the “ Master of BSuspense. ” The nickname proved more accurate and durable than the title David O. Selznick had tried to confer on him— “ the Master of Melodrama ” — a year earlier, after Rebecca ’ s release. In a fi fty-four-feature career, he deviated only occasionally from his tried and true suspense fi lm, with the exceptions of his early British assignments, the horror fi lms Psycho and The Birds , the splendid, darkly comic The Trouble with Harry , and the romantic comedy Mr.
[Show full text]
'Rear Window' by British Director Alfred Hitchcock Was Released In
Rear Window The film ‘Rear Window’ by British director Alfred Hitchcock was released in 1954 during the director’s golden years in Hollywood. The film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly and Raymond Burr. ‘Rear Window’ tells the story of L.B ‘Jeff’ Jeffries, a wheelchair bound photojournalist confined to his apartment. In an attempt to relieve his boredom he begins watching the actions of his neighbours. This mindless activity turns gruesome when he becomes suspicious of his neighbour Thorwald and suspects he has killed his wife. With the help of his girlfriend Lisa and his nurse Stella, they resolve the case of Mrs Thorwald’s murder. Using the theme of voyeurism and his directing talents, Hitchcock draws the audience in and proves there is a nosy busybody within all of us. The opening sequence of the film is very effective as through a combination of camera shots, camera movement, music and mise-en-scene, Hitchcock manages to skilfully establish a number of key pieces of information about the film. In the opening sequence of Rear Window the audience is presented to a static shot of a three paned window covered with blinds. As the credits play, each blind is opened. This slow reveal is very much like the raising of the curtains at the beginning of a theatre performance. It captures the audience’s attention and creates a desire to see what happens next. It also relates to the theme of voyeurism in the plot, displayed in Jeffries’ observation of his neighbours out of these windows. The non-diegetic music playing is jazz, upbeat but dislocated.
[Show full text]
View Films of Alfred Hitchcock. Syllabus
RTF 370 Film Analysis and Criticism Topic: The Films of Alfred Hitchcock (Spring 2021) Professor: Thomas Schatz (CMA 6.120; [email protected]) Office hours: Monday and Wednesday, 3:30 - 5:00 pm, and by appointment. Teaching Assistant: Alex Brannan ([email protected]) Office hours: Tuesday, 12:00 - 1:30pm and by appointment The general plan for the class in the time of COVID: This is a “hybrid” course that initially is being conducted online (via Zoom) and in a “synchronous” mode – that is, with our class meetings held at the scheduled time (TTH, 9:30 - 10:45). We may convert to in-person class meetings later in the term, should the COVID situation improve and permit that much-desired adjustment. During this online phase, I expect you to attend (with your cameras on, please) and to participate. I will record our sessions for back-up purposes, but please plan to approach this as you would a regular on-campus UT class in terms of attendance and participation. All of the weekly screenings – both the required and recommended screenings – are available to you online. I also will be posting clips that I plan to use in class, which I will encourage you to screen before our class sessions. I’m also expecting you to conduct research for your final paper online, recognizing the obvious constraints due to the coronavirus. We will discuss research strategies throughout the semester, and especially during the latter half of the term. Course description: This course examines the career of Alfred Hitchcock, focusing on the films that he directed as well as the social, cultural and industrial conditions under which those films were produced.
[Show full text]
Print This Article
Strangers No More: The Initial Hitchcock Murder Vlad DIMA Union College, [email protected] Special Issue: 1 (2011) | ISSN 2158-8724 (online) | DOI 10.5195/cinej.2011.1 | http://cinej.pitt.edu Abstract This article analyzes the various levels of violence and graphic detail in the initial Hitchcock murder scenes. Through a detailed close reading of these scenes from Blackmail, Strangers on a Train, and Frenzy, I expose the different and increasing levels of intensity at which sadism functions throughout Hitchcock’s career, and I suggest that the audience is stuck at a one-stage sadistic level as opposed to the typical Freudian model. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Strangers no More: The Initial Hitchcock Murder If we compare murder scenes from distinct periods in Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre, we find a sharp gradation in the intensity of visual depiction from the first talkie, Blackmail (1929), to Strangers on a Train (1951), and to his penultimate film, Frenzy (1972), which essentially marks the end of the director’s career.1 We go from a long shot of curtains that hide the murder in the first film, to a paradoxical close-up of glasses with a small vignette reflection of the murder in the second, and we end with close-ups of the actual people, both the victim and the aggressor, in the third film.
[Show full text]
Chapter Five—Notorious (Hitchcock 1946)
Chapter Five—Notorious (Hitchcock 1946) Fig. 1 “I love you!” Here She Comes! Split POV Relax, hard-boiled, and listen Devlin’s Angle The Sleeping Beauty Global Image Stylized Drinks The Freudian scenario The Stairs Fatale Here She Comes! The film begins with a self-referential close-up of a newspaper photographer’s camera and flash attachment. The film’s camera begins to pull back as it simultaneously pans right and slowly tilts up revealing several cameras held by men in suits and hats with the camera ending on a close-up of the “United States District Court Southern District of Florida” sign above the door. A cut to a man peering through the courtroom door is replaced by his pov shot of the inside of the courtroom with Mr. John Huberman (Fred Nurney) internally framed and flanked by his attorneys as he threatens the United States and is then sentenced to twenty years. The peering man then announces, “Here she comes,” rather than the expected “here he comes,” and the reporters and photographers prepare to snap several shots of Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) as she exits the courtroom, interrogated by reporters who hound her with questions regarding her father’s treason. With her face cast in a femme fatale shadow by her fashionably large hat, the over-exposing light of the flashbulbs and the pestering questions soon startle her. Alicia tells Devlin during their first meeting: “I’m a marked woman you know.” It is not until the next morning when Devlin (Cary Grant) reveals a secret recording of her patriotic denouncing of her father (“We’ve had your bungalow wired for six months”) that we learn she is not the untrustworthy femme fatale traitor we are encouraged to suspect at the beginning of the film.
[Show full text]
Gone with the Wind and the Imagined Geographies of the American South Taulby H. Edmondson Dissertation Submitt
The Wind Goes On: Gone with the Wind and the Imagined Geographies of the American South Taulby H. Edmondson Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought Emily M. Satterwhite, Co-Chair David P. Cline, Co-Chair Marian B. Mollin Scott G. Nelson February 13, 2018 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: Gone with the Wind, Mass Media and History, US South, Slavery, Civil War, Reconstruction, African American History, Memory, Race Relations, Whiteness, Nationalism, Tourism, Audiences Copyright: Taulby H. Edmondson 2018 The Wind Goes On: Gone with the Wind and the Imagined Geographies of the American South Taulby H. Edmondson ABSTRACT Published in 1936, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind achieved massive literary success before being adapted into a motion picture of the same name in 1939. The novel and film have amassed numerous accolades, inspired frequent reissues, and sustained mass popularity. This dissertation analyzes evidence of audience reception in order to assess the effects of Gone with the Wind’s version of Lost Cause collective memory on the construction of the Old South, Civil War, and Lost Cause in the American imagination from 1936 to 2016. By utilizing the concept of prosthetic memory in conjunction with older, still-existing forms of collective cultural memory, Gone with the Wind is framed as a newly theorized mass cultural phenomenon that perpetuates Lost Cause historical narratives by reaching those who not only identify closely with it, but also by informing what nonidentifying consumers seeking historical authenticity think about the Old South and Civil War.
[Show full text]
Introduction to One of These Episodes, Hitchcock Informs the Audi- Ence That the Music Is Written Fi Rst, Then the Images and Story Are Found to Fi T It
1 I n t r o d u c t i o n K . J . D o n n e l l y a n d S t e v e n R a w l e or a decade from 1955, Alfred Hitchcock worked almost exclusively with F one composer: Bernard Herrmann. From Th e Trouble with Harry (1955) to the bitter spat surrounding Torn Curtain (1966), the partnership gave us some of cinema’s most memorable musical moments, taught us to stay out of the shower, away from heights and never to spend time in corn fi elds. Consequently, fascina- tion with their work and relationship endures fi ft y years later. Th is book brings together new work and new perspectives on the relationship between Hitchcock and Herrmann. Featuring chapters by leading scholars of Hitchcock’s work, the volume examines the working relationship between the two and the contribu- tion that Herrmann’s work brings to Hitchcock’s idiom, as well as expanding our understanding of how music fi ts into that body of work. Th e goal of these analyses is to explore approaches to sound, music, collaborative authorship and the dis- tinctive contribution that Herrmann brought to Hitchcock’s fi lms. Consequently, the book examines these key works, with particular focus on what Elisabeth Weis ( 1982 : 136) called ‘the extrasubjective fi lms’ – Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), Th e Birds (1963) – and explores Herrmann’s palpable role in shaping the sonic and musical landscape of Hitchcock’s work, which, the volume argues, has a consider- able transformative eff ect on how we understand Hitchcock’s authorship.
[Show full text]
And Rear Window (1998)
DISABLED BY DESIRE: BODY DOUBLES IN “REAR WINDOW” (1942), REAR WINDOW (1954), AND REAR WINDOW (1998). NANCY STEFFEN-FLUHR In the coded world of the classical Hol- free. It enables the fantasy that there is a lywood cinema, the figure of the ‘disabled’ posthuman escape from “the meat world,” body is always a double body. Especially as William Gibson has phrased it.1 In short, the disabled male body. Haunted by its if there were no disabled people, Holly- uncanny partner, the ‘normal’ body, it is wood would have to invent them (as, in- chained forever to its own doppelganger. deed, it has). Indeed, it is the very spectacle of the dis- Most of the pioneering work on disabil- abled body that creates the spectral ‘normal ity in the cinema has focused on the creation body’ in the first place, as negative space of stigmatizing stereotypes and the nega- creates form. The latter cannot exist with- tive relation of these stereotypes to the ac- out the former. tual life experiences of people who are es- The disabled body (as an abelist fan- pecially challenged by disabilities. (All of us tasy figure) is constructed by an act of have disabilities, but there is a difference in semiotic dismemberment. It is marked as an degree that is a difference in kind, socio- assembly of parts, each of which is vulner- politically.) For example, Martin Norden in able to failure or amputation—an assembly his 1994 book, The Cinema of Isolation, dis- being held together by fetish magic. This tinguishes ten specific disabled character marking and fetishizing creates a fictional types that have evolved over the years in un-marked able body which passes as a Hollywood films, from the Comic Mis- seamless whole.
[Show full text]