Whose side are you on?
What challenged me most about rope was the sheer gut
wrenching tension. All it took was one person to make one seemingly innocuous
comment, or for the maid to start clearing space on the body laden chest to
have my stomach in knots. Tension is nothing new, but this was different. I
wasn’t worrying that the bad guys were about to kill the hero, I wasn’t worried
that the monster was about to get the girl and I wasn’t worried that the hole
in the spaceship was going to suffocate everyone, I was worried that the
murderers were going to be found out and that the perfect murder would no
longer be perfect and that worried me. Am I a sociopath who thought that the
perfection of the crime was more important than justice?
Fortunately, I’m not, but that then leaves the question of
how a film has had me worried that two murderers were going to get caught. How
had one film, in less than 80 minutes have me rooting for ‘the bad guys’, and
if one film could do that, what influence had every other film I had ever seen
have over me?
“Nobody ever feels really safe in the dark”
Every film has an ideology, a ‘Representation of the
Imaginary Relationship of Individuals to their Real Conditions of Existence’,
and during the films run time that ideology will be played out to you. Whether
that is the ideology of the writer, director, actor, producer, composer or
anyone else involved each film has an ideology. Some films you will watch and
something will jar with you; you may see a character defend capitalism when you
yourself think it is malicious system of greed and control, or you may see a
story with strong religious overtones that you fundamentally reject (as was the
case for films like Book of Eli, which
many people rejected on that basis).
On the other hand, you may see a film that either affirms, or presents, an
ideology you hold or agree with (I for one would gladly see Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life driven out of town
with pitchforks). Either way, each film hold an ideology and what Rope appears to do is test your own
ideologies and moral code.
In the film’s beginning you are shown a man get strangled
with a piece of rope and dumped into a wooden chest. It is a brutal act of
murder and unflinchingly shown in all its aftermath. But what plays out afterwards
are all the finishing touches of bravado that pulls in the film’s viewer and
entrances with its sheer audacity. Each murderous reference is almost
applaudable in its blatancy and sheer daring, the lengthily discussion of
permissible murder with the victims father is near heroic in bravery and the
invitation of the one man who would either complete, or ruin, the perfect crime
is the finishing touch on the whole affair.
“It isn’t someones birthday is it?”
“Don’t look so worried Kenneth. It’s almost the opposite”
I was so enamoured by the audacity of Phillip and (mostly)
Brandon and their flouncing of the crime that I didn’t want them to fail. I
didn’t want the murderers caught and for the next hour each close call leaves
me with knots, but the films saving moral compass is found in Philosophy
professor Rupert Cadell who was Brandon’s inspiration for the crime through his
lectures and lessons on death and art and ideology.
“He thinks murder is a crime for most men but…”
“…a
privilege for the few”
One mans ideology manifest into physical action and that
ideology is of the value of people and the chances for manipulation of ‘lower’
people in the name of high ideals. He (Cadell)
is, in a way, in the same position as the regular cinemagoer. We cheer when the
good guy wipes out scores of the bad guys goons, we punch our fists in the air
when the death star it destroyed, we are satisfied when average people are
saved by the violent deaths of the bad guys who threaten their innocent
existence. At some point we have all condoned murder on celluloid and agreed
that it is ok because they are ‘bad guys’ who are being killed. The BBFC and
the MPAA would much easily give a lower rating to a film where hundreds dies
than a film where two people have sex. When did sex become more offensive than
death?* Murder in theory, and film, is apparently ok as no one really dies so
can we really be blamed when it manifests. Can we really blame films, and not
the cinematic culture of moral warping, when someone sees an act of violence
and thinks its ok to recreate because they see themselves as ‘the good guy’?
“He and I have lived what you and I have talked”
It the films finale (spoilers) Cadell states that there is
something deep inside Brandon and not inside himself that is to blame for the
murder. He now has to live with the shame of enabling the murder, he is the
reason that Brandon did what he did and he now has a debt to society, but do we
have a debt for the current cinematic culture?
This is an argument that has gone on for decades and will do
for many, many, more years. Just check out any interview with Quentin Tarantino
and a news reporter to see how heated this question can get. As viewer we need
to not be so blankly accepting of this, or any other cinematic ideology, and
instead think about our own views, morals and codes that govern our lives and weigh
up how much of those are influenced by what we see on the silver screen.
Finally, remember to spare a thought for those storm troopers
on that death star when you watch Star
Wars, and pity the guard to the volcano lair in You Only Live Twice, it may not be their fault they couldn’t get
better work after all.
*Scores of books have been
written on subjects like this and as such, I have no intention of answering
this unanswerably large question
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