"Rope" Hitchcock's transcendent skill demonstrated in one scene and one cut

One scene, one cut, real-time “illusion”

I'm suddenly taking back what I said, but technically Rope is not a one-scene, one-take film. At the time, film could only be shot for 10 minutes at a time, so when the film ended, they would have people cross the screen, turn it completely black, and connect the black areas to create a pseudo one-scene, one-take film. However, to get to those 10 minutes, meticulous filming plans and rehearsals were needed. Hitchcock said the following:

"It was really tough. Every little detail about the camera movements was calculated in advance and tested repeatedly. Because we used a mobile vehicle, we first drew the camera's path across the entire floor and then labeled it with small numbers to indicate the order, like a route guide. The cameraman simply moved the camera in the order of those numbers... We even attached small pulleys to the furniture so that it could be quickly moved aside in accordance with the camera's movements. The filming of this movie was truly a sight to behold!" (*)

"Rope" (c)Photofest / Getty Images

In addition, the walls of the set were also on rollers and could be removed freely. This made it easy to bring in and set up the camera. All of "Rope" was shot in a studio except for the opening credits, but in order to accommodate the very unique shooting method, ingenuity and ingenuity were used everywhere.

And, to retract my previous statement, this film is not real time either. The party scene takes up less than 40 minutes of the 80-minute running time. The view from the window, which seems to be daytime, quickly changes to evening, and by the end, it is completely dark. Time flows there in a "compressed" form as a film, different from reality.

The clouds seen from the apartment window are made of fiberglass. They are moved slightly each time the reel is replaced, creating the illusion that the "arbitrarily processed time" is real time. "Rope" is a one-scene, one-take film created by an "illusion," and a real-time suspense film created by an "illusion."

Hitchcock's transcendental skill highlighted by shackles