Leonardo Yagerman

1/4/2022
Reaction Paper
Rope
1)Narrative
The story starts in an apartment in New York during the 1940s after the war. We see a shot of
the street where people are just crossing and living a normal life, the time is around 5:30 pm.
We later transition to the apartment and hear David Kentley scream, then the camera focuses
on the action and there is Brandon and Philip who are strangling David with a rope. They kill
him and put him inside a chest/cassone, the reaction of each of them to this event is very
different from one another, Philip can’t believe it and is shocked that he made this while
Brandon is happy and excited about having done an artistic work. Once they speak a little bit
about their feelings, they begin setting the table for a party they are throwing in a couple of
minutes, when their maid arrives with some food for the party and starts helping them.
Brandon gets a wicked idea to set the table in the living room on top of the chest that is
hosting the dead body of David, but Philip believes it is a terrible idea and begins to panic
which he does throughout the entire film. After setting the table and Brandon believing it is
the final touch to his masterpiece the guests start to arrive, first comes Kenneth and they all
chat for some time before the other guests arrive. After that Janet arrives at the party and
starts talking and socializing with everyone, one thing worth noting is everyone’s surprise at
being served champagne, everyone wonders what the occasion is but when you look behind
Brandon’s lies, he is celebrating his “masterwork” of killing a person. Also, every person that
arrives at the apartment starts questioning the whereabouts of David Kentley, mostly his
parents. When Mr. Kentley arrives he is a little curious about the location of his son but
doesn’t give too much importance in the beginning because he says that he is a grown man so
he must be alright. The final guest to arrive is Rupert Cadell, Brandon’s, Philip’s, and
David’s ex-professor of philosophy, this man was one of the biggest influences in Brandon’s
mentality due to one statement by an extremist philosopher, this professor believed in the
statement that said: “murder is an art reserved only for the superior, it shall only be practiced
by the superior on the inferior beings”. Once everybody arrived and start socializing and
having a good time, everyone keeps wondering where David is and Philip keeps panicking
more and more throughout the evening, so he keeps drinking and drinking more just to kill
those nerves, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t help at all. There are some important
moments in the conversations, for example when they start discussing the theory that both
Brandon and Rupert agree on and Mr. Kentley is disgusted by it so then Brandon decides to
show him the books he had separated for him to see in the dining room. After quite some
time everyone decides to leave when it had become night time, but Rupert had been having
some suspicions on what could have happened to David, the moment that made him realize
that he had been killed was when he was leaving and got handed David’s hat by accident
instead of his. So after seeing this and having that suspicion he decides to go up again to the
apartment and confront them, after trying to get information out of them, Brandon spills the
whole truth out after Philip had gone crazy and started screaming. So Rupert goes and opens
the chest sees the body and becomes disgusted by Brandon. Just after this Rupert disarms
Philip and fires some gunshots out of the window to alert the police. The end.
2)Character Map
David Kentley: A good-hearted ex-classmate of Brandon, Philip, and Kenneth. He is set to
marry Janet; he is also a tennis player but not very intellectual according to Brandon.
Brandon Shaw: He is a narcissistic psychopath, that hides his true intentions with his
undeniable charisma. He truly believes he is superior and commits murder alongside Philip.
He maintains his relationships with everyone there even though he shouldn’t due to his
intentions to make pranks and psychological misunderstandings on everyone else.
Philip Morgan: He is Brandon’s accomplice that goes on with this plan even though he is
clearly not like Brandon and doesn’t agree with it completely. He struggles deeply to
maintain his emotions together throughout the party but submits himself to Brandon’s actions
and orders.
Rupert Cadell: He is the former housemaster of all of these young guys, he is the one
responsible for exposing Brandon and Philip to Nietzsche’s ideas and philosophies about
murder being an art and the superiority of the killer. Although he agrees with all of this, he is
later disgusted that this philosophy truly inspired one of his former students to commit this
cold-blooded act and enjoy it this much.

3)Three Quotes
“Let’s stay like this for a moment” Philip
This quote is said by Philip once the deed is done but he still doesn’t believe it and is in
shock. But this also can mean the relationship that Philip and Brandon share, they are a
couple but due to the censorship of the time, Hitchcock hid the relationship with a lot of
wordplay and allusions inside the dialogue.
“Personally I would like there to be perhaps a cut the throat week… or strangulation day,”
This line Rupert says when they are all enjoying their meals and Brandon decided to bring the
subject forward about Nietzsche’s ideals, but yet again in this dialogue there is wordplay
being used with the occurrence of the killing of David Kentley.
“Brandon: I knew you’d understand because you have to, you have to don’t you see
…
Rupert: You’ve tried to twist them into a cold logical excuse for your ugly murder.”
This is the moment that Brandon enlightens Rupert with his intentions to live by the
philosophy, but Brandon expected Rupert to understand and be happy but in reality he is
disgusted. This is the key moment when all expectation for the end is destroyed by Rupert’s
words, there is a very tense build-up and Rupert’s words make us feel Brandon’s internal
destruction.
4)Discussion of the film
All in all, the film is great after many years, when it had come out the film was categorized as
a box office disaster by the audience and the critics. I believe it is a great story innovative in
many ways, it is unique in the style of filming with the incredibly long takes and with the
concept of a story happening in real-time with us following each aspect of the story with the
setting never changing. Everything develops inside of this apartment from the killing to the
party to finally being caught. Another thing really worth mentioning is the cleverness and
brilliance inside of the dialogue, there is wordplay and complicated development of the story
throughout the whole film but at the same time, it is very easy to follow. This is incredibly
difficult to achieve and Hitchcock with his crew achieved it. The brilliance of the dialogue
shines when you understand the deep context of the time with the censorship and how
Hitchcock instills dialogue that suggests many relationships and jokes that would normally be
banned from any movie but in plain sight, there is nothing to be seen. Like Brandon and
Philp’s relationship, in the dialogue, there are many lines that insinuate that both are in a gay
relationship, but it is not seen as evident thanks to the dialogue. Also, something not so
hidden is the many jokes about strangling and choking. All of this and more is something that
seems evident but normal at the same time, it is a weird concept to explain but it just shows
the director’s genius when creating his work.