― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 14 February 2003 06:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
― naked as sin (naked as sin), Friday, 14 February 2003 14:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
Shirley Maclaine is georgeous in it though.
― Pete (Pete), Friday, 14 February 2003 14:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 14 February 2003 16:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― naked as sin (naked as sin), Friday, 14 February 2003 19:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 14 February 2003 19:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― naked as sin (naked as sin), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
I think Rope, as often as it is dismissed as a one-off experiment, is underrated, especially the way Hitchcock makes the homosexual lovers angle subtly apparent. Farley Granger was the bitch, no?
Shadow of a Doubt was my early favorite, but I still personally like Rebecca best, even though (has this been said yet?), it could be argued that it was more of a David O Selznick "production" picture than a Hitchcockian one. He himself suggests as much in the Truffaut book. I thought Paradine Case, as much as I stayed awake for, was definitely a dud (and no one in the lead could save such a script) but I quite like Stage Fright, another one everyone typically moans about. Dietrich = delightful divadom
Suspicion was precisely a dud because of its studio-sanctioned ending. Interesting but useless trivia: Hitch put a small lightbulb in that glass of milk to make it glow up like that.
I think Vertigo is his unassailable masterpiece (Psycho is easier to critique), but imo Strangers on a Train is the most underrated Hitch, as far as I remember. Even though it falls under "light Hitchcock," as opposed to "dark," not a single minute lacks entertainment value. But I have to see it again.
― Vic (Vic), Saturday, 15 February 2003 06:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Saturday, 15 February 2003 17:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sean (Sean), Saturday, 15 February 2003 17:40 (twenty-one years ago) link
Family Plot underrated? Please. Why is it rated at all? Let's see, is there even the remotest possibility that a film with both Bruce Dern and Karen Black in it could be watchable?
― Candidia, Saturday, 15 February 2003 17:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
No Hitchcock film sits "squarely" in a light category, and Strangers on a Train has complex subtexts, as vitually all of his work. But on the whole, compared to his other man-on-the-run films, it's more along the side of North by Northwest and Saboteur in the lighter, wittier half of his catalog rather than the darker films with the similar narrative theme, such as Frenxy or The Wrong Man.
― Vic (Vic), Sunday, 16 February 2003 02:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Joe (Joe), Sunday, 16 February 2003 03:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
I think Rope was deliberately stagy (as was the lesser Lifeboat, another formal experiment) to a point, but I agree that Hitchcock does not quite "solve" the problem of shooting in unedited long takes. Actually he applies some similar techniques much more effectively in Under Capricorn--a film he could only have made after trying trying them out in Rope. UC is shot entirely in long takes (none 8+ minutes, but quite a few 3+) but without foregrounding that decision as noisily as Rope.
― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 16 February 2003 06:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 16 February 2003 06:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
Rope is indeed a deliberate formal experiment; it's meant to be stagy. That doesn't make it good, and it doesn't make the experiment successful. Unless the point was to make a stagy-looking film. That he had an explicit, conscious idea (granted, already more than most directors), and executed it as precisely to plan as the production process allows--there are no auteurs--doesn't keep the background from looking like a grammer school diarama. The performances by the killers are unmotivated, and the diaglogue, although witty, is stilted. That's not a receipt for a great film, regardless of how few cuts there were, how elaborate the lighting changes are, and how complicated the camera choreography is.
Hollywood has never felt particularly in debt to the theatre--unlike early Continental cinema--and that's generally been a strength. The media are in most respects unrelated. Even European film got over this perceived link pretty quickly.
One of the (utterly true) cliches in the film world is the importance of casting (,casting, casting). Cary Grant is just brilliant. So is Jimmy Stewart. Farley Granger isn't. I'm just not convinced that H. coaxed these performances out; he was lucky when they were good, but indifferent when they weren't.
― Candidia, Sunday, 16 February 2003 07:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
Well part of Hollywood being "Hollywood" is the directors of the 00s and 10s and 20s trying to cast off their inevitable borrowings from the theater--the low theater and, sometimes, that high theater too. The anxiety of influence, etc. See a book called Eloquent Gestures to see how this played out on the level of acting styles.
Candidia, I agree that Rope is not a complete success. What I was saying that he perhaps foregrounded the technical feat of unedited takes at the expensive of the fluidity in performance style that he had achieved in earlier films. I still think it's an awesome achievement in itself, but UC is a more successful integration of dramaturgy/mise en scene.
― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 16 February 2003 07:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 16 February 2003 07:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Candidia, Sunday, 16 February 2003 07:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 05:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 05:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 8 January 2004 18:40 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 8 January 2004 18:41 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 8 January 2004 19:00 (twenty years ago) link
*use other features please.
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 8 January 2004 19:01 (twenty years ago) link
Okay, what I perhaps SHOULD have said that was for all it's supposed glamour, chemistry (both literal and metaphorical), and plotting, I found it rather ponderous and incredibly talky.
What do you think?
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 8 January 2004 19:02 (twenty years ago) link
Has anyone seen Blake Edwards' take on Hitchcock: "Experiment In Terror"? I would think that David Lynch and Mark Frost watched this together in 1989.
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 8 January 2004 19:06 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 8 January 2004 19:11 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 8 January 2004 19:18 (twenty years ago) link
(I wasn't calling you out for repeating yourself btw)
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 8 January 2004 19:25 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 8 January 2004 19:36 (twenty years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 8 January 2004 20:10 (twenty years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 8 January 2004 20:14 (twenty years ago) link
― Sean (Sean), Thursday, 8 January 2004 21:10 (twenty years ago) link
-rated: Psycho, North By Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much (original), Frenzy
-rated: Strangers on a Train, The Man Who Knew Too Much (remake), Vertigo, Rear Window
... don't you agree?
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 8 January 2004 21:25 (twenty years ago) link
Vertigo DROOL DROOL I love above almost any other movie. My next favorites of his in line- Rebecca, Psycho, Birds, North By Northwest, Rear Window. Have to see 39 steps since I see it rated so much on this thread.
― sucka (sucka), Thursday, 8 January 2004 21:32 (twenty years ago) link
― Wiggy (Wiggy), Sunday, 23 October 2005 01:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 23 October 2005 01:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 23 October 2005 01:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Are You Nomar? (miloaukerman), Sunday, 23 October 2005 01:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 23 October 2005 01:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― chap who would dare to spy on his best mate's ex (chap), Sunday, 23 October 2005 01:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― milo z (mlp), Sunday, 22 October 2006 04:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 22 October 2006 05:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 22 October 2006 05:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 22 October 2006 05:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 17:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 17:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 17:49 (seventeen years ago) link