Hacker Cinema
Rope
1948 · Film · 81 min
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Two young men attempt to prove they committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party for the family of a classmate they just strangled to death.
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9 comments on Hacker News
> try and build a thriving decentralized media
This exists today, it has always existed, and you never needed technology to find the solution to it.
Im a huge fan of the film Rope, because it is just done well. Its also got a ton of coding in it for "homosexual" themes that were very much banned at the time of filming. Understanding these paints the film in a whole new way...
Shakespeare has a ton of contemporary satire coded into it. Unless you're aware of history or reading a version that illuminates the meta-context you would very much be unaware of its existence.
It happens in modern film: Paul Verhoeven is a master of it.
If you dont think there are coded communities on existing social platforms sharing information among in members I have news for you.
I was just recently reading about Leopold and Loeb after watching Hitchcock's Rope, which is based on a play inspired by the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_(film)
One of my favorite Hitchcock films.
I was curious, since I have been watching the "100 Films To See before You Die" and so many older films seem to clock in under 90 minutes (to be sure there are plenty of exceptions).
Just a handful of films under 90 minutes:
"Toy Story", "High Noon", "Rashomon", "This is Spinal Tap", "Frankenstein" (and "Bride of"), "Umberto D", "My Neighbor Totoro", "Run Lola Run", "Duel", "Rope"...
Alfred Hitchcock films would be agony to that crowd. The opening shot for his film "Rope" clocks in at about 9 and a half minutes. All in a single shot!
Movies like 1917 and Birdman (and perhaps even Rope, if I'm being pedantic) only have the illusion of a single shot.
The best true single shot movie I've seen is the German movie Victoria (2015), which really wouldn't have worked half as well if it was shot in a more traditional way.
> Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948, 1h20m)
As Hitchcock explained in the Hitchbook, that is not an unbroken shot, merely an illusion of one. Film reels at the time just weren't long enough.
Loved your comment.
And before Boogie Nights there's a history of it in Cinema:
http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/the-10-longest-unbroken-shots-in-cinema-history/ the ones earlier than Boogie Nights:
Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983, 9m20s) Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948, 1h20m)
and this came out about the same time, so I'm pretty sure they had overlapping production:
Snake Eyes (Brian De Palma, 1998, 12m57s)
It's an amusing little experiment but there are a number of possible factors the person running it didn't consider that, I think, are more likely than his actual conclusions.
First, there is the possibility that Casablanca is not actually a very good movie. The author of this article claims that Casablanca is "the most famous movie in the history of film." That may have been correct a generation or two ago, but in the decades since Star Wars, I think "the most famous movie" is Star Wars.
I would agree that Casablanca is a very famous movie, and a fun movie, but having seen it in the theater, I didn't think it was actually a great movie. It is a relatively small story, and lightweight, and trivializes its period and events. It's relatively low in drama, and it relies heavily on the (at the time) star power of its leads, and aside from some clever catch-phrases, it is talky and the dialogue does drag.
Just talking movies of the 1940s, I would argue that Citizen Kane (1940), The Great Dictator (1940), The Third Man (1949), The Big Sleep (1946), Rope (1948), and Miracle on 34th Street (1947) are all better movies, more artfully filmed and more memorable, although perhaps some are more kitschy and Corny than Casablanca.
Certainly, one could expect that people reading the screenplay "slush pile" for agencies ought to be familiar enough with the history of film to recognize the story of Casablanca or at least some of the catch-phrases. But I think the "gatekeepers" are actually often the most junior, least knowledgeable folks in the industry.
Wow, I must be really bored today to write all that... eating my lunch and I can't be bothered to do anything but read Hacker News : P
Hitchcock's Rope was famously based on them. A technical tour-de-force because it all takes place in their apartment and was edited to look like a single continuous shot. Also a strikingly un-American movie for the 1940s.