“Making Our Work of Art a Masterpiece”: The Aesthetics of Evil in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope

Abstract

In his first Technicolor film, Rope (Hitchcock, Alfred, dir. 1948. Rope. Transatlantic Pictures.), Alfred Hitchcock explores the proposition of murder as a privileged art reserved for the intellectually superior. This article examines Hitchcock’s unorthodox techniques featured in the film, from exceptionally long takes (ranging from four to ten minutes of screen time) to disguised cuts achieved via close-ups of darkened set objects or costumes. Although incongruous with Rope’s more conventional storytelling elements, these daring methods synthesize the film’s ghoulish themes of consumption, decay, and death, evoking feelings of uncomfortable voyeuristic curiosity as Hitchcock toys with the aesthetic possibilities of murder for its own sake.