Have you ever tried to imagine how to commit the “perfect murder”? How one would go about killing someone then covering up all traces of your involvement, getting away completely free? It's ok, you can admit it. It doesn't mean you're a sociopath; a massive chunk of our culture's entertainment is television shows and movies devoted to murder, to coverups, to trying to uncover coverups. Shows like CSI supposedly show us all the subtle ways to get caught, and thus, by opposition, ways to not get caught. Of course, it's just a TV show, and hopefully very few people actually have a hankering to try to do it anyway.
However: we are going to talk about a fantastic film: Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, my personal favorite in his repertoire. It is famous for being [almost] one continuous shot (although there are some obvious sneaky edits and one legitimate cut). Based on a play which is loosely based on the real-life story of Leopold and Loeb, Rope is about two college students, Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, who decide to murder their classmate as an intellectual exercise – to prove that they are intelligent enough to get away with the perfect murder. They place his body in a trunk and then proceed to have a dinner party, using the trunk as a table. All is well until their professor (James Stewart) begins to get an inkling that something is up.
Tomorrow, Saturday, the Louisville Palace presents Rope as part of their Alfred Hitchcock summer movie series. The film starts at 8:00; admission is $5. The Palace is located at 625 S 4th Street. Complete information about the summer movie series as well as advance ticket sales can be found at the Louisville Palace website.
(Side note: the German-made art documentary Zero Killed is now available for purchase. Director Michal Kowsakowski challenges people to identify their murder fantasies, and then produces it for them as a short film, with them as the star. It's chilling and fascinating and definitely worth checking out.)
Image: Internet Movie Database
