This one has been unfortunate enough to have been rather reduced in my mind over the years thanks to its relatively simple reputation. It’s of course famous for being a movie seemingly without cuts, several long takes cleverly stitched together so as to appear (at least almost) entirely seamless. The story is so simple it fits neatly into a technically helpful 75-minute running time: two young men have murdered someone seemingly just for the thrill of it – they hide the body in a wooden chest and procede to have a dinner party in the same room.

Like so many of the Hitchcock movies I’ve watched these past few months, though I’d seen it before (in this case a number of times, I’m sure), I’ve never quite seen it like this. After absorbing myself so completely in his work from the silent, through the British, and his first attempts in American cinema, nothing quite prepares you for the glee with which his camera moves here. It genuinely feels as if the final piece of his style is falling into place. These aren’t just long takes – they’re great long takes, framing the action just as effectively as Hitchcock ever did (he would explain to François Truffaut that though there are few cuts, the film was effectively still “cut” before filming, with his same attitude to the size of the image to tell a story – case in point, the shot following the “action” as James Stewart’s character speculates on what happened before he arrived; or the simple shot of the wooden chest as the housekeeper goes about tidying – clearly on the verge of opening the thing – as the party guests discuss the whereabouts of the murdered person off-camera!).

It’s a thriller in every sense of the word: the proper sense, even. While a murdered body is never more than a few feet from the camera, we can’t help but join the murderers in their perverse delight at making their guests dine over its final resting place. So Hitchcock not only cements his visual style in this movie, he also perfects the balance between dark and light that would define practically everything that followed.

Tags: Hitchcock, long takes, murder

This entry was posted on Friday, January 14th, 2011 at 10:07 pm and is filed under 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.