Posted by Vincent at bg-tc-ppp149.monmouth.com on November 16, 2002 at 14:51:59:
In Reply to: Rope was shot... posted by Renaissance Man on November 15, 2002 at 22:23:49:
: ...in 10 minute reels, if I recall rightly...no small task for movie actors weened on short takes.
Actually, if you watch a lot of classic movies, they tended to favor long takes where the actors were actually allowed to ACT instead of the cut-cut-cut-cut-cut overuse of coverage mentality that prevails today. The real feat of ROPE is that the camera was so well coreographed (remember, this was in the days LONG before steadicam, and ROPE was shot in 3-strip Technicolor- those cameras were MONSTERS!).
There is also a visible "cut" to a different angle at every reel change in ROPE (approx. every 20-minutes), and as you pointed out, there is an actual edit every 10-minutes, but Hitchcock and his cinematographer "hid" these edits, by having the camera pass behind something dark, etc. Also, in the last few minutes of the film, it reverts to "coverage", cutting between Jimmy Stewart and the two murderers, but in total, there are maybe only 10 or so visible "cuts" in all of ROPE.
Vincent