Unusual genre change for Hitchcock, a suspense-less western, crossed with romance and costume drama/ stage play, in the Land Down Under.
Long and lumbering mess of a movie, with Hitchcock more interested in setting up lengthy tracking shots than anything else. In the previous year's Rope, Hitchcock used the same trick to good effect, but here it seems to have no purpose, no relation to the story. In Rope, the long, unedited takes resembled an unblinking, all seeing eye.
Here, it seems like the same unblinking, all-seeing eye refuses to look away, even though it knows it should have looked away long ago.
The long, unedited takes look like master shots, or even just raw footage. It becomes somewhat hypnotic, dulling the senses to the dull screen story. It feels like we are just blankly staring into space, completely unaware of what is happening, but too bored to even look away. (Is that what the cinematographer felt?) It's like we are carrying on a dull conversation with someone, and that someone refuses to break eye contact, like they are waiting for us to suddenly become interested in the proceedings. A few close-ups were needed to bring out more detail, in the settings and performances, but as it is, it seems like the filmmakers couldn't even bother to do much editing.
The set designs and costumes all look good, but that cannot support the entire movie on its own. The film could have benefited (slightly) from on-location photography, but everything was filmed on soundstages in California.
Starts slowly, but then it looks as though it may get going and become interesting, but then it fizzles away, all within its first half hour. It doesn't really even have Hitchcock's usual sense of humour to liven the proceedings. A complete waste. Probably one of the few Hitchcock films that I could not sit through a second time.
Long and lumbering mess of a movie, with Hitchcock more interested in setting up lengthy tracking shots than anything else. In the previous year's Rope, Hitchcock used the same trick to good effect, but here it seems to have no purpose, no relation to the story. In Rope, the long, unedited takes resembled an unblinking, all seeing eye.
Here, it seems like the same unblinking, all-seeing eye refuses to look away, even though it knows it should have looked away long ago.
The long, unedited takes look like master shots, or even just raw footage. It becomes somewhat hypnotic, dulling the senses to the dull screen story. It feels like we are just blankly staring into space, completely unaware of what is happening, but too bored to even look away. (Is that what the cinematographer felt?) It's like we are carrying on a dull conversation with someone, and that someone refuses to break eye contact, like they are waiting for us to suddenly become interested in the proceedings. A few close-ups were needed to bring out more detail, in the settings and performances, but as it is, it seems like the filmmakers couldn't even bother to do much editing.
The set designs and costumes all look good, but that cannot support the entire movie on its own. The film could have benefited (slightly) from on-location photography, but everything was filmed on soundstages in California.
Starts slowly, but then it looks as though it may get going and become interesting, but then it fizzles away, all within its first half hour. It doesn't really even have Hitchcock's usual sense of humour to liven the proceedings. A complete waste. Probably one of the few Hitchcock films that I could not sit through a second time.