Anyone notice the glass cut?

bump! I think this is something really interesting that most people have missed!

hitrecord.org

Philip hurts his hand and covers it up for some time with a bandage. This soon comes of and Philips wound seem to have healed, at least his hand is clean, no blood on it. If you follow it from there; we do get some close-ups on his hand, although always filmed from an angle that doesn't show the area between his thumb and index finger (where he was cut).
That was my conclusion. Although I haven't keept focus on his hand during the entire remains of the film. It might be that you at some point can clearly see that there is no wound whatsoever. If so, whats the big deal? A misstake during the shooting.

Rupert then; he hurts his hand while fighting for the gun with Philip. Directly after the fight he wraps his hand with a napkin from his pocket. This is shown clearly. The only goofy thing about this is that the movie is cut when Rupert opens the chest, when opening it there is no blood on his hand. Seconds later when the camera moves upwards there's blood on his bandage.

You have overanalyzed the film on made up conclusion. Although, if it hadn't been, you made some good remarks.

There used to be a post about this before, but there doesn't seem to be anything before 2009 on these particular forums now... that's odd. I had images uploaded to imageshack before, but I didn't think that I'd have to remember where they were in case posts got deleted...

Oh well, here's one super image (112kb jpg):
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9048/ropecuts.jpg

The first two screens show exactly where the cut was situated, on the skin between his right thumb and forefinger. There is some blood, but it doesn't appear to be all that bad. The third screen shows him still favoring his injured hand. It is a little harder to see the cut, but the way he is handling himself makes it seem like he's not imagining it. He then proceeds to wrap it in a handkerchief.

The fourth screen shows a mark on the back of his hand in the same area as where he got cut, but it has healed to a certain degree. It is important to note that the movie itself is not real-time, but somewhat faster than real-time (as mentioned in the trivia). It's plausible that his hand could have healed to a certain degree in this sped up time.

The fifth screen is nothing conclusive, but there is a shadow on the back of his right hand that doesn't look quite natural given the other shadows in the scene (perhaps owing to make-up applied).

And that's my take on it. My belief is that Phillip did indeed cut his hand, and it healed somewhat by the time his palms were read.

I think it might have been to show that Rupert had the blood on HIS hands, moreso than Phillip. Some debate as to wether Rupert was as guilty as the duo for the murder, by his teachings.

Well, Brandon was clearly guilty, but we felt like Phillip maybe didn't want to get mixed up into this (he felt remorse) and that he maybe just got pressured into doing it, because of pally Brandon... and also teacher Rupert.




Brandon would have done it anyways, whereas Rupert's thoughts even though maybe not so extreme had their repercussion on a man to be named Philip, who carried out his thoughts in a proportionally not-so-extreme manner, but just enough.( All this showing that be even just doing a tiny thing wrong, it might influence someone who would normally not do something, but pushed by the others, he decides just barely to do it.)

I noticed it the second time I saw Rope and I dismissed it as perhaps he cut his finger, not his palm. But then, I realized that Hitchcock was being symbolic.

Some might argue that we're over-analyzing what we're seeing, but remember Hitchcock is a very meticulous director, going over and over and over how a film is going to be shot well before principle photography even begins.

It was Phillip who did the actual murder of David. Yes, it was clearly Brandon's plan. This is significant. It was Brandon's plan, based on Rupert's notions of inferior and superior beings. But Brandon couldn't have done it himself, he needed someone capable of the deed, with strong hands.

This is symbolic of the relationship between Rupert and the ultimate act of murder perpetrated by Phillip, instigated by Brandon.

Phillip isn't a cold, calculating man. He doesn't come off as ideological, intellectual in the sense of the academic, but rather he's a piano player, and he's going to deliver a concert performance. He wants to be admired, he seeks the approval of others, whereas Brandon does things to get an effect out of people. Brandon is the risk-taker, Phillip is the thug who desires Brandon's approval. Phillip didn't kill David for the thrill of it; he killed David because Brandon put him up to it.

It must've taken some doing over the years to bring Phillip to this point. Brandon, again, didn't do it alone. He had Rupert there to help him move Phillip to commit murder. Brandon, in effect, used Rupert to undermine Phillip's conscience, in much the same way he used Phillip to undermine David's life.

I found it equally symbolic that it's Rupert fighting with Phillip for the gun, getting it out of his hands, taking away Brandon's last minion, wounding himself in the process. He has as much blood on his hands as Phillip does, and he has to account for himself for what his ideas led to.

The novelization offers a fairly banal explanation:

"He pulled out a handkerchief to wrap around the small cut on his palm..."

A couple of pages later, when David's aunt reads Phillip's palms: "He had removed the handkerchief now, and the cut was dry."

Yes wonderful observation. It means that the two have the "blood on their hands" - Philip for physically committing the murder and Rupert for - though unconsciously - teaching Brandon to do it. He was their teacher after all and his pseudo philosophical part jokingly chatter about how murdering would solve ticket-queue problem is reckless coming from the mouth of a teacher.
This kinds of motions and hidden messages are so distinct in nowadays cinema. This is why Hitchcock is the absolute number one.

Too bad your topic was created four years ago and we cannot continue the conversation.