Aestheticizing Murder: Hitchcock’s Rope, Nietzsche, and the Alleged Right to Crime of Superior Individuals
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Paolo Stellino
Abstract
This paper explores intersections between nihilism, the death of God, and the aestheticization of murder by considering the use of Nietzsche’s theory of the overman in Hitchcock’s Rope. This theory is invoked to justify the gratuitous murder around which the film’s plot revolves. Although the interpretation of the overman in Rope does not substantially differ from other stereotypical readings of Nietzsche’s philosophy put forward in the twentieth century, Hitchcock’s film is nonetheless particularly interesting for it explores the fundamental issue of intellectual responsibility. The paper will thus focus on the most philosophical aspects of Rope, paying particular attention to its literary sources and contextualizing the reference to Nietzsche’s overman. The final section will be dedicated to the analysis of both Nietzsche’s and Hitchcock’s role in the progressive tendency towards the aestheticization of murder in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European culture.
Abstract
This paper explores intersections between nihilism, the death of God, and the aestheticization of murder by considering the use of Nietzsche’s theory of the overman in Hitchcock’s Rope. This theory is invoked to justify the gratuitous murder around which the film’s plot revolves. Although the interpretation of the overman in Rope does not substantially differ from other stereotypical readings of Nietzsche’s philosophy put forward in the twentieth century, Hitchcock’s film is nonetheless particularly interesting for it explores the fundamental issue of intellectual responsibility. The paper will thus focus on the most philosophical aspects of Rope, paying particular attention to its literary sources and contextualizing the reference to Nietzsche’s overman. The final section will be dedicated to the analysis of both Nietzsche’s and Hitchcock’s role in the progressive tendency towards the aestheticization of murder in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European culture.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- List of Abbreviations VII
- Introduction 1
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Part 1: Philosophy and Politics
- Nihilism and Violence from Plato to Arendt 5
- Kierkegaard’s Aesthetic Stage and the Ideology of Nihilism 25
- “To smear his boots with the other’s fat”: Conscious and Unconscious Violence 45
- Cruelty, Bad Conscience, and the Sovereign Individual in Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality 65
- Walter Benjamin’s Media Theory in the Times of Platform Nihilism 89
- ‘Like ants’: The Mafia’s Necropolitics as a Paradigm of Nihilistic Violence 111
- Against the Kinship: State, Terror, Nihilism 139
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Part 2: Literature and Film
- Nihilism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature and Thought 159
- Violence, Evil and Nihilism: Nietzschean Traces in Guimarães Rosa’s Grande Sertão: Veredas 189
- Signifying Nothing? Nihilism, Violence, and the Sound/Silence Dynamic in Cinema 203
- Aestheticizing Murder: Hitchcock’s Rope, Nietzsche, and the Alleged Right to Crime of Superior Individuals 231
- Nihilism, Violence, and the Films of Michael Haneke 255
- “Supposing Truth is a Woman?”: Nihilism and Violence in Nietzsche’s The Antichrist and Von Trier’s Antichrist 275
- “Is Something Funny, Asshole?”: Joker’s Nihilist Violence 297
- Notes on the Contributors 315
- Names index 319
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- List of Abbreviations VII
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1: Philosophy and Politics
- Nihilism and Violence from Plato to Arendt 5
- Kierkegaard’s Aesthetic Stage and the Ideology of Nihilism 25
- “To smear his boots with the other’s fat”: Conscious and Unconscious Violence 45
- Cruelty, Bad Conscience, and the Sovereign Individual in Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality 65
- Walter Benjamin’s Media Theory in the Times of Platform Nihilism 89
- ‘Like ants’: The Mafia’s Necropolitics as a Paradigm of Nihilistic Violence 111
- Against the Kinship: State, Terror, Nihilism 139
-
Part 2: Literature and Film
- Nihilism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature and Thought 159
- Violence, Evil and Nihilism: Nietzschean Traces in Guimarães Rosa’s Grande Sertão: Veredas 189
- Signifying Nothing? Nihilism, Violence, and the Sound/Silence Dynamic in Cinema 203
- Aestheticizing Murder: Hitchcock’s Rope, Nietzsche, and the Alleged Right to Crime of Superior Individuals 231
- Nihilism, Violence, and the Films of Michael Haneke 255
- “Supposing Truth is a Woman?”: Nihilism and Violence in Nietzsche’s The Antichrist and Von Trier’s Antichrist 275
- “Is Something Funny, Asshole?”: Joker’s Nihilist Violence 297
- Notes on the Contributors 315
- Names index 319
