DE Weekly: Rope, Hitchcock, & the Übermensch
Below is an archived email originally sent on September 1, 2025.
Rope, Hitchcock, & the Übermensch
Existentialism explored what would be required of us in a world without meaning. What would we do––and what should we do––if there were really no inherent meaning, no natural moral order to adhere to?
Some existentialists came up with sound answers; Albert Camus espoused personal responsibility and a good faith search for meaningful ways to live honestly and fully.
A darker response to that conundrum is that we could do whatever the hell we want whenever we want, consequences and moral implications be damned. Such a way of life was illustrated masterfully by Alfred Hitchcock in his 1948 film Rope.
In Rope, based on a 1929 play by British playwright Patrick Hamilton, two men named Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan strangle to death their former prep school classmate David Kentley in their Manhattan apartment.
Why they committed this crime is initially unclear, just that they wanted to commit “the perfect crime.”
They hide the body in a large wooden chest where Brandon keeps his old first edition books, ahead of a dinner party they are hosting that same night.
The guests of the dinner party include the victim’s father, Mr. Kentley, the victim’s aunt, the victim’s fiancée Janet, another friend, and their old prep school headmaster Rupert Cadell.
In a display of arrogance, Brandon and Phillip decide to use the wooden chest, now a casket, as a serving table for the night’s meal.
Throughout the night, Brandon––the more sadistic of the two killers––grows more arrogant and begins a conversation about a topic their headmaster Rupert taught them in their prep school days: whether it is morally acceptable for some people to commit murder.
He repeats what he’s come to believe: “superior” men like himself should be allowed to murder lesser men simply because they are lesser than he.
Mr. Kentley, the father of the murdered David, is deeply insulted by the idea and refutes that some lives are worth less than others.
“Obviously,” Mr. Kentley tells Brandon, “you agree with Nietzsche and his theory of the super man . . . So did Hitler.”
Brandon condemns Hitler, but says, yes, he does believe in Nietzsche’s idea of the super man, the Übermensch.
Nietzsche’s Übermensch was explained in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, where he describes the Übermensch as a goal humanity should set for itself.
In a world where there is no moral order, no natural hierarchy, and no clear idea of who decides right and wrong, Nietzsche wrote the Übermensch is such a great man who can transcend morality and create their own set of moral values and ideals.
In a world without God, the Übermensch creates their own conditions for meaning and purpose where none exist, while also manifesting the human ideal.
The problem is, the person who aspires to be the Übermensch is almost always somebody like Hitler, or in this case, Brandon Shaw.
As the night goes on, David’s family and friends grow worried because he has not arrived or phoned to say what’s keeping him. Eventually, they leave and go search for him.
Rupert, Brandon’s and Phillip’s old headmaster, leaves with them too, but returns shortly after; he suspects all night something is amiss and fears the worst.
After a struggle of words and a game of cat and mouse, Rupert opens the lid of the chest to find David’s body inside.
Once having introduced the idea that murder might be sometimes permissible for superior men, Rupert feels immediate horror and disgust; he is angry at Brandon and Phillip for actually following through with it.
“By what right did you dare decide that that boy in there was inferior, and therefore could be killed? Did you think you were God?”, he yells at them.
Rupert used to believe that murder could be justified, that morally, it might be acceptable in some instances. When he’s faced with what his ideas inspired in his old students, however, he dispels that notion.
In a moment of clarity, he tells Brandon, “Until this very moment, this world and the people in it have always been dark and incomprehensible to me. And I’ve tried to clear my way with logic and superior intellect.”
“You’ve given my words a meaning that I never dreamed of! And you’ve tried to twist them into a cold, logical excuse for your ugly murder!”
Rupert fires Brandon’s handgun out the window to alert the police, who we can hear arriving on the scene to end the movie. The implication is that Brandon and Phillip are going to pay for their crime, after all.
Any philosophical concept, such as Nietzsche’s Übermensch, can be twisted into a gross misinterpretation of what it was intended to be, and perverse ways of looking at the world can come from it.
In the same way, the existential questions of our time can be equally misunderstood and abused.
What is the meaning of life? What is my purpose? How can I create my own values? How do I treat the Other in my quest to answer all these questions?
Existentialists like Camus had it right. We have a moral duty to consider the Other and not just the Self; our search for meaning cannot come at the expense of everyone around us.
Looking at the Other from a distance can look like darkness, but approaching that darkness in good faith can lead to light, to a real life of value and purpose and meaning.
In Rope, not one of Rupert, Brandon, and Phillip are innocent. But when the crime of murder rears its ugly head, only Rupert proves himself to be a virtuous man.
Such is our choice in life when the natural moral order demands of us to obey.
“Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman––a rope over an abyss… What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under…” –– Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
Watch Rope, seriously. It’s one of Hitchcock’s best. And Jimmy Stewart (Rupert) is always great.
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