The Curtained Window
The start of the film is the only time in which the viewer is outside. We see the city of New York in the middle of the day, before the camera shows the window of Brandon and Phillip's apartment. Rather curiously, the window's curtains are drawn, darkening the room. While the exterior of the building is sunny and bright, the curtained window foreshadows the nefarious behavior taking place on the inside. The image of the drawn curtain calls to mind all the potential unknown activities that might be taking place behind closed doors. Hitchcock turns the viewer into a nosy neighbor, peering to the side of a heavy curtain, a voyeur anxious to know what's going on inside.
The Single Shot and the Setting Sun
The film is notable for giving the impression that it is one single shot, which gives the events of the plot the illusion of happening in real time. In order to create this illusion, Hitchcock filmed long shots, and would absorb the perspective of the camera into the back of a character's shirt or jacket when he needed to cut. Additionally, the movement of the characters was strictly choreographed, and various walls and set pieces moved on tracks in accordance with the choreographed walking patterns. This gives the single setting—the apartment—a claustrophobic feeling, and heightens the suspense of the narrative. In making the film seem like one single shot, the audience is never given relief from the tense premise; rather, we are trapped in the apartment with a dead body stuffed in a chest. Hitchcock used a cyclorama, a panoramic backdrop often used in theatre productions, to act as the backdrop for the action. As the night progresses, the cyclorama transitions from late afternoon into evening, adding to the sense that the action is taking place in real time.
The Books Tied with the Rope
Before sending Mr. Kentley home with the books that he has laid out on the dining room table, Brandon ties them up with the rope that he used to murder the man's son. Throughout the evening, Brandon has tempted fate several times, always with a firm belief in his own ability to put one over on his inferior companions. Tying the books up with the murder weapon is his final dangerous experiment, and the image is shocking. It represents Brandon's confidence that he is able to get away with murder. The image of elegant antique books being held together in a bundle with a murder weapon is unexpectedly horrific.
The Blinking Neon Sign
Throughout the film, light and illumination is a charged topic. While Brandon seems to feel no remorse about their act, Phillip is dogged by guilt, neurotically wishing to turn off lamps in order to obscure their deed and his own shame at having committed it. The haunting final image of the film is of Rupert Cadell, Phillip and Brandon almost immobilized while waiting for the cops to arrive after Cadell has shot the gun into the night. A blinking neon light from a sign outside the apartment flashes on and off, illuminating the men's faces in color. It is a haunting and striking image for the end. After so much tension and suspense has built up, the viewer is left with a strange and uncanny image of stillness. Brandon is still, Phillip plays the piano, and Cadell stares in disgust at his corrupt students, as they wait for the police to arrive and the technicolor light of an exterior advertisement flashes into the apartment. Finally, the horrible murder has been brought into the light, and the lights from outside have invaded the apartment itself.
