Rebecca!

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

 

 

The haunting opening line conjures the entirety of Hitchcock’s romantic, suspenseful, elegant film.  It's one of the most memorable lines in my personal movie watching history.  I love it.  I say it, around friends, sometimes when I wake in the morning, or when there is a lull in conversation.  It's a silly thing to say, but it gives me a chill I otherwise cannot create on my own.  I'll say it again..."Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."  I love it.

This is the first film Hitchcock made for Hollywood and the only movie that he made that won an Oscar for Best Picture.  It is another of Hitchcock's films that he insisted be shot in black and white, because of the dark nature of the story.  The above picture of Manderley just wouldn't be the same if it were colorful, now would it?  The film's final cost was $1.2 million (it was supposed to be about $500,000), and it was mostly sucked into Manderley itself.  The ceilings, the chandeliers, the tapestries, the rooms were all furnished. 

Joan Fontaine beautifully and shyly portrays the main character, the new wife that must compete with the infamous Rebecca.  Rebecca died a horrible death in the prime of her beauty and love.  Yet we never see her.  We never see a photo of her or even a memory of her face.  But Hitchcock solves this with random various shadows he subtly casts across the walls of the house of Manderley.  We are always expecting a ghost.  She is there, without any presence.  What a difficult thing to accomplish in a film, yet Hitchcock did it seamlessly.  Around every turn, we are always expecting, almost afraid, that we will see her. 

Mrs Danvers (left)

The Back Story

Because Laurence Olivier wanted his then-girlfriend Vivien Leigh to play the lead role, he treated Joan Fontaine horribly. This shook Fontaine up quite a bit, so Alfred Hitchcock decided to capitalize on this by telling her EVERYONE on the set hated her, thus making her shy and uneasy - just what he wanted from her performance.

Hitchcock wanted the character of Mrs. Danvers to appear ghostly.  She is almost never seen walking. And when she is moving, she glides (with help of some mobile equipment).  She is also strictly told not to blink.  Of course, Mrs. Danvers, the ghostly living entity that we do get to see, dies in the fire she creates as she destroys Manderley.

If you have not seen Rebecca, see it.  In my opinion, it is not his most horrifying movie, but it is his most gripping.  It's memorable.  It's a movie about a haunting, not in the typical sense, but the kind of haunting that drives sane people mad. 


Until next time...