by James Wallace Harris, 9/11/23
This is not a review, but my reactions to watching Rebecca, the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock movie with my friend Olivia. I’ve decided I don’t want to review books and movies because that would involve withholding spoilers. I want to talk about how I react to fiction — how fiction works on me.
I don’t think I’ve seen Rebecca before. I’ve started it a few times recently, but in recent years I have had trouble watching movies by myself, so I didn’t watch it all the way through until Olivia wanted to see it too. I’m thankful she came over to join me. Over the past year I’ve encountered several women friends who have told me they’ve read the 1938 novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. They all loved the book, and I bought a copy. I started the book a couple of times but didn’t stick with it. I loved the writing. I adore the open paragraphs. du Maurier description of nature taking over the old estate is exactly how I picture nature taking back cities when civilization falls.
Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited. No smoke came from the chimney, and the little lattice windows gaped forlorn. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done, but as I advanced I was aware that a change had come upon it; it was narrow and unkept, not the drive that we had known. At first I was puzzled and did not understand, and it was only when I bent my head to avoid the low swinging branch of a tree that I realized what had happened. Nature had come into her own again and, little by little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long, tenacious fingers. The woods, always a menace even in the past, had triumphed in the end. They crowded, dark and uncontrolled, to the borders of the drive. The beeches with white, naked limbs leaned close to one another, their branches intermingled in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church. And there were other trees as well, trees that I did not recognize, squat oaks and tortured elms that straggled cheek by jowl with the beeches, and had thrust themselves out of the quiet earth, along with monster shrubs and plants, none of which I remembered. The drive was a ribbon now, a thread of its former self, with gravel surface gone, and choked with grass and moss. The trees had thrown out low branches, making an impediment to progress; the gnarled roots looked like skeleton claws. Scattered here and again among this jungle growth I would recognize shrubs that had been landmarks in our time, things of culture and grace, hydrangeas whose blue heads had been famous. No hand had checked their progress, and they had gone native now, rearing to monster height without a bloom, black and ugly as the nameless parasites that grew beside them. On and on, now east now west, wound the poor thread that once had been our drive. Sometimes I thought it lost, but it appeared again, beneath a fallen tree perhaps, or struggling on the other side of a muddied ditch created by the winter rains. I had not thought the way so long. Surely the miles had multiplied, even as the trees had done, and this path led but to a labyrinth, some choked wilderness, and not to the house at all. I came upon it suddenly; the approach masked by the unnatural growth of a vast shrub that spread in all directions, and I stood, my heart thumping in my breast, the strange prick of tears behind my eyes. There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the gray stone shining in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and the terrace. Time could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls, nor the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand. The terrace sloped to the lawns, and the lawns stretched to the sea, and turning I could see the sheet of silver placid under the moon, like a lake undisturbed by wind or storm. No waves would come to ruffle this dream water, and no bulk of cloud, wind-driven from the west, obscure the clarity of this pale sky. I turned again to the house, and though it stood inviolate, untouched, as though we ourselves had left but yesterday, I saw that the garden had obeyed the jungle law, even as the woods had done. The rhododendrons stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin. A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners. Ivy held prior place in this lost garden, the long strands crept across the lawns, and soon would encroach upon the house itself. There was another plant too, some half-breed from the woods, whose seed had been scattered long ago beneath the trees and then forgotten, and now, marching in unison with the ivy, thrust its ugly form like a giant rhubarb towards the soft grass where the daffodils had blown. Nettles were everywhere, the vanguard of the army. They choked the terrace, they sprawled about the paths, they leaned, vulgar and lanky, against the very windows of the house. They made indifferent sentinels, for in many places their ranks had been broken by the rhubarb plant, and they lay with crumpled heads and listless stems, making a pathway for the rabbits. I left the drive and went onto the terrace, for the nettles were no barrier to me, a dreamer. I walked enchanted, and nothing held me back. du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca (pp. 1-3). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.
This is why I wanted to see the movie and finish the book. I wanted to see it even more when I discovered there was a 2020 remake with Lily James, and a 1997 Masterpiece Theater version. What makes this story so compelling that it gets filmed many times? It’s immensely popular, and Hitchcock’s film won an Oscar for best picture. I find such enduring tales intriguing to study. Watching Rebecca with Olivia was just my beginning of studying du Maurier’s novel.
I didn’t know that when I watched Rebecca last Thursday, but reading about the film reveals that Rebecca was the movie David O. Selznick produced right after Gone with the Wind. Two movies about strong-will women. Gone with the Wind could have been titled Scarlett. Rebecca is never shown in Rebecca, but I now picture her as Vivian Leigh.
I was somewhat disappointed with Rebecca. It’s slow to get into. My wife Susan bailed on it after the first hour and left Olivia and I to finish it on our own. But more importantly, it’s the kind of story that withholds information to create suspense, and I dislike that plot trick. Overall, I did enjoy the film.
Don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the film or read the book, because I’m going to give away big spoilers.
The film begins by recreating the dream sequence I’ve quoted above from the book, but it’s shortened and somewhat changed. There are clues to what happens in this dream sequence, but the real mystery is why the dreamer can’t return to Manderley.
The story then cuts to Monte Carlo where a young naive woman (Joan Fontaine), a paid companion to a Mrs. Van Hopper, meets the mysterious Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), aged forty-two. At this point in the movie, the scenes are light and somewhat humorous. Joan Fontaine plays the unnamed young woman as drab, skittish, fearful, clumsy, and innocent. We don’t know why the older, rich, sophisticated man takes an interest in her, but he does, and they quickly marry. This opening is a kind of Cinderella story, and I assume why women like the picture so much.
I didn’t buy it. Maxim came across as a tortured soul, both wise and educated, but mentally imbalanced. If age of consent was based on a relative scale of maturity, then the young girl should have been out-of-bounds. But a discerning Sherlock Holmes might have guessed something here. If Maxim was honest with Mrs. de Winter 2 the whole rest of the picture which turns into a gothic torture tale could have been avoided and we could have continued with a light romantic comedy.
Now we arrive at Manderley and slowly learn about Mrs. de Winter 1, who was named Rebecca. This whole middle 80% of the film is about misdirection. Both the audience and Mrs. de Winter 2 slowly learns about Rebecca and gets an entirely false picture of her. This is exactly the kind of plotting that Alfred Hitchcock loves. He tells this part of the story with many tense sequences, building us up, and then backing off a bit. Hitchcock has hooked an enormous fish and reals us in slowly.
A good part of this action involves Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who is the creepy housekeeper of Manderley. She loved Rebecca. Obviously, du Maurier was a huge fan of Charlotte and Emily Brontë. It’s worth reading the Wikipedia entry on Rebecca, especially the sections on “Derivation and inspiration” and “Plagiarism allegations.” Du Maurier was jealous of her husband’s former lover and claimed it gave her the idea for the novel. Other people thought differently.
Finally, the movie takes a weird twist. We were told Rebecca had drowned and her body recovered. Eventually, her sunken boat is found by divers, and her body is found inside with clues to suggest she was murdered. Jack Favell (George Sanders) shows up and we learned that Rebecca had been fooling around with him. Favell starts accusing Maxim of murdering Rebecca and the plot really thickens. Poor Mrs. de Winter 2 starts going crazy trying to figure out what was going on. It’s then that Maxim confesses what happened.
Up till then Mrs. de Winter 2 thought Rebecca was an angel and perfect wife she could never measure up to. Maxim tells her that Rebecca was a cheating sack of shit who began destroying his life just days into their honeymoon. Mrs. de Winter 2 is immensely relieved because she finally realized Maxim loves her for herself. Of course, there’s the matter of Maxim might be a murderer. But she still loves him. In fact, these revelations empower her to fight for her man.
The film goes through a few more twists and turns to wrap things up with a happy conclusion after the crazy housekeeper burns down Manderley with herself inside. That’s why people can’t go back.
If du Maurier and Hitchcock had not withheld information at the beginning of the story, we wouldn’t have had such a tortured-tension plot. If Maxim, back in Monte Carlo, had told the innocent lady’s companion that he liked her because his dead wife was everything he hated, we would have needed a different plot. That would have been the natural thing to do for most men.
And it’s illogical that Maxim kept Mrs. Danvers on, who worshipped Rebecca and kept half of Manderley as a shrine to her. Most guys would have fired her and gotten rid of everything that reminded them of Rebecca. In fact, the premise that Rebecca could do what she wanted because Maxim wouldn’t want her indiscretions to ruin his reputation is also ridiculous. Maybe it’s better explained in the book, but I find that to be an extremely weak point of the story. Divorce was common enough in England in the 1930s.
Why didn’t Maxim pull Rhett Butler and tell Rebecca he didn’t give a damn about her threats? Both Maxim and his new bride are weak and retreating. Is there another story here? What if Rebecca wasn’t bad? What if Rebecca had to live with a mentally ill husband, the reverse of Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre?
Rebecca is essentially a thriller with a major plot twist. That’s the trouble with thrillers and mysteries, they often depend on unbelievable plot points. They contrive and contort their stories. I understand why Hitchcock does this because he loves to manipulate his audience. But I’ve got to ask: Why does the audience accept being manipulated? In one interview I saw with Hitchcock he compared what he did to scary amusement rides at carnivals. Riders know they are safe but love to pretend to be scared. This suggests that most moviegoers loved to be manipulated. I’ve gotten tired of it.
I’m anxious to read the book to see if du Maurier makes the same kind of contrivances in her story. Did Hitchcock bend it to his needs, or did du Maurier have better explanations? Her opening describing how plants take over is very realistic. I’m hoping to find more of that realism in her novel.
Plus, I’ve thought of some things after watching the movie. Why does the crazy housekeeper trick Mrs. de Winter 2 into dressing up as Rebecca for the costume party? She probably knew that Maxim hated Rebecca. On my first viewing of the film, I assumed that Maxim loved Rebecca and blew up at Mrs. de Winter 2 for recreating a painful good memory. But as we know now, it’s a painful bad memory. We knew Mrs. Danvers wanted to kill Rebecca’s replacement, so I should have guessed a different motive for her getting Mrs. de Winter 2 to dress as Rebecca.
This is why rereading books and rewatching movies are important. Since I know the information that du Maurier and Hitchcock withheld, will the story still work? Or will it fall apart? Or will it even work better as I see deeper into a multidimension structure?
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 