A Chill in the Air - Part I

Halloween has come and gone, a time change looms (“fall back”) and winter is just around the corner. Early twilight and cool evenings are here and it seems to me that when the weather starts getting nippy and night falls early, nothing satisfies like a crackling fire, something either steaming or iced to drink and a well-chosen book or movie to settle into. What I'm reading and watching as autumn deepens this year are books and the films that were made of them.

The Uninvited, 1944

I’ve been reading Dorothy Macardle’s classic ghost story, The Uninvited, a novel that made its way to film by way of Paramount Pictures in 1944. I’d seen The Uninvited again recently and became curious about its original source material.  I’ve also picked up Daphne du Maurier’s romantic thriller Rebecca once more and have happily revisited the 1940 Hitchcock-directed Selznick production.

Rebecca, 1940

I don’t know how old I was when I first read the words, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” but do know I was young because, when I came upon du Maurier’s description of 50-foot rhododendrons I didn’t know what they were or how to pronounce the word (...if only I could remember what I called them in my imagination back then...). As I re-read Rebecca, I realized how completely Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning film had supplanted the book, erasing nearly all but the opening line and “rhododendrons” from my memory.

The film is a generally literal adaptation, barring Production Code-dictated changes (most notably, Rebecca's death is accidental in the film rather than outright murder as in the book) and a few other alterations. This is largely thanks to producer David O. Selznick, who was wary when it came to tinkering with literature.

Selznick, Fontaine & Hitchcock at Academy Awards dinner

Hitchcock and Selznick weathered a famously rocky collaboration on Rebecca, Hitchcock’s first American film and his first under contract to Selznick International Pictures. The director counted himself lucky that Selznick was still involved with Gone with the Wind - which lessened his interference on Rebecca to some extent. For his part, Selznick was flabbergasted by the director’s stubborn habit of shooting very little ‘coverage’ – or extra footage, effectively “editing in camera” (filming only what he wanted for the final cut). Once Hitchcock completed the shoot, the producer did what he could to more explicitly stamp the production as his own. In particular he supervised the film’s score, having music added to almost every scene – which accounts for intermittent intrusions of musical bombast. Selznick biographer David Thomson writes that the producer learned that no matter how involved he was, “there were secrets of craft, nuance and meaning that only a director controlled.” According to Thomson, Rebecca had been a battle between director and producer that left Selznick feeling defeated.

He should not have been so glum. Rebecca is plainly a Selznick project, a glossy and rich first rate production. The film was an unqualified success and brought the producer his second Best Picture Oscar in a row, one of the two Oscars Rebecca won out of the eleven total nominations it received. But Selznick was accustomed to dominating his directors and Hitchcock had outfoxed him…

Despite the fact that Rebecca has been called the least ‘Hitchcockian’ of the director's films and that Hitchcock later virtually disowned it, it bears unmistakable signature touches. The character interpretations of Florence Bates (Mrs. Van Hopper) and George Sanders (Jack Favell) are darkly witty comic turns - entirely in the Hitchcock tradition. And from relatively inexperienced Joan Fontaine in the central role, the director determinedly mined the performance of her young life. Judith Anderson’s iconic Mrs. Danvers, a brilliantly shaded tour de force, evolved out of a collaboration between actress and director about which she remarked, “I knew I was in the presence of a master; I had utter trust and faith in him.”

Judith Anderson and Joan Fontain in Rebecca

Rebecca's visual style also bears the recognizable imprint of its director. Hitchcock and cinematographer George Barnes concocted a persistently foreboding atmosphere that permeates the film from its first frames.  In fact, the film's opening images - of Manderley's ornate iron-gated entrance, its misty landscape and the mansion's ghostly silhouette - are often cited as an influence on Citizen Kane. Hitchcock and Barnes also notably and inventively contrived to create a character, or the presence of a character, who never once appears onscreen - the titular Rebecca. The scene above beautifully illustrates...

Daphne du Maurier and her children at Menabilly

Daphne du Maurier once described Rebecca, her most well-known and popular novel,  as a study in jealousy. Many have offered opinions on what inspired the plot - was it du Maurier's relationship with her mother and father? Was it based on the writer's insecurities about her husband's beautiful, glamorous, dark-haired former fiancee? It is known that du Maurier spent time during childhood at two grand country mansions, Milton Hall in Cambridgeshire and Menabilly (which she later owned) in Cornwall, and that the two estates were both likely models for Manderley and its grounds. Regardless of conjecture about du Maurier's inspirations, few have questioned that Rebecca is a triumph of its genre - it has been continuously in print over the eight decades since its original publication.

Daphne du Maurier

Du Maurier's Rebecca is a shrewd, seductive 20th century update on the gothic mystery/romance. Its persistent lure is dream-like imagery and a vulnerable narrator's voice throbbing with melancholy and hinting at dark secrets and heartbreak. Soon enough the reader is trapped, like the second Mrs. de Winter, in the world of psychological torment that is Manderley.

For me, du Maurier's novel and the Hitchcock/Selznick film are, taken together, an unbeatable way to greet the season's chill...

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Posted by: Tukiyooo A Chill in the Air - Part I Updated at : 11:25 PM

Wednesday, November 2, 2011