Alfred Hitchcock: Filme Rebecca (1940)

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Alfred Hitchcock: Filme Rebecca (1940)

 

This film that we are going to analyze, produced in 1940 by the British director Alfred Hitchcock, can be framed within the so -called "Women’s Cinema", that is, films based on the subjective point of view of the protagonist and aimed at a female audience. Despite being belittled by critics since it was seen as a minor work within its filmography, this is considered the first "Gothic cinema" film, a genre that emerged in Hollywood in the 40s and that is characterized by the presence by the presence of iconographic elements and visual-narrative motifs such as: storms and raging seas, fog, fires, ghostly appearances, the portrait of a woman from the past, the sinister servants or the prohibited room. This film that led the director to the nomination of an Oscar corresponds to an example of the Hollywoodian classic model in which the enunciation marks are apparently erased.

As for his argument, this film treats Winter’s English aristocrat, shortly after losing his wife, he meets a humble young woman in Montecarlo, who works as a lady from the company of a arrogant American lady. These two fall in love and marry and will live in Manderley, a Cornwall mansion that is the habitual residence of Maxim. As soon as the young woman arrives, she realizes that the presence of De Winter’s previous wife, who died in a terrible accident, is still present in the Grand Mansion and still has a strange control over all.

Hitchcock is an author who, despite meeting the paradigm of classical cinema, presents different gestures that contribute to the new forms of writing that were developed in 1915 and who subsequently followed with the help of the sound, are registered within the INSTITUTIONAL REPRESENTATION. Therefore, through the analysis of this film we will affirm that "Rebecca" is another of the many productions that helped the famous director to make his cinema a success.

To begin with, we can see that in the credit titles the different succession of plans is evident, which shows us a path, which refers to the path that the protagonist made in the past and that will repeat in the course of that dream that It serves as a prelude to the posterior flashback. This is the same path as at the end of the film makes Winter to try to save the house of the flames.

As soon as we start the movie we can see how this is the opposite of what we met John Ford since in all his films we can see a great movement of cameras. Thus, in the prologue we see how an off voice sounds: "Last night I dreamed that I returned to Manderley …" that marks its beginning with a travelling forward in which the narrator manages to cross the gate in an unlikely way. Regarding this characteristic we find a lot of examples: this film begins with a plane of the sea, which gradually through a travelling up shows us the entire cliff and Max de Winter. This is combined with a series of closest planes such as what we see the Maxim and Background shoes, still present, the cliff, where Rebeca’s remains are located.

In the scene of the first meeting of the couple we also see how we are shown a general view of Montecarlo and as little by little it goes from a plane of the hotel entrance to the plane of the hall where the two women are. We can observe a maxim contraplaum in which the eyes of either young people could identify towards him. These characteristics will be invested by Hitchcock in the next meeting of the couple where instead of first approaching the space where the action takes place with a general plane, he makes a detail plan of the letter that clearly places us inside the restaurant.

Another curious detail that characterizes the director in regard to the characters and that we can see in the whole film is that the two female characters lack identity, since in the first place we can appreciate how the young woman, played in this case by Joan Fontaine is shown throughout the film without a name. And on the other hand, we observe how the enigmatic Rebeca is not presented at any time, breaking in this way with the protagonist’s canon at this time. In addition, we can see the predilection of this with a type of character: the false guilty, who experiences moral dilemmas that are shown through the visual, causing them to have a very contained interpretation. This in the film is clearly associated with the young MRS. Of Winter, who feels that she cannot deal with all responsibilities as Rebeca did. As a consequence, this leads this character to try to follow the guidelines of a patriarchal woman model, trying to act as a good wife to adapt to his new life.

As for the suspense, Hitchcock puts the spectator in various ways in tension. We can observe this characteristic in different scenes: the moment in which the relationship of both is interrupted by an unexpected trip of the young woman who cannot say goodbye to him. Here resources are used: a plane detail of her face, which shows anguish; the detail plane of the clock, which reinforces the anxiety that these moments create in the viewer; And the waiting of Mrs. van Hopper, since at that moment, the action continues to develop and the two characters still do not meet. Similarly, we can see that this tension is present in characters such as Mrs. Danvers, who with her long and dark dress, her expressions, and her appearances suddenly, make her appear as a mysterious entity throughout the film.

It is at the moment that the couple arrives at the mansion in which we can appreciate the entire enunciative universe that characterizes the great Hitchcock. The staging: the great lobby, the great doors and chimneys, highlight the smallness, nervousness and ignorance of the young woman before life in this new place and in turn manage to fulfill the function of transferring it from one scene to another. This delimitation of space and time is achieved by chained castings that soften the change from one place to another, establishing a chain of cause and effect that is reflected at different times; A clear example of this is the sequence of the costumes that begins with the first sketches of the young woman and ends with the expulsion of this room. All this allows the film to have continuity.

However, this continuity is drastically opposed to the fragmentation with which the speech is presented, since it is in the prologue, where through the young voice of the young woman we remember a dream with which we manage to place us in the past. This allows us once the film began to realize that the film plays with different temporal moments: the present from which the protagonist speaks through the voiceover; The past to which Rebeca belongs and the time that the dream marked throughout the film by the flashback lasts. Thus, as a consequence of everything analyzed in terms of assembly, it becomes evident, as Requena considered it, the immersion of Hitchcock within Mannerism, that is, in a mode of figurative representation in which reality is not shown as is.

The use of various objects as an enunciative gesture is something that we also find reflected in different scenes within the great mansion. We can highlight the use of the letter R on different occasions to highlight the presence of Rebeca in the house and to frighten Mrs. Of Winter, as well as the dramatic use that is given to the white flowers in several scenes: the two times the husband gives flowers to the young woman, first after the encounter in Montecarlo and later after the wedding; In the dress that he decides to wear the young woman and in the flowers located in different places of the house that, with care they are cared for by Mrs. Danvers. All this leads us to understand that the excessive presence of flowers is associated with Rebeca and therefore to the past, setting a memory and showing continuity with himself.

At the content level, Alfred Hitchcock is attributed to the concept of MacGuffin. This at a narrative level is a pretext to develop the plot that in the end is not important to him, but for the characters. In this film we can appreciate that the concept is associated with Rebeca’s death, since it is despite being named many times in the film does not imply any relevant fact, so that it could be replaced by another event and the film would be unchanged.

A feature of Hitchcock movies are their cameos, these were developed during the first fifteen minutes of film, with the aim that the audience always remained pending the plot and did not separate from the same. These managed to become so popular in the world of cinema that became a characteristic fact of the director’s visual emergency, so in this film we can see the appearance of him at the end of the film passing behind Favell (G. Sanders) and the Police.

In conclusion, from the analyzed we can affirm that Alfred Hitchcock is a director who manages to break the canons established at the time, registering in this way within the mode of institutional representation. Finally we can cite at this time a phrase that is included in François Truffaut’s book and describes the British live perfectly:

"I never feel comfortable within the common, of everyday life".

Bibliography:

  1. Truffaut, f. (2010). Cinema according to Hitchcock. Spain: Editorial Alliance.
  2. Parrondo, Eva. (2007). ‘The woman’ in Gothic cinema: Rebeca (Rebecca, Alfred Hitchcock, 1940). Recovered from: https: // repository.UAM.es/bitstream/handle/10486/3934/27408_25.5.PDF?sequence = 1
  3. Arocena Badillos, María Carmen and Larrauri Gárate, Iñigo. (2019). Rebeca. (Rebecca). Alfred Hitchcock (1940). Valencia: Naulibres.

 

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