Rebecca [DVD]

Rebecca was spoiled, selfish, willful, manipulative, hedonistic and heartless. We never meet her directly in this famous story by Daphne du Maurier, but the power of her personality and her actions in life linger long after she is gone, the victim of a drowning accident off the Cornish coast. Or was it truly an accident? By the end of the story and film (both of which are named after her) we find out.People were to Rebecca as chess pieces are to a player — objects of potential gain and power to be manoeuvred and used for self-aggrandisement. She was adept at playing too, using camouflage, feints, false moves and other forms of deception to conquer her adversaries, the aim of which was to get her way. She usually did, her opponents disarmed by her beauty, charm, wit and false sincerity.Maxim de Winter, a wealthy young man, did not know he was Rebecca’s opponent. He thought he was her lover and she his. He thought they loved one another, which is normally what lovers think and do. They met when he was in his early twenties, a time when passion and desire are frequently mistaken for love. So, bewitched by this young dark-eyed beauty, he was drawn to her and prepared to give her everything, which, as it happens, is exactly what she wanted.The love, courtship, proposal, marriage and honeymoon occurred quickly. Before he knew it Maxim was married. These events occurred in Monaco, not in England: there where the Mediterranean light is bright, intense, baffling, blinding. It gave him heatstroke or something like it. This would be his view later on when he was able to look back clearly at events. Five days after their marriage Rebecca laid down the law. She told Maxim precisely what their terms of engagement would be, what she expected from him (a lot) and what he should expect from her (very little).She said this to him:“I’ll make a bargain with you. Of course I’ll look after your precious Manderley [Max’s large family estate and grounds in Cornwall]. I’ll make it the most famous showplace in the country. They’ll say we are the happiest, luckiest, handsomest couple in all England. What a triumph. Oh, what a leg pull. What a wonderful, marvellous joke! You’ll go along with it Max. Of course you will. Anything for the pride and honour of your good name and Manderley. Of course you will.”She was right. He did. He was a coward, or so he told himself. He couldn’t face the humiliation of what he had done, admitting his mistake to the world. She knew this because she also knew no one would believe him. Everyone was charmed by Rebecca. Everybody loved and admired her, and none ever suspected she despised them all. In modern parlance we would say she was self-loathing and self-destructive. Her cynicism, narcissism and misanthropy stemmed from this. If she couldn’t accept and respect herself, how could she accept and respect others? So everything became a game for her, a ruse and passion play with she the star of the show.But this happened half a lifetime ago, long before her death. Events in the film open in 1927 in Monte Carlo. Max is middle aged now, perhaps 46 or 47. He has come back to Monaco for the sun, the surf, and to be far away from England, or far enough away. Rebecca died some months ago, perhaps nine or ten. They knew her well here in Monte Carlo. She was an extrovert, a socialite, and even in middle age still a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty, more Spanish or Italian-looking than English. Max is well known too, especially with the English set, so everyone knows he’s a grieving widower. Grieving, yes, but not for Rebecca. It’s mainly for himself, for the wasted and lost life he feels his to be.That is, until he meets Caroline. She is young, perhaps 22 or 23, which is to say half his age. She’s also quiet and modest, kind and thoughtful, gracious and attentive, respectful and deferential. Max sees and senses all this and is charmed by her lack of pretence. She’s what’s known, or used to be known, as a good girl: well-bred, soft spoken, sincere, generous in spirit. There’s also a touch of sweetness and innocence about her, girlish qualities Max clearly notices and adores. She is Rebecca’s opposite, the kind of woman he should have had all along. She also looks nothing like Rebecca. Although very pretty, she is not flamboyantly beautiful. She’s small boned, thin and fair. She has blue eyes, pale skin, and straight light-brown hair cut short in the fashion of the day (just above the shoulders).She’s the paid companion of a garrulous and boorish American socialite — Mrs. Van Hopper. The elder woman is lonely and middle aged, possibly a widow, or perhaps never married, her mission to find a rich husband in Monte Carlo.Max de Winter enters the dining room. Mrs. Van Hopper knows him, or knows of him, and sends an invitation note to his table via the waiter. Max accepts, but not to socialise with Mrs. Van Hopper. It’s the quiet and demure Caroline who interests him, though he doesn’t hint at this.Next morning Mrs. Van Hopper is sleeping late and not feeling well. Caroline comes down for breakfast on her own. Breakfast is served at the outdoor patio tables. Max is seated alone at his table. He sees that Caroline is alone as well and invites her to sit down. She does. Then over breakfast they converse politely and pleasantly. She’s not used to this. First, to being noticed at all. Second, to having a gentleman of Max’s standing show interest. But his interest is acute and genuine. She’s perceptive enough to realise it, even if she can’t know why. One might say her confidence is low due to a lack of experience with men. That is the impression one gets. She mainly listens and smiles; he largely speaks and watches. If she is free in the afternoon, he has a motorcar. Would she like to join him for a lovely cliffside view of the sea from the mountains to the north of them? She says she would. The air is fresh and breezy. They drive in the sun and look content and happy. Later she lies when Mrs. Van Hopper asks how she has spent her day. She played tennis all day, she says, unsure of what else to say.The pattern repeats itself for the next few days: drives in the mountains, views of the sea, chats over coffee. Max reveals little of what he’s feeling, but she knows he likes her. Meanwhile his attentions are affecting her deeply — deeper than she would have at first suspected they could. She’s falling in love and frightened for it, scared of what it means and sad at the thought of it going unfulfilled. But Max is the same, though without the fear. He wants to declare himself but holds back.Crisis is what brings them together. Mrs. Van Hopper suspects Max’s affection for Caroline, feels jilted and jealous, declares that Monte Carlo is finished and that they’ll sail for New York soon. Caroline is devastated. She goes to Max’s room to deliver the bad news. Time is of the essence, so, having none to waste, he proposes to her. It reminds me of Edward Rochester’s proposal to Jane Eyre in the garden at Thornfield Hall. Like Jane, Caroline is astonished. Looking into his eyes, she tries to read his face and thoughts. “Don’t play with me” are what both young women feel. But both men are desperate and earnest, even if neither can reveal their hidden passion. Max simply says it’s New York with Mrs. Van Hopper or England and Manderley with him. She chooses. She says yes to him. They will be married simply and soon. Mrs. Van Hopper clears off in a huff, angry at the passage of time and at another rich man who has got away. But she’s unimportant, a bit of comic relief in the story, and now she passes from it.They honeymoon in Venice, that place of romance made for love. Aboard the steamer travelling through the Mediterranean they make love. Though she could be mistaken for his daughter, the years dissolve between them in their love embraces in bed. They look happy. They are, or at least she is. His happiness, though real, is blighted by a past that won’t leave him. Rebecca is dead, but not her influence. In memory and dreams she’ll go on haunting him. Caroline’s strength, belief, steadfastness, love and loyalty are the things that help him to endure.They arrive back in England. Max has written from Italy to the staff at Manderley, so they know he is returning with his bride, the second Mrs. de Winter. The staff are mainly cordial to her and accept her in her new position as mistress of Manderley. But one member of staff (Mrs. Danvers) is only outwardly cordial to her. Inwardly she seethes, aggrieved by the loss of Rebecca whom she cared for and loved from the time Rebecca was 12 years old. But the love is a strange one, an erotic one (fulfilled or not) and one of admiration for Rebecca’s negative qualities (cruelty, sadism, condescension, contempt). A tortured soul who never smiles or laughs, Mrs. Danvers sees her likeness in her former mistress. As such, with Rebecca’s death, she is slowly dying herself spiritually. Rebecca’s venom becomes that of Mrs. Danvers. She hates Caroline, loathes her youth, beauty and happiness, and secretly wishes for her death. This wish becomes overt toward the end of the story when she tries to goad Caroline into killing herself during a moment of deep crisis for Caroline. This is unforgivable, we feel, so we are not saddened in the least when Mrs. Danvers herself is stricken by a deep crisis later on.There is much more in the story that could be written about, but these details would be better appreciated by watching the film. Max is deeply wounded at one point. He is accused of committing a crime, and a nasty, smarmy character named Jack Favell (a cousin of Max’s and part-time paramour of Rebecca’s) tries to blackmail him. But three things prevail, even if Manderley cannot: Max, Caroline and their love.Ten years later, an epilogue to the story is presented by Caroline. She and Max are living quietly in a small seaside villa along the Mediterranean. In a calm and wistful voice, Caroline tells us this:“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. The house was a tomb. Our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins. There would be no resurrection. But I knew that when I woke I would not be bitter. I would think of Manderley as it might have been if we could have lived there without fear. I remembered the rose garden in summer, tea under the chestnut tree, the murmur of the sea from the lawns below. These things will always be with me. They are memories that cannot hurt and they sweeten this exile we have brought upon ourselves. But I will not tell Max about my dream. We never talk of Manderley. And of course we can never go back…Maxim is wonderfully patient and never complains. Not even when he remembers, which happens I think more often than he would like me to know.”

Of all the adaptations of Rebecca I've seen, this one is a stand-out purely by virtue of the quality of the scripting and some powerful performances from excellent actors. It lacks the sinister, Gothic atmosphere and air of encroaching menace of the Hitchcock original, and the settings, aside from the beautiful gardens, also pale by comparison with other adaptations. Given the Manderley estate and its curious secrets are perhaps the most important protagonist of the novel, this did come as a disappointment. The cinematography also can't touch the Hitchcock version or the more modern Netflix one: most of the interior sequences are far too dark.The casting and acting, however, was superb. Even the smaller parts like Maxim's sister Beatrice, the butler Frith and the keeper's son accorded exactly with how I'd imagined them from the book, and whilst neither Faye Dunaway or Charles Dance bear much resemblance to their fictional originals, both actors bring life, zest and fresh interpretations of these roles. Mrs Van Hopper is vaguely ridiculous but not as thoroughly unlikeable as she's elsewhere been portrayed, and Dance brings just the right degree of aloof inhibition, coupled with charisma, to his very believable Maxim de Winter. Diana Rigg, as ever, is simply magnificent. Anna Massey's Mrs Danvers was a brilliant piece of acting but Rigg has such presence and gravitas as a performer that she never disappoints. Her Mrs Danvers is positively sinister, yet somehow manages to be rather pathetic at the same time. She also manages to convey, effectively and with subtle nuance, the erotic power of the connection she shared with Rebecca. The great Jean Anderson, albeit her role is merely seconds long, always gives value for money, and it was also fun to see 'Emperor Palpatine' appear as the officious (and none-too competent) coroner.There is, as ever, some poetic licence, none of which seems necessary here as it removes some of the subtler implications of the novel. The most notable is the appearance of Rebecca herself, albeit her full face is never seen and we're treated to cut-off versions of her lips and eyes, not unlike the disjointed, unfulfilling representations of the supposedly beautiful Manderley itself. This demystifies the character whose very absence and elusiveness is the source of her power. Then Maxim strangles her: why take this particular liberty? It brings nothing to the text and makes Maxim's act seem even more diabolical, particularly considering his wife is presumed at the time to be pregnant. The brief scenes of Maxim and the second Mrs de Winter rolling around in bed are oddly incongruous: the novel subtly implies that this marriage is chaste, at least until the point of Maxim's confession. And Maxim's dramatic rescue of Danvers from a burning Manderley, and his subsequent physical disabilities, is also unnecessary: too many shades of Jane Eyre, perhaps.Despite some jarring weaknesses, however, the powerful performances, great casting and well-crafted script give this version of 'Rebecca' the edge over other adaptations. Well worth a watch.

This is a perfectly acceptable adaptation of the classic novel. If I have one slight gripe it's that the production is slightly under-cooked. "Rebecca" is full-blooded , broody Gothic and that didn't fully come across here. This was where Hitchcock's original film scored very well but, because of the censorship of that time, he had to make a fundamental alteration to the story which rather spoiled things. In this TV production, thankfully, the original story line is adhered to. The other slight reservation is that we actually get to see Rebecca in person in this version, albeit only in fleeting, partial views. This, to me, was unnecessary and actually weakened the image you otherwise build up of the character. All that said, the production was well -acted, well-filmed and nicely paced. And for the price the DVD is being offered today it's a real bargain.