Rebecca

I'll give you that....but in many cases it fit the part. His kinda pompous way served it well like Prince and the Showgirl.

 

I also agree please no. I don't think anyone should redo it. But picking Lily James for the role of the second Mrs. de Winter seems particularly wrongheaded. I like her, but she's 30 next year. Can she convince as the character who is between 20 and 22?

On the casting of Joan Fontaine, I am familiar with the story how she encountered Selznick in some public place and expressed an interest in the role. Selznick of course was familiar with her and had just did Gone With the Wind with Joan's sister Olivia in the role of Melanie. But I was merely aware that this led to a screen test for Joan. I've seen hers as well as Vivien Leigh's, Ann Baxter's and Margaret Sullavan's, and while those were all great actresses Joan nailed hers. Did Hitchcock really not want her? Never heard that.



I know that Olivier wanted Vivien Leigh in the part since they'd already begun an affair, and Vivien was extraordinary in GWTW. But I am sure I am not the only one who thinks it would have been a bad casting choice. Vivien was more like the way the Rebecca character was described than the second Mrs. de Winter.

In any event, it's more than merely difficult to argue with the choice.

 

It's a decent movie, but not really top class Hitchcock, he was more a director for hire on this one.

 

I'm sorry to tell you this, but you can't be in love with her, because I am.

 

I agree but I think it works in Rebecca, he’s almost not a real person when Joan Fontaine meets him in the beginning. He feels alien to us just like to her. Then when he lets her in on the truth and let’s his guard down, he acts much less stagey, less theatrical.

 

Well, in my whole life I have only sent a fan letter to one person in any sphere. One fan letter in my whole life. It went to Joan Fontaine.

 

Putting aside Olivier's career as a whole, when I can see some of such roles with a bit of a critical eye (such as Spartacus), his performance here was what the role called for. The character of Maxim was one who was playing a role himself, and very consciously so.

For example, even in his relationship with the second Mrs. de Winter he seems to start out not sure how to act in some way that is more familiar with her than in continuing his role performing the public face of Mr. de Winter. The proof as it were of his attraction to her is shown in the way he warms up to her, which definitely occurs of course, but is done is in short slowly. And for most of the film doing so while maintaining that reserve that he feels necessary to hide his secret and his doubts.

Part of the greatness of this film has to do with the way it explores the subject of public faces versus who we are inside and what we want.

In any event and for this film I agree that Olivier's portrayal of the character with that stiffness and bit of staginess is what the film called for.

 

I honestly see no difference. It is all acting to me and Al Pacini has his stage roots as well. I see it to a degree in all performances (well except for Gigli or Jack and Jill which I honestly like but are more comedic) and if you really squint you can see that in most artists that wrk in method theater.

Olivier has his style and I think he gets a lot of flack for his reputation more than what is going on.

smilin ed has still brought up an angle that I appreciate. Defending Olivier makes me think of the film all the more.

Now what about the dog....I sure liked him too. Dragging Fontaine around in the rocks kinda cracked me up.

 

He may have been a director for hire, but it's the only Alfred Hitchcock directed movie to win an Oscar for best motion picture.

 

I don't know why....but I got a kinda Citzen Kane feel. That is most certainly not a director for hire even if it is that way. He had some very different camera work paired with great work putting it all together.

I actually get offended when I read that Ingmar called Hitchcock a technician.

 

Yes, which shows the terrible taste of the Academy.

 

Just out of curiosity I looked up his nominations for best picture and director and who he lost to. It’s amazing not just that he never won director and only Rebecca won picture. But how few nominations for both.

Director
1944 lifeboat (winner Leo McCarey ‘going my way’)
1945 spellbound (winner Billy Wilder ‘lost weekend’)
1954 rear window (winner Kazan ‘on the waterfront’)
1960 psycho (winner Wilder ‘the aprtment’)

Picture
1940 Rebecca won, foreign correspondent also nominated
1941 suspicion (winner How Green Was May Valley; citizen Kane lost this year too)
1945 spellbound (winner ‘lost weekend’)

And that’s it!!! I guess his films were seen as just fun light entertainment. But I can’t believe Notorious didn’t get nods for either. Or Vertigo. Or Rear Window best picture. Rear Window is maybe my favorite Hitch, but I love waterfront even more so that’s very slightly excusable.

 

Which is more than what can be said of Kubrick. 5 out of 13 films had some kind of nomination with zero wins.

 

Pure insanity considering he had around 70 directed pictures.

 

Hitchcock's films have a total of two Oscars as far as I can recall. The first for best film for Rebecca was I think at least in part a credit to Selznick, who of course had just previously produced the huge Gone With the Wind. The second was best actress for Joan Fontaine, not for Rebecca but for Suspicion. Some seem to think that the Suspicion award was a compensation for not getting it for Rebecca, which is probably true in part. But I disagree with any implication that her performance in Suspicion was not deserving (she probably should have won for Letter from An Unknown Woman as well).

The point is that these early wins had something particular about both that led to them. But from then on Hitchcock was seen more as an entertainer than a real artist. How the change came about, how it started, is something that there is some debate about. But certainly by the time Francois Truffaut* and other French New Wave directors were singing his praise, meaning in the early sixties, we can go forward from that appreciation to his eventual achievement of wide acclaim. In fact it is probably fair to wonder if it hadn't been for the French whether he would have the standing he currently has.

Whatever is the case in that regard, Hitchcock's lack of Oscar nominations and wins is no doubt attributable to that earlier perception of him.

* Truffaut did not merely idealize Hitchcock but also made films very much influenced by him.

 

I thought it was a case of 'he's a suspense director' One Trick Pony
His films aren't artistically valid cuz he was working in a single genre, and for that matter a genre that the academy didn't think was aesthetically pleasing. (perception)
And of course, there might be a touch of 'he's not an American' he started out making some very successful films in the UK

 

This movie had a huge impact on me when I saw around age 13. The acting is uniformly superb, and,as noted, it is beautifully shot. Hitchcock's best film until Strangers On A Train, IMO.

 

Just the word Manderley makes me want to see it again.

 

"I'm asking you to marry me you little fool"

 

One day, when my wife was pregnant, we were brainstorming what to name the baby. My dvd caught her eye, and she said "what about Rebecca if its a girl?". Rebecca's now 7.

 

That’s what I remember one of the hosts on TCM saying when the movie was shown. I thought it may have been “Suspicion” instead but that was a different producer. It was awhile ago though.

 

Good thing Tootsie didn't catch her eye.

 

Hitchcock was no doubt annoyed at pretty much every way that Selznick involved himself in the film. And initially he may have been concerned that Fontaine did not have enough experience to carry the female lead in the film. But he can't have been too negative on her, given the widespread perception she should have won the Oscar for Rebecca, and he then cast her immediately after in Suspicion.