Rebecca
2020
Directed by Ben Wheatley
Screenplay by Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse
Based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier
Music by Clint Mansell
Netflix from 21st October 2020
MAIN CAST
Lily James – Mrs De Winter
Armie Hammer- Maxim De Winter
Kristin Scott Thomas- Mrs Danvers, housekeeper at Manderley
Ann Dowd – Mrs Van Hopper
Tom Goodman-Hill- Frank Crawley, the estate manager
Sam Riley- Jack Flavell, Rebecca’s cousin
Keeley Hawes – Beatrice, a friend of the family
Two major movies in a week from Netflix, both major features too.
We had heard a little about Rebecca last year in the charity bookshop in Cranborne, Dorset. Cranborne Manor served as the exteriors for the De Winter house, Manderley, in the story. We were told about the full height plywood model of the house built for the final fire and the excitement locally of watching the fire scene. Cranborne Manor was used for the 1963 film Tom Jones. The distinctive gate houses are unique. My grandad was born in a tied cottage which was demolished to build the war memorial. His forbears had all been gardeners at the Manor. Vineys were working there in the early 18th century. He left at twelve and got a job on the railway moving from porter to engine cleaner to fireman to engine driver. We often have lunch in the Garden Centre which has simple but superb local produce. It’s a place close to my heart (and DNA).
In the summer, the gardens are open once a week so you can walk right up to the house. I’ve never been inside, but the interiors in the film are too large to be the Manor and it is NOT by the sea … or within twenty odd miles of the sea. That’s SFX. Many of the interiors are Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, which is closer to a palace than a country house. It is the home of the Marquess of Salisbury, and Viscount Cranborne is the title of his heir – so both houses belong to the Salisbury family. Even reviewers in the USA note the difference in scale, as people walk through vast long galleries indoors. One could add that Hatfield is so palatial and historic that it simply could not be owned by a “Mr” De Winter. This is major aristocracy territory.
The sea shore is in Cornwall, so the locations which appear to be one place are spread over 200 to 300 miles. No wonder Mrs Danvers says ‘You can’t see the sea from these windows.’ Several other large houses were used too.
Ben Wheatley: I think the film was shot across five or six different spaces and that gave it that feeling of… kind of… the architecture is really variable, the corridors don’t quite make sense in terms of where they go to, the shapes of the places don’t quite make sense – and I think that that helped with the idea that it was the second Mrs De Winter’s memory as much as it was a real space.”
Heart website
It’s about the same length as Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film … just over 2 hours. It hasn’t been particularly well-received by reviewers, though it is an irritation to be continually referring back (as they do) to the Alfred Hitchcock, which starred Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. That picked up the 1940 Academy Award. More than one review noted that the 2020 version is closer to Daphne Du Maurier’s 1938 novel, which I haven’t read. Ben Wheatley has stated that he was making a film from the novel NOT a remake of the 1940 film. I hadn’t seen the 1940 film in many years, though I had a free DVD that The Times newspaper gave away. We decided to watch that the next night, right after the 2020 one. I rather doubt that all those quoting the 1940 film did the same. These old films glow in the memory (the era was the height of lighting camera work in black and white). The high speed Advanced RP clipped voices don’t glow when you rewatch.
Fortunately, I had no memory of the plot and its twists and turns, and I will maintain interest for the future viewer by keeping quiet about the details here. It’s a good story. It kept us totally intrigued. The film locations are lavish. The cast are as good as you get … when Keeley Hawes has a minor supporting role as Maxim’s sister, Beatrice, you know that they could have got anyone for the main roles.
Lily James is the star, as the second “Mrs De Winters.” She appears not to have a name, being just mademoiselle until she marries Mr De Winters. This is from the novel … the first Mrs De Winters, Rebecca, is such an overpowering memory that even the second one’s name is obliterated. It’s even stronger in the older film, where she introduces herself as, ‘Hello, I’m Maxim’s wife.
She is an orphan and a ladies companion in the South of France to the elderly and obnoxious Mrs Van Hopper (Ann Dowd). There she meets the recently widowed Maxim De Winters (Arnie Hammer), an eligible, wealthy and charismatic man who owns the Manderley estate in England. After a whirlwind romance, they marry. Undoubtedly, the allowance of more intimate romantic scenes in 2020 adds to the characterization.
They return to Manderley. It appears that the whole West Wing is a shrine to the dead first wife, Rebecca. The place is overseen by the decidedly creepy housekeeper, Mrs Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas). There is a debt to Jane Eyre in the rooms that are hidden away.
Kristin Scott Thomas’ delicious performance as the vicious housekeeper is the one element of the modern Rebecca that truly surpasses Hitchcock’s take. Thomas is clearly having fun here, her every fibre withering with contempt for all who dare to enter her orbit, and it’s a wicked pleasure to see her deliver — through pursed lips — scathing lines like, “The first Mrs de Winter was most particular about her sauces.”
John Nugent, Empire
Lily James and Kristin Scott-Thomas had worked together on Darkest Hour. They’re great together.
The mystery deepens. Maxim sleepwalks and can’t be woken. A figure in red appears in distant corridors. No one is telling her anything. Maxim won’t discuss Rebecca. Rebecca’s cousin, Jack Flavell, a bounder if ever there was one turns up. I don’t think I can go much further without plot spoilers.
The music is high standard … at times we thought it was Max Richter (there is no higher praise). Oddly, some reviews disliked the music. In contrast, the 1940 music drives our reactions far too loudly and stridently- there is not an ounce of subtlety. Vastly too intrusive.
Criticism bounces on Armie Hammer as Maxim De Winter. I thought he had no problems with an English accent, though looked a little beefy “action hero” for a role Olivier had made famous. For example:
The problem is Max – who is transformed into an obvious hunk. Hammer has seven times Olivier’s body mass, and he does not have his cold English abruptness or his suicidal misery. Hammer just looks too candid and upfront. It’s not quite that he doesn’t have Olivier’s style in the role: he is just too forthright, too cornfed, patently unwounded – and, crucially, he doesn’t look like a man with a secret.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian 15 Oct 2020
I thought Armie Hammer excelled especially in the South of France scenes. He has nothing to be ashamed of in comparison to Olivier’s sleazier character.
Lily James is used to her male leads being dissed by critics … Richard Madden had a tough ride in Cinderella, but more so as Romeo to Lily James’ Juliet in Branagh’s stage production. I’m used to critics pointing out that she’s a better actor than her co-stars. Her role has its challenges. She has a learning curve from being downtrodden to romantic heroine to semi-horror film wide-eyed and trepidatious victim to tearfully put down and manipulated to ending up taking total control of the situation and resolving all the problems. She begins in thrall to Maxim. She ends up as the one with power and solutions. It’s the appeal of the story.
Karen thought that while overall costumes were lavish in the extreme, such as Maxim’s mustard suit (and metallic gold Bentley … many years before metallic paint ever existed), that the costumes weren’t sympathetic to Lily James. She was an ordinary (middle class) gal, among the very wealthy indeed, so her plainer cheaper frocks reflected that. Karen’s point is that they were ill-fitting and there’s no excuse. You can dress a gorgeous woman in rags and we know she’s poor, or dull plain clothes to show she’s simply not rich or cool, but they should be rags and plain clothes that accentuate her best features.
Karen also thought you could usefully cut 15-20 minutes for pace (but then she would say that you could take some 10-15% off the famous highly speeded up film, London to Brighton in Two Minutes). We co-wrote scripts for years and her mantra was and is “less is more.”
Basically, it’s a good step above your Miss Marples / Poirot 1930s mystery. The story hold you. Lily James has top level movie magnetism, as do Kristin Scott-Thomas and Sam Riley. The hints at a ghost story are never resolved, but that’s fine. Those hints (the lady in red in the distance) do not appear in the 1940 film.
I’ll get a DVD when it comes out (but not a bluray, nor my highest ‘I’ll get the 24K UHD bluray when it comes out.)’
That’s my equivalent of *** then. However, having watched the 1940 original right afterwards, I’m tending to ****, so better than any of the critics. I’ll be very surprised if they watched them back to back. Whatever it was thoroughly good entertainment for a semi-lockdown Wednesday evening.
THE 1940 FILM
Rebecca
1940
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by David O. Selznik
Screenplay by Robert sherwood and Jean Harrison
Music by Franz Waxman
Laurence Olivier – Maxim De Winter
Joan Fontaine – Mrs De Winter
Judith Anderson – Mrs Danvers
George Sanders – Jack Favell
Florence Bates – Mrs Van Hopper
Reginald Denny- Frank Crawley
C. Aubrey Smith- Colonel Julian, the Chief Constable
OK, it’s American Film History 101. Every critic will have seen it (though not as recently as they might suggest!) David O. Selznik produced it directly after Gone With The Wind, getting Academy Awards for Outstanding Production for both, and with both being the highest grossing films of their year in Britain. Wikipedia notes that it’s the only “Best Picture” not to win any awards for directing, acting or support acting.
As above, it’s a masterclass in film lighting and camera direction throughout. This was a period of painting with light, so that a dozen small lights could be used on a face close up, and the aim was not to replicate actual light … there was no ‘the sun comes through a window at 120° to the face, with an added reflection from a mirror at 310°. It was creating a light picture of itself – and the cinematography (George Barnes) was one of the two 1940 Academy Awards the film won … the other was Best Picture.
One goof for the techies among us … in a particularly brilliantly lit section, Maxim shows her their honeymoon pictures on 8 mm cinefilm. We get a two shot of them cuddling by the car … what we now call a selfie … and he says, ‘This is where I left the camera running on the tripod!’ Indeed. A camera with an automatic timed zoom lense then. My phone hasn’t got that. Yet.
I have a problem with the rapid clipped accents.
It surprises how many actual lines are identical, as well as minor action such as when Mrs De Winter drops her gloves on meeting Mrs Danvers, and being an ordinary girl, tries to pick them up herself. She should have left it to the servant. I will guess these are direct from the novel. One line they had to cut is when the 2020 Mrs De Winter overhears Jack and Mrs Danvers and Jack says ‘This will be a shock for Cinderella!’ They could not have used that in 2020 with Lily James … who was Disney’s live action Cinderella.
Both Mrs Danvers are extraordinarily creepy.
The boathouse must be described in great detail in the novel. It looks so alike in both films.
The story is quite different at both ends. In France, Mrs Van Hopper is played for even more comedy here, but there’s much less of France overall. Beatrice and husband at the fancy dress ball are played for outright comedy by Hitchcock. The end puts the work on him (Maxim) in 1940, while the 2020 has her (Mrs De Winter) doing the investigative stuff and finding the breakthrough. Times change. The 2020 is considerably better at the end AND adds a coda in Cairo, where both are drinking and smoking too much, lost expats.
Joan Fontaine’s rendition of Mrs De Winter is cringingly wet and needy … Lily James, even at her most downtrodden, is never that weedy. Joan Fontaine has no bed scenes. It was, face it, EIGHTY YEARS AGO. That makes a big difference to her scenes with an angry or cold Maxim. In 2020, he can turn away in bed and put the light off, telling the story without distorted grimaces. The intimacy (there are no naked scenes, well, not below the neck) of the 2020 helps the plot.
Olivier? At times brilliant, but as throughout his career, he also overacts. A ham at heart. I hate it when he practices his eye rolls that ended up as a pantomime travesty by the time he got to Othello in the mid sixties. Yes, he does the confession monologue in the boat house as a speech that would have brought the house down at the National Theatre, using every trick in his armoury. Armie Hammer, though duller, is more naturalistic. The boat house scene is a major difference due to the 1940 Hollywood Production Code which stated that justice must be applied to any assumed murderer. That meant that Rebecca’s disappearance (I’m treading close to plot spoilers) had to be accidental. Armie Hammer got to do the speech as intended (I assume) in the novel. He has a better text to work with than Olivier did.
At the end, Selznik wanted the smoke from the fire to form an R for Rebecca. The R and R de W monograms on items all over the place feature heavily in both films. Hitcock declined and instead did a close-up on the monogrammed R on her nightcase as the fire approached. When one sees an artefact as the closing moment of a film, you think ‘A Rosebud moment’ in deference to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Wait … Citizen Kane was a year later in 1941. So from now, maybe I’ll think, ‘A Rebecca moment.’
THE NOVEL
I received some notes from my cyberfriend Lisa which I’m adding to the article here. I was suspicious of the critic references to the 1940 film and whether they’d seen it recently. They also opined over which film was closer to the novel. I hand over to Lisa …
LISA:
I should start by saying that I first read Rebecca when I was 15, and have reread it many times over the years, my favorite reread you could say. I know the novel very, very well, and I found this new Rebecca quite appalling. I can’t fathom how the director says he based the movie on the novel because I find it hard to believe he ever even read it.
From the start to finish he changed many characterizations and events, I suppose to make it more appealing to a contemporary audience. Many of the reviewers seem not to have the novel either, as they seem to agree that this version is closer to the novel than Hitchcock’s. It’s not! Hitchcock did make changes but mostly in response to the Hays Office Film Production Code of the day. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen the 1940 Rebecca, but I never thought it captured the novel very well either although it tried.
Part of my problem is that being so familiar with the source material I have long established ideas of the characters, including Manderley, and only one version has ever come close to the real thing. That was done by the BBC in 1979, a four-hour miniseries starring Joanna David, Jeremy Brett and Anna Massey in the three main roles. I realize that a miniseries has twice as long to tell the story as a movie, but it is very far superior in every respect, and if you can ever find a copy anywhere you will find the real Rebecca.
Interestingly enough, another more recent version of Rebecca stars Joanna David’s daughter Emilia Fox, along with Charles Dance and Diana Rigg (another miniseries – the plot really needs the extra time to develop properly). Faye Dunaway made a very interesting Mrs. Van Hopper in this one, btw – that character in this latest version is just way, way over the line, awful. Mrs. Van Hopper in the Joanna David version was played by Elsbeth March, who captured the character perfectly.
Anyway, Mrs. Van Hopper is a pretty OTT character in the book too, though a relatively minor one – she only appears at the beginning of the story. She’s spoiled, petty and is very condescending to her companion, but although she can be rather mean she isn’t vicious. The book begins with the dream referred to in the opening sentence “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again“, but by the end of that first chapter you know that the de Winters are living in an unspecified Mediterranean-type country, and that Manderley “is no more”. The book ends with the de Winters driving all night after the visit to the doctor’s office, and seeing the red glow of Manderley burning and the ash blowing toward them as they approach, nothing like the endings in either this one (with Mrs. Danvers committing suicide jumping off the cliff!!) or dying in the fire in the Hitchcock film. In the novel her fate is never spelled out, and it is implied that she and Favell have escaped together after setting fire to Manderley. And there is no revolver in the scene where Maxim reveals his true feelings for Rebecca either. And the ridiculous scene that has our heroine searching the doctor’s files, etc – complete fabrication, doesn’t happen at all. And the portrait of Caroline de Winter that features so much in the plot? In the book it is the portrait of a beautiful young aristocrat and the dress and hat are WHITE and in the period of the time. In this movie she looks like a dancehall floozy .. and Maxim is literally twice as old as his new bride (she’s 21, he’s 42) – I never heard of Armie Hammer, but he certainly doesn’t look old enough to be Lily James’s father! I could go on and on about the inconsistencies and questionable changes but to remember them all I’d have to watch the movie again and I don’t think I could stand to, I was so annoyed the first time round.
UNQUOTE
THE 1997 MINISERIES
Looking online, this has had several DVD incarnations. This is the one we saw:
Having read Lisa’s comments, we ordered the 1997 miniseries on DVD. it was shown as two 90 minute episodes.
There WILL be plot spoilers in this section.
Granada TV
Directed by Jim O’Brien
Screenplay by Arthur Hopcraft
Music by Christopher Gunning
CAST:
Charles Dance – Maxim De Winter
Emilia Fox – The Second Mrs De Winter
Diana Rigg – Mrs Danvers
Jonathan Cake – Jack Favell
Faye Dunaway – Mrs Van Hopper
Geraldine James – Beatrice
Tom Chadbon – Crawley
Timothy West – Dr Baker
Lucy Cohu – Rebecca
John Horsley- Frith, the butler
First the cast. Charles Dance is the most convincing (and best) Maxim of the three. First, he really does look old enough to be his new wife’s father. He also looks the most likely to have killed his first wife by a long way. And he does. In the 2020, the gun goes off accidentally. In the 1940 she falls and hits her head on a rock. Charles Dance in the 1997 throttles her.
Faye Dunaway is completely different to the other two Mrs Van Hoppers. Both were figures of fun in their desire to meet Maxim. Faye Dunaway is credible in hoping to get off with him. She’s older of course, but looks fit, slim and well.
Diana Rigg? A great actress, but I think Kristen Scott-Thomas in the 2020 is the best Mrs Danvers, followed by Judith Anderson in 1940. Partly here she doesn’t get the lines or situations in the script like the glove dropping or the creepy hair brushing. She must have fewer lines overall.
Jonathan Cake is the most caddish cad of any cad on screen. We saw him as Anthony in Anthony & Cleopatra at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Just about a draw with Sam Riley in the 2020 as best Jack Flavell.
The big part then, the nameless Second Mrs De Winter. Emilia Fox suffered for me by looking disconcertingly like her dad at times. She is very good in some scenes, she has the right age … only 23 when she played it. They also play some of her important conversations with Maxim in bed, which the 2020 follows. She doesn’t get the full transition from downtrodden to running the show, because it hasn’t been scripted like that. I think the 2020 script gives Lily James the edge over the other two Second Mrs De Winters.
Geraldine James is a superb Beatrice, as is Keely Hawes in 2020. A draw.
Ben is too dumb in this one. Timothy West is the best Dr Baker. That’s predictable from the cast list before you go in.
On the story? I still haven’t read the novel. The house is still a palace rather than a mansion.
The ending is different again. Maxim goes into the burning house to rescue Mrs Danvers. He carries her to the blazing stairs they fall and lie spreadeagled on the floor. We see (as in 2020) “ten years later” and Maxim with walking cane and the Second Mrs De Winter are on a misty Mediterranean island. We hear that “he can’t have children” which I guess means the fire got him in a particularly sensitive area.
The Fancy Dress Ball story is less explicit … she is dressing up as Rebecca did the previous time rather than “as Rebecca.”
There is no lengthy court scene to match the earlier ones.
I didn’t like the flashbacks which allowed us to see Rebecca – only a figure with her back to camera, or a tight close up on lips or eyes only, but I still think she is best totally enigmatic.
Overall – the 2020 doesn’t do too badly. If you put Charles Dance into the 2020 it would be a massive improvement. Otherwise, I’d say Lily James is my choice of heroine.
LISA ADDS … comparison with the novel:
1) Maxim throttles Rebecca? In the book he shoots her, but the bullet passes clean through her so there’s no evidence left in the body. This is not to be confused with the current movie version where Maxim shows our nameless heroine the gun and more or less invites her to shoot him, which doesn’t happen.
2) Actually, the glove dropping and hair brushing are taken from the novel. I don’t think leaving them out misses too much, although the glove dropping is significant to the relationship between Mrs. Danvers and the new bride right from the beginning.
3) The ending with Maxim trying to save Mrs. Danvers is totally made up, and there is nothing in the book to say that Maxim can’t father children, much less that it’s due to this fire rescue event – maybe it’s best not to speculate on that, haha!
4) All the Mrs. Danvers are very good, but Anna Massey’s performance is truly bone-chilling. In my opinion she is the best and I hope somehow you can track down the Joanna David’s Rebecca. It’s the longest of the versions at four hours and follows the novel very faithfully. Daphne du Maurier was excellent at writing dialogue, and much of the text is taken directly from the book.
5) The actor who plays Ben in the 1979 Rebecca portrays the character very well. In the novel Ben makes more appearances than in any of these versions, and though he’s a character at the side of the action so to speak, it definitely adds to the suspense at the end when the reader realizes that he saw the whole murder/boat scuttling and could give evidence that would condemn Maxim to the gallows.
6) Faye Dunaway’s Mrs Van Hopper is certainly different from the others (and the character in the book) but I loved her interpretation and didn’t mind the change at all. She certainly got that avid, predatory quality across, and didn’t she look gorgeous!
Just to be clear, I don’t object to anyone changing the story to suit their own dramatic purposes, but for Ben Wheatley to say he based his Rebecca faithfully on the book was obviously not the case.
Michael Duffy says the 1979 Rebecca is available in short segments on YouTube. Four hours in short YouTube segments would be agony and I really hope you can find it one day. Surely, being a BBC production there must be a copy somewhere? I’d love to read what you have to say about it, because it is head and shoulders above the others.
LISA: First person … the name
Just as a little point of interest, I don’t know if many other authors have written a major novel in first person without giving the character a name. In the book there are several references to her name. They are in Monte Carlo where Maxim sends her a note after their first meeting in the hotel lounge, and I’ll quote:
“Forgive me. I was very rude this afternoon.” That was all. No signature, and no beginning. But my name was on the envelope, and spelt correctly, an unusual thing.
“You have a very lovely and unusual name.” “My father was a lovely and unusual person.”
“I told you at the beginning of lunch you had a lovely and unusual name,” he said. “I shall go further, if you will forgive me, and say that it becomes you as well as it became your father.”
So, where does that leave us? I know in England some male and female names are interchangeable – Leslie, Beverley, Clare – I’m sure there are more, but it speaks to Daphne du Maurier’s skill as a writer that she could write a 400 page novel and leave her main character nameless. Any ideas of your own? To me Leslie suits her young, inexperienced and unsure of herself character, but it’s not unusual, so I guess not.
Daphne du Maurier never would say, all throughout her life. Maybe it was just a tease and such a name doesn’t even exist, who knows?
BACK TO THE 2020 FILM …
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
The film did better with British critics … largely *** reviews, than with American critics … ** reviews. I guess American reviewers are more fixated on film history and less able to lose the Hitchcock influence.
***
John Nugent, Empire
Once you accept that this is a largely faithful adaptation — no deviation from the original’s twists, no darker, surreal spin on the text — it starts to make a kind of sense. Du Maurier’s early-20th-century melodrama has been given a glossy 21st-century sheen.
Brian Viner, The Daily Mail ***
This is a stylish and generally irreproachable telling of the story, cleaving closer to the novel than Hitchcock’s version did.
The Times ***
James fares slightly better than she did in her non-role from Yesterday, but Mrs de Winter is a monumentally passive character — she watches, she whines, she whimpers, she faints — and the Mamma Mia! star can only deliver so many aghast expressions before her range begins to appear limited. What we have instead is what the French director François Truffaut used to call “le cinéma de papa” — a passionless, vacuous, low-level exercise in cringeworthy mediocrity.’
Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph ***
There’s no contradiction in believing that a fresh and daring retelling of Rebecca was entirely possible with this exact cast and crew, but the fruit of their labours isn’t it. ‘
**
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian 15 Oct 2020, **
Rebecca 2.0 is sometimes quite enjoyable in all its silliness and campiness and brassiness, and in some ways, gets closer to the narrative shape of the original novel than the Hitchcock film, which rather truncated the third act.
Vanity Fair **
You can’t just throw trendy actors of the day into a classic and figure that enough. Didn’t we learn that fairly recently with the Great Gatsby? These grand old houses of literature need more care than that. Rearrange the furniture all you want, but do be sure to use it well.
*1/2
Sheila O’Malley, Roger Ebert com. *1/2
(It) highlights the strengths of the 1940 version, and underlines its own lack, in terms of style, atmosphere, and general understanding of the story itself.
A.O. Scott, NewYork Times (no rating system)
Who thought this was a good idea? I mean, look: I’m not against something on Netflix that features Armie Hammer in a perfectly cut margarine-colored three-piece suit, and Lily James in a succession of ostensibly “plain” but objectively adorable frocks and blouse-and-trouser ensembles … But “Rebecca,” directed by Ben Wheatley from a screenplay by Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, is a flimsy cardboard box full of nothing.
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The 1979 BBC series is on YouTube, in short segments.
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