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The 1940 film adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's gothic romance Rebecca begins by echoing the novel's famous opening line, 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' Patricia White takes the theme of return as her starting point for an exploration of the film's enduring power. Drawing on archival research, she shows how the production and reception history of Rebecca, the first fruit of the collaboration between Hollywood movie producer David O. Selznick and British director Alfred Hitchcock, is marked by the traces of women's contributions.
White provides a rich analysis of the film, addressing the gap between perception and reality that is constantly in play in the gothic romance, and highlighting the queer erotics circulating around 'I' (the heroine), Mrs Danvers, and the dead but ever-present Rebecca. Her discussion of the film's afterlives emphasizes the lasting aesthetic impact of this dark masterpiece of memory and desire, while her attention to its remakes and sequels speaks to the ongoing relevance of its vision of gender and power.
List of contents
1. Introduction
2. Production and release history
3. 'Rebecca' the novel
4. 'Rebecca' the film
5. Reception and film criticism
6. The afterlives of 'Rebecca'
About the author
Patricia White is Professor of Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore College, USA. She is author of Women’s Cinema/World Cinema: Projecting Contemporary Feminisms (2015) and Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability (1999). Her essays on women's and lgbtq cinema have been published in Camera Obscura, Cinema Journal, Film Quarterly, GLQ, and Screen and in edited collections including Reframing Indie, Sisters in the Life, A Feminist Reader in Early Cinema, Out in Culture and Inside/Out. She is co-author with Timothy Corrigan of the widely adopted introductory film textbook The Film Experience (6th ed. 2021) and co-editor with Corrigan and Meta Mazaj of Critical Visions in Film Theory (2011).
Summary
The 1940 film adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s gothic romance Rebecca begins by echoing the novel’s famous opening line, ‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.’ Patricia White takes the theme of return as her starting point for an exploration of the film’s enduring power. Drawing on archival research, she shows how the production and reception history of Rebecca, the first fruit of the collaboration between Hollywood movie producer David O. Selznick and British director Alfred Hitchcock, is marked by the traces of women’s contributions.
White provides a rich analysis of the film, addressing the gap between perception and reality that is constantly in play in the gothic romance, and highlighting the queer erotics circulating around ‘I’ (the heroine), Mrs Danvers, and the dead but ever-present Rebecca. Her discussion of the film’s afterlives emphasizes the lasting aesthetic impact of this dark masterpiece of memory and desire, while her attention to its remakes and sequels speaks to the ongoing relevance of its vision of gender and power.
Foreword
Patricia White's study of Hitchcock's classic gothic romance draws on archival research to provide a rich analysis of the film's production and reception history and a reading of its queer erotics, and will form part of the BFI Film Classics series.
Report
White pays ample and poetic attention to the film's aesthetic dimensions, beautifully highlighting both Hitchcock's style and cinematic experience ... White's marvelously observed, meticulous monograph offers fitting tribute. Hitchcock Annually
