The master of terror himself, Alfred Hitchcock

“No! I will not hide in the fruit cellar!” Ugh. Still creeps me out! My introduction to Alfred Hitchcock’s work came in my second year of college when my roommate had a hankering to watch Psycho. She had seen the film a few times before. I had not. I will not deny that I was pretty into the movie; it definitely held my attention. But afterwards, I struggled with showering. Don’t worry, I didn’t deteriorate into a dirty, smelly mess; but I did refuse to close my eyes while in the shower and not infrequently gathered my courage for a quick peek outside the curtain to see if any knife-wielding cross-dressers were about to finish me off.

So it was with a little trepidation that my sister and I sat down last night to watch this week’s Best Picture winner, Rebecca (1940, Selznick International Pictures). Alfred Hitchcock’s first American film and only BP winner, Rebecca was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (including Directing, Music [Original Score], Film Editing, Actress [Joan Fontaine], Actress in a Supporting Role [Judith Anderson], Actor [Laurence Olivier], Art Direction [Black-and-White], Writing [Screenplay], and Special Effects) and won 2 Oscars (Outstanding Production and Cinematography [Black-and-White]).

1940 was a year in which a contingent of films based on literary successes snagged a decent percentage of Oscar nominations. In addition to Rebecca, an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s best-selling 1938 novel, 1940 produced film adaptations of such classics as Pride and Prejudice, Our Town, The House of the Seven Gables, Swiss Family Robinson, and the legendary The Grapes of Wrath with Henry Fonda. It’s interesting to me that in the year following one of the biggest blockbuster films of all time in Gone with the Wind (itself an adaptation), many of the nominated films in 1940 seemed to go back to the drawing board of established success with scripts based on notable novels—in other words, works that already had garnered respect and large fan bases.

In the case of Rebecca, an oft-overlooked almost-classic, it is intriguing that the film provokes both familiarity and anxiety in its viewers—while watching the movie, I had this constantly growing feeling that something terrible was going to happen and that I had experienced this story before. I kept thinking how this film is like a mix of Jane Eyre and Beauty and the Beast. I thought I knew what would happen at certain parts of the film, but I wasn’t completely accurate most of the time. And I just couldn’t shake the downright creepy feeling I had.

One reviewer of the film connects this macabre sensation to the atmosphere created by World War II, which had only just begun during the making and release of Rebecca. In 1940, there was a universal sense of impending doom—though it hadn’t been given a name yet (the Holocaust)—and a worldwide sensation that something good had been lost. These impressions are indeed mimicked in the film Rebecca. Over the entire movie stands the invisible presence of something malevolent that reaches out from the grave to terrorize the inhabitants of Manderley. That evil personage has a name: Rebecca, the late wife of Maxim de Winter, the lord of Manderley. While du Maurier claimed her novel was “a study in jealousy,” the film goes beyond even that personal emotional torment and reflects the upheaval of a world just coming to grips with the reality of a lost innocence (albeit a false one) and a horrible premonition of imminent disaster.

Manderley, almost a character in its own right in Rebecca

In that way, Rebecca is a golden example of the horror/suspense movie genre (although it’s more creepy than terrifying) and demonstrates just how and why scary movies appeal to us. (Well, they usually don’t appeal to me, and I’m really dreading having to watch The Silence of the Lambs when we get to BPs of the ‘90s.) Viewers at the time of its release already lived with premonitions of danger and threats to their well-being–physically, emotionally, and psychologically. The film’s moody atmosphere and dark overtones were already their reality. For me in the present time, although Rebecca is not the scariest movie I’ve ever seen (my brother made me watch Saw once—long story about that incident…horrible movie, but pretty good plot twist!), I find it definitely psychologically disturbing, like Psycho, but less grotesque. And, goodness gracious, we certainly deal with enough psychologically disturbing images/events in real life these days that we can identify them/with them when they occur on the screen.

So, what appeals to us in these types of films? In his Poetics, Aristotle said that a good tragedy should provoke pity and fear in its viewers (more about that when we get to Hamlet in a few weeks). But, what makes a movie good if it just promotes fear? What makes a film frightening for me is the realization that what the story depicts could happen to me myself. There’s a realism that can’t be easily ignored or dismissed. There are no actual ghosts in Rebecca, but it feels like the dead Rebecca is present in every scene (the film is named after her after all!). That way the story is entirely believable because I can recognize legitimate situations and characters’ psychological struggles in the film that I encounter in my daily life–without the distraction of unrealistic elements such as demonic dolls, per se. In other words, with this film there’s no safe barrier between me and the horrors that I am watching on the silver screen. I become vulnerable, just like Rebecca‘s protagonist.

Such films hold a morbid fascination for us human beings. We’re like the moth that is drawn to the fatal candle. We can’t resist danger, things that set our hearts racing and adrenaline pumping. There’s a part of us that likes the thrill of fear. Terror reminds us that we are still alive. Watching other people’s fright in films can make us feel like the survivors, like we have overcome something even though we have not. Alfred Hitchcock knew this, and he was the master of psychological twistedness and the exploitation of people’s fears. And, whew, I’m both a fan and a downright coward in regard to his work.

For more thoughts on Rebecca and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend! For more information on Daphne du Maurier and her novel Rebecca, check out this interview with her son Kits Browning: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10248724/Daphne-du-Maurier-always-said-her-novel-Rebecca-was-a-study-in-jealousy.html.