Power, Beauty, Position and Punishment
This is my second of three entries into The Film Vituperatem's Hitchcock Blog-A-Thon. Part 3 comes on November 15, when the actual event takes place.

In Rebecca, the main character desperately tries to be dominant like Rebecca, but suffers in each attempt. The primary visual motif used is to show a character’s power is their placement within the frame. The heroine spends a great deal of time on the right side of the screen. This is used to show her relative weakness. Other characters, like her husband, Maxim deWinter, are more powerful and are shown on the left side of the screen. On the compass rose, the left side is west, and Rebecca lived in the west wing of Manderley. Hitchcock uses this to associate the left side of the screen with the power Rebecca holds over the film. It was Rebecca who determined how Manderley was run and she who decided how she and her husband, Maxim got along. Whenever the heroine appears on the left side of the film, she is in some way punished, usually verbally. As she grows bolder and attempts to exert more power, her castigations grow stronger until she nearly kills herself.
The protagonist begins the film in Monte Carlo as the assistant to Mrs. Van Hopper, and as such she is constantly in a position of subservience. This is shown visuall

After Mrs. Van Hopper leaves, our heroine becomes the second Mrs. deWinter and she appears to the left of the screen much more often. There is even an extended scene in which she appears to the left of Maxim, something that never happened in Monte Carlo. This occurs when she discovers Rebecca’s boathouse. She disobeys Maxim when he asks her not to go down to it, and for this she is bestowed the position of power on the left side of the screen. However, this bit of self-determination incites Maxim to intensely yell at her. This is the worst sort of punishment for her to endure, because it is being delivered by the man she loves so much. The glares and sly grins of Mrs. Danvers have much less effect on her.
While at Manderley

The first is when the protagonist enters the west wing. Here, Mrs. Danvers gives the second Mrs. deWinter a tour, and she appears to the left of the protagonist for the first time in the film. Mrs. Danvers has full powe

Mrs. Danvers’ plan and the motif of position within the frame reach their greatest intensity when the protagonist prepares her gown for a costume ball at Manderley. The second Mrs. deWinter has dressed up in the same gown that Rebecca wore the year before. She has deliberately kept her costume a secret from Maxim, so that she can surprise him. She descends the stairs as happy as she is ever shown in the film. However, when Maxim sees what she is wearing, he rebukes her for her choice. The heroine then almost kills herself from the embarrassment.
Most of this scene is presented in a shot-reverse shot format. The first shot is the protagonist’s perspective of the people at the ball; the second focuses intently on her face, showing nothing but the heroine in her full glory. It is not until she reaches the bottom of the stairs that she is shown in a shot with any other characters. At this time, she enters the screen from the left. She begins the shot outside of the frame, emulating Rebecca’s position. Rebecca spends the entire film off screen, too powerful to even exist on the same level of existence as the characters in the film. This effect is duplicated before the second mistress of Manderley enters the frame. As she enters, however, she is surprised to see Maxim outraged at her gown. Maxim’s anger and chastisement torture her thoughts until she can think of nothing but suicide. She has been punished for most egregious attempt to be like Rebecca with the strongest type of discipline she receives in the film.
The second Mrs. deWinter is also chastised for attempting to be beautiful. Beauty is a quality that only Rebecca can hold in the film, and most people only remember her for her beauty. Mrs. Van Hopper’s thoughts on Rebecca are limited to, “before she was married, she was the beautiful Rebecca Hildreth, you know.” Outside of this comment, Mrs. Van Hopper only mentions Rebecca’s death and the effect it had on Maxim. Similarly, Frank Crawley i

Nevertheless, it is in her attempts to be attractive that the second mistress of Manderley is punished. The first case occurs when Beatrice and the heroine are speaking after first meeting. Upon Beatrice’s suggestion, Maxim’s second wife pulls her hair behind her ears. When she does this, Beatrice can only exclaim, “oh no, that’s worse.” Since this is the protagonist’s first attempt to be beautiful, and it is easily reversible, she is only slightly chastised. She is berated more when she tries to imitate the style she saw in a beauty magazine. This time, it is Maxim who angrily snaps at her for her outfit, increasing the pain she feels. But nothing can compare to her ultimate attempt to be beautiful.
Every time she tries to make herself more beautiful, the second Mrs. deWinter is indirectly attempting

Rebecca tells the story of a woman who is disciplined for trying to be something she is not. She is not a naturally powerful person, and yet she presents herself as an authority in Manderley. Hitchcock shows this through her place on the screen and punishes her for it. Deception is the second Mrs. deWinter’s sin, and she must pay for it. In Hitchcock’s universe, no sin goes unpunished, and Rebecca shows this perfectly.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home