English Essays Hitchcock Movie Of Rebecca

incline Essays Hitchcock Movie Of RebeccaAnalyse the differences between the text and the Hitchcock movie of RebeccaThe remove Rebecca (1940), direct by Alfred Hitchcock, is an adaptation of a take hold by the same human action published in 1938 by author Daphne Demurer. To analyse the differences between these devil pieces of work it is perhaps necessary to first point out the provable film adaptations of raws argon never completely true to the original book. It is very much a criticism that when freshs are turned into quiz romps that the author of the screening play has left chunks of the book out.This usu all(prenominal)y because their just is not time to correct every single detail on screen could you have sit through more than three hours of Peter Jacksons epic Lord of The sound The Fellowship of the Ring, based on J.R.R. Tolkiens fabrication, for instance? (I dont think any cinemagoers bladder could have coped with more) Or there are elements of the original re putation that would distract the viewer from the crux of the plot for too long, hence Fran Walsh snub out the character Tom Bombadil out of The Fellowships script, much to the dismay of nearly Tolkien purists.However, sometimes a scriptwriter willing assert his/her autonomy to the point where the allegory that has been turned into a film does not even have the same ending as its original source. In Louis De Bernieres much hunch overd book Captain Corellis Mandolin the main characters, and two lovers Captain Corelli and Pelagia, p art for several age and Pelagia believes Corelli is dead until hes in his senior years and directly approaches Pelagia again and their love rekindles.However, in the movie (2001) one of the many contrasts to the original text is that Pelagia and Corelli exit happily ever after together in their younger years. With regards Hitchcocks Rebecca and DuMauriers Rebecca the storyline remains largely unchanged, yet the implications of its conjureual contex ts have been treated differently. passim history women have been subjected to the patriarchal order the model womanish world chaste and submissive and essentially what Simone De Bouviour calls mans other Woman is defined and differentiated with name and address to man and not he with reference to her she is incidental, the inessential as contrary to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute -she is the OtherWhereas a internally confident adult fe priapic and assertive cleaning lady is depicted as impure, bad and on occasion mad.Before World War II, women were particularly vulnerable to the former categorisation. yet during the war, women participated in the work force as never before and hence asserting greater independence and autonomy. DuMauriers novel Rebecca, examines female sexuality, and its repercussions, in a society, which condemns its exis decenniumce. Although both the novel and film emits societys wish to keep the sexuality of women at a lower place deem some of DuMauriers message lost in the translation of novel to film.However, the film was produced and directed by men so it was inevitable that their sex would affect the way they choose to interpret DuMauriers work on screen. As Helene Cixous says in her essay, The Laugh of the Medusa, it is impossible to produce a work of art that does not implicate your sex I write woman woman must write woman. And man, man.In both the novel and film, Rebecca is dead (she supposedly drowned the previous year) and is depicted as a threat due to her plain sexuality. Mrs. Danvers, Rebeccas devoted housekeeper, says, Ive seen them here, staying in the house, men shed meet in capital of the United Kingdom They made love to her of course (p.245). Regardless of Rebeccas infidelities, her reputation remains inherent she is regarded as pleasant, beautiful and confident. Yet the double life she leads of wife and whore is comparable to the duality of existence in which only men are allowed to i ndulge and thus threatens the structure of patriarchy. As Rebeccas housekeeper Mrs Danvers aptly states Rebecca ought to have been a boy (p.243).Rebeccas sexuality even threatens to destroy patriarchal dynasty. As Simone de Beauvoir writes in her essay The Second SexMarital infidelity where patriarchal traditions survive, hushed seems much more heinous for the wife than for the husband Womans adultery risks bringing the son of a stranger into the family, and thus defrauding legitimate heirs.Indeed the sentiment of an illegitimate heir is the crux of Rebeccas expiration in both novel and film. In the novel Max, Rebeccas husband kills her when she boasts that she is pregnant by another man, as yet the coroner rules death by suicide. In the film, Rebeccas death is attributed to an accidental amount after Max has physically struck her after she reveals her unfaithfulness to him. The spring for this important difference is that the censors demanded that Max could not kill his wi fe without remunerative the penalty for his crime. Suicide was also frowned upon.However, Rebeccas death raises that both novel and film are in agreement that patriarchal society views Rebecca actions as flagitious and that her death is the only way to keep the structure of patriarchy in tact.Although, in novel and film, Rebecca is highly regarded within society, Demurer understood she needed to guarantee Maxs crime to make it plausible, so she takes steps to dehumanise Rebecca. Aside from Maxs derogatory words about Rebecca, other characters assist in creating a ostracise view of Rebeccas character. The village simpleton, Ben, calls her a snake (p.154) the biblical connotations of this image suggest irreparable female sin. Damning language such as this coat the way for Maxs confession and provides justification for Maxs wish to kill her in the film, and his actually doing so in the novel.Prior to Rebeccas death, both novel and film reveal that a doctor had diagnosed her wit h terminal cancer and that her pregnancy is in item a malformation of her uterus that would have prevented her from having children. From the perspective of the patriarchal society, Rebeccas cancer, her infertility, and her death are all attributable to her sexually deviant conduct. The message to women is that female sexuality must be confined to their husbands and that any deviation will be punished because it undermines the superiority of men.Lesbianism in the novel also seeks to evoke the foundations of patriarchy. The relationship between the spinster/housekeeper Mrs Danvers and Rebecca has homoerotic overtones. Mrs. Danvers tends to speak of Rebecca in sexual terms, especially in the novel. An example of this is when she recalls an incident involving Rebecca at sixteenI remember her getting up on one of her fathers horses, a grownup brute of an animal too, that the groom said was too hot for her to ride. She stuck to him all right. I can see her now, with her hair flying o ut backside her, slashing at him, drawing blood, digging the spurs into his side, and when she got off his back he was trembling all over, full of froth and blood.The film, however, tends to diminish or subvert lesbian overtones, because the film industry prohibited sexual perversion or any inference to it images depicting Mrs Danvers stroking Rebeccas nightgown, as salubrious as references to Rebeccas nude body were cut out of the film. Instead the film chooses to rouge Danvers as being obsessed with her dead mistress. This was also arguably because Hitchcock et al did not want their patriarchal authority over Du Mauriers text of screen to be diluted by the presence of masculine womenBoth novel and film strip Mrs. Danvers of humanity in the same way Rebecca is. She is set forth in the text as someone tall and gaunt, dressed in deep black, whose prominent cheek-bones and great, hollow eyes gave her a skulls face, parchment-white, set on a skeletons frame (p. 66). Furthermore, M rs Danvers is also punished by death for miserable outside the confines of patriarchy.Yet although novel and film are in agreement concerning societys condemnation of Mrs. Danvers, however, they do not necessarily agree upon her punishment. In the film, Mrs. Danvers defies the patriarchal establishment a final time by eager down Manderley, yet is burnt to death as a result. In the novel, the there is no evidence to suggest that the fire has killed Mrs Danvers all we receive is that she cannot be found.In conclusion both novel and film look for the implications inherent for women who do not follow the doctrines of patriarchy as well as the differences between works of art produced by men and women. DuMauries emphasises the evil of a man committing send off, by shooting his wife in the heart, and emergent unpunished, unblemished. The dispensability and devaluation of women is illustrated by the fact that Max remains free, and remarries just ten months after committing the murde r. Even when he confesses to the murder he manages to horrifyingly exchange his unnamed wife that Rebecca deserved to be killed due to his inability to control her sexuality.Whereas Hitchcock preserves the reputation and authority of Max by changing Rebeccas murder to a death by accidental fall, of which Max is innocent. This major rewrite serves to dilute DuMauriers progressive thoughts regarding female sexuality and her condemnation of men and patriarchy. indeed it appears that Hitchcock smearing his own artistic authority all over DuMauriers work mirrors the male dominance over womens sexuality within the society of the novel.BibliographyWalder, Dennis, Literature in the Modern World, De Beauvoir, Simone, Woman and the Other, p.307 (Oxford University Press, 1990)