I guess I better start by explaining what Film7070 is. Well I guess it’s what you could call a cinematic resolution that myself and a few others are going to try and complete.
The task is to watch a film from every year from 1940 – 2010. The main reason I’m doing this is my ‘ashamed I’ve never seen’ pile is well, pretty shameful and I think that this could be a fantastic way to get round to some of those unseen classics. There are a few guidelines that I have set myself in this challenge so let’s get those out of the way:
1. I must have never seen the film before.
2. Work through from earliest starting with 1940 and work upwards year by year
3. Every continent except Antarctica is to be represented at least once
4. New releases and movies watched for discussion on the podcast are exempt.
Not only will this give me a happy obligation to tick off several films in my shame pile but I think it will be interesting to see the evolution of cinema year by year and see how each year influenced the next. The first choice is Rebecca directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
When the young naïve maid played by Joan Fontaine meets wealthy widower Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) in Monte Carlo they fall for each other instantly an begin a whirlwind romance which ends with them getting married and heading back to his estate Manderley. There the second Mrs. de Winter finds that even in death Maxim’s first wife Rebecca still has an influence over the house none more so than the current housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson). She quickly notices that everything isn’t right at Manderley and she becomes more and more intrigued by the woman who she replaced.
When looking at what many people would call ‘classic cinema’ with a critical eye it is interesting to see how in places my criteria changes from how I criticise new releases, for example the first 20 minutes of Rebecca is the two leads meeting and falling in love, don’t get me wrong  it is exquisitely executed but if the same thing happened in a ‘modern’ movie I think I would criticise that it was a tad melodramatic and unbelievable but as this film was made in the 1940 and things were written with that feel of melodrama you don’t really notice it, the age and ‘classic’ nature of the film allows you to just get caught up in the fairy tale feel of the romance.
As soon as we get to Manderley the tone of the film shifts as if someone flicked a switch, it turns from budding love story to a suspenseful and chilling tale of insecurity and the unknown, everyone seems to have a longing attachment to Rebecca and never really warm up to the new Mrs. de Winter. Joan Fontaine does a fantastic job looking and feeling out of place never really knowing what do or how to act and Laurence Olivier is great as the grieving but mysterious Maxim but for me this film belongs to Judith Anderson as housekeeper Mrs. Danvers.
Anderson’s performance is evidently fuelled with menace, hate and resent which is all aimed at the new love in Maxim’s life, but she does this without ever raising her voice or speaking ill of the new Mrs. de Winter. Actually, she speaks to her with the respect one would expect from a housekeeper to her superior. I really have no idea how she was able to deliver such a haunting, disturbing and manipulative performance but she really steals the show.
Her love for Rebecca is best described as obsessive and at points felt slightly erotically charged, there are just so many levels to her loyalty to her previous mistress that floods all across the screen. It really is one of those performances that will stick with me for a long, long time. One specific scene involving herself and Fontaine’s character at a window is unforgettably terrifying.
The film has this slow but suspenseful build to a crescendo that happens around the 90 minute mark but then the amount of twists and turns in the final third just knocked me off my feet at how well the storytelling was handled. I honestly think that in any other hands this is when the director could have lost grip with the film and consequently have it spiral a little out of control but Hitchcock’s keeps it so tight and never lets the frantic pace of it get the better of him.
The film also looks fantastic and George Barnes deservedly scooped the Oscar for Best Cinematography, his use of light and shadow is only accentuated with this film obviously being in black and white.
This is embarrassingly only the 5th Hitchcock film I’ve ever seen which is a wrong I’m hopefully going to put right with this challenge. I can’t argue with Rebecca’s classic status, the story is so unique, well acted and superbly directed that I think it is one of those films that I believe would be nigh on impossible to remake today.
9.5/10
