Maxim de Winter

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(No Transcript)
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Maxim de Winter

• What is Maxims attitude toward the two Mrs. de
  Winters?
• Stop biting your nails!
• Now eat it up like a good girl.
• Which would you prefer? New York or Manderley? I
  repeat what I said. Either you go to America with
  Mrs. Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley
  with me. Im asking you to marry me you little
  fool?
• Insisting his wife wear a raincoat You can't be
  too careful with children.
• What does this tell us about Maxim?
• Maxim embodies an important Hitchcockian
  archetype the masculinist drive to dominate,
  control, and (if necessary) punish women the
  corresponding dread of powerful women, and
  especially of women who assert their sexual
  freedom, for what, above all, the male (in his
  position of dominant vulnerability, or vulnerable
  dominance) cannot tolerate is the sense that
  another male might be better than he was.

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Maxim de Winter

• Maxim I wonder if I did a very selfish thing in
  marrying you.Mrs. de Winter What do you
  mean?Maxim I'm not much of a companion to you,
  am I? You don't get much fun, do you? You ought
  to have married a boy, someone of your own
  age.Mrs. de Winter Maxim, why do you say this?
  Of course we're companions.Maxim Are we? I
  don't know. I'm very difficult to live with.Mrs.
  de Winter No, you're not difficult, you're easy,
  very easy. Our marriage is a success, isn't it? A
  great success? We're happy, aren't we? Terribly
  happy? (He walks away.) If you don't think we are
  happy, it would be much better if you didn't
  pretend. I'll go away. Why don't you answer
  me?Maxim How can I answer you when I don't
  know the answer myself? If you say we're happy,
  let's leave it at that. (He shuts off the light.)
  Happiness is something I know nothing about.
• What does this tell us about Maxim and about
  his wife?
• They are locked in patriarchal, father-daughter,
  paternalistic relationship with both
  unconsciously attempting to heal childhood wounds
  (Imago Relationship Theory) and instead wounding
  each other all over again just as they were
  wounded by their primary caregivers as children.

Laurence Olivier began acting in Shakespeare,
soon earning a reputation as a master.
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The Second Mrs. de Winter

• I wish I were a woman of 36, dressed in black
  satin with a string of pearls!
• I don't belong in your sort of world. I'm not
  the sort of woman men marry.
• Maxim Of course, if you don't love me, that's a
  different theorem. A fine blow to my conceit,
  that's all.
• Oh, I do love you. I love you most dreadfully.
  I've been crying all morning because I thought
  I'd never see you again.
• Maxim (He touches her hand.) Bless you for
  that. I'll remind you of this one day. You won't
  believe me. It's a pity you have to grow up.
• Who is the second Mrs. de Winter?
• She is a child. She cries, hides, cowers, has no
  figure, no particular talents, no education,
  dresses like a school girl, and has no name.

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Mrs. Danvers

• How does Mrs. Danvers behave in Rebeccas
  bedroom?
• Why the hairbrush and the nightgown and not other
  objects in the room?
• Did you ever see anything so delicate? Look, you
  can see my hand through it!
• Why did she say You tried to take her place.
  You let him marry you. I've seen his face - his
  eyes. They're the same as those first weeks after
  she died. I used to listen to him, walking up and
  down, up and down, all night long, night after
  night, thinking of her, suffering torture because
  he lost her!?
• Why don't you go? Why don't you leave Manderley?
  He doesn't need you... he's got his memories. He
  doesn't love you, he wants to be alone again with
  her. You've nothing to stay for. You've nothing
  to live for really, have you?
• Was Mrs. Danvers in love with Rebecca?
• If you replace Mrs. Danvers references to Maxim
  with herself, her love for Rebecca becomes plain.

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Revenge and Criminal Conduct

• Why did Mrs. Danvers encourage the second Mrs. de
  Winter to commit suicide?
• Why did Mrs. Danvers burn down Manderley?
• To punish Maxim for Rebeccas death.

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Rebecca de Winter

• What was Rebecca really like?
• Edythe Van Hopper I knew his wife too. Before
  she married him, she was the beautiful Rebecca
  Hindreth, you know. Poor thing. I suppose he just
  can't get over his wife's death. They say he
  simply adored her.
• Beatrice Lacy (Maxims sister) Mrs. Danvers
  simply adored Rebecca.
• Crawley I suppose she was the most beautiful
  creature I ever saw.
• She could sail a boat, ride a horse, throw a
  party, and wear the latest fashion.
• Maxim I was carried away by her - enchanted by
  her, as everyone was. And when I was married, I
  was told that I was the luckiest man in the
  world. She was so lovely - so accomplished - so
  amusing. 'She's got the three things that really
  matter in a wife,' everyone said 'breeding,
  brains, and beauty.' And I believed them -
  completely. But I never had a moment's happiness
  with her. She was incapable of love, or
  tenderness, or decency.
• Maxim "I'll make a bargain with you," she said.
  "You'd look rather foolish trying to divorce me
  now after four days of marriage. So I'll play the
  part of a devoted wife, mistress of your precious
  Manderley. I'll make it the most famous showplace
  in England if you like. Then, people will visit
  us and envy us, and say we're the luckiest,
  happiest, couple in the country. What a grand
  show it will be! What a triumph!
• Rebecca was an incestuous bisexual, having
  affairs with both her cousin Favell, her
  housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, and attempted to seduce
  her husbands best friend Crawley. Maxim She
  even started on Frank, poor faithful Frank.

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Growing Up

• Rebecca is a film about growing up of moving on
  from the past.
• Favell never grows up moving easily from his
  affair with his married cousin, to blackmailing
  his former brother-in-law.
• Mrs. Danvers never grows out of her love for
  Rebecca. It ultimately consumes her.
• Maxim is never able to grow up enough to have an
  adult relationship, hence his choice of the
  second Mrs. de Winter.
• The second Mrs. de Winter can only grow up by
  finding Mr. Right, who of course is her father,
  therefore dooming the relationship to failure as
  her childhood failed.
• Maxim I can't forget what it's done to you.
  I've been thinking of nothing else since it
  happened. It's gone forever, that funny young,
  lost look I loved won't ever come back. I killed
  that when I told you about Rebecca. It's gone. In
  a few hours, you've grown so much older.
• The second Mrs. de Winter No, it's not too
  late. You're not to say that. I love you more
  than anything in the world. Oh, please Maxim,
  kiss me please.
• Maxim de Winter No, it's no use. It's too
  late.
• In terms of auterism, what is Hitchcocks
  message Is it that even plain, ordinary young
  women can lead exciting and important lives but
  only if they find their dream man, their knight
  in shining armor, to stand beside them and love
  them? Do you think audiences had this
  interpretation? Did young women want to model
  themselves on the second Mrs. de Winter? The
  first?

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Hetero-Patriarchy

• Skepticism about male-female relationships under
  patriarchy is central to understanding Hitchcock
  as auteur.
• If this is the case, then which of the two Mrs.
  de Winters is the true heroin of the film?

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Murder

• Censorship (supported by the traditional
  Hollywood preference for happy endings) proved an
  obstacle that was in some ways insuperable. It is
  crucial to the narrative that Maxim killed his
  first wifebut the Production Code insisted that
  no one ever get away with murder.
• This creates a serious problem for the viewer in
  the pivotal scene in which Maxim relates (and
  Hitchcock memorably dramatizes with his camera)
  the story of how Rebecca died either we accept
  that the death was accidental, or we hypothesize
  that Maxim is lying (for which the film supplies
  no support).
• Why is Maxim not convicted of murder? Is justice
  served by formal legal structures?

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ConclusionRebecca as Classic Female
Pornography/Pedophilia

• Rebecca is one of many texts which explores the
  classic theme seduction of the father by the
  daughter and the corresponding destruction of the
  mother.
• The older, detached, Maxim plays the classic
  Daddy.
• Who is the mother?
• The mother has three faces the appalling Mrs.
  Van Hopper, the vengeful Mrs. Danvers and, of
  course, the absent Rebecca.
• The infantile second Mrs. de Winter is of course
  the child.
• Is it a happy ending?
• With the mother(s) gone, the child-bride has
  finally assumed her mother's place as the sexual
  partner of her father.
• Should this film be banned as obscene?

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Sources

• Devil in a Black Dress, The Guardian, June 28,
  2006.
• Dirks, Tim, Rebecca (1940), filmsite.org,
  undated.
• Mad about the Girl, The Guardian, June 28,
  2006.
• Wood, Robin, The Two Mrs. de Winters, The
  Criterion Collection, undated.