Rebecca by ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Movie: Rebecca
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Release date: 1940
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson 

I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said Daphne du Maurier’s ‘ Rebecca’ was safe in the hands of Alfred Hitchcock. Though some alterations were made, he didn’t allow the essence of Maurier’s book to erode.


“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”


She was narrating her dream about Manderley. She was nameless.

In her dream, she saw, Manderley was deserted and abandoned. The shrubs, the trees , the plants had encroached the drive and all around from their usual place giving it a ghostly look. Like any other bride, when she came to Manderley dreamt of a quiet life with her husband. But there was something sinister going on in Manderly.


Every wall of Manderley was yelling a name ‘ Rebecca’. She was the first wife of Max de Winter who died of drowning in the sea. Mrs Danvers, an ardent devotee of Rebecca and the head house keeper of Manderley intimidated the narrator.


She met him in Monte Carlo, France where she was accompanying a wealthy American woman called Van Hopper as a paid companion. Her employer’s illness gave her the opportunity to spend more time with Max and eventually, they ended up marrying.

It was not that she had to fight with humans but with the haunting and all pervading presence of Rebecca, the first Mrs de Winter who died of drowning in the sea.

Rebecca was dead. But Manderley retained her undaunting spirits. Mrs Danvers had kept Manderley as if Rebecca had just gone out for a brief vacation and would be back anytime. The narrator did not do anything to alter the situation as she did not want to risk losing Max, her husband whom she thought was still in love with his first wife.



Everyone compared her with Rebecca. Beatrice, Max’s sister told her that she was nothing like Rebecca and when she met Max’s grandmother who also in her senility insisted of meeting Rebecca, leaving our narrator all the more perplexed. When Rebecca was alive, they had their bedroom in the western wing of the Manderly and the second Mrs de Winter and Max used the rooms in the eastern wing which was comparatively smaller in size.

Mrs Danvers intimidated her to such an extent that the latter was almost successful in convincing her to commit suicide by saying on and on that she was unwanted in Manderley, even her husband did not love her. She would have jumped from the roof of Rebecca had the rockets were not fired indicating that a ship was aground in the sea near to the mansion with Max ordering everybody to offer help to the people in the ship.

A year ago, after Rebecca went missing in the sea, a dead-body of a woman had washed up on the shore and Max identified her as Rebecca. But, to everybody’s dismay, when the divers dived in to check the condition of the ship, they came across a boat with a woman’s body stuck in its little cabin. The boat was of Rebecca’s.

No doubt! there would be an inquest. It was then our narrator heard something from her husband which she never expected. He was not in love with Rebecca and he hated her to the core. She was a woman of loose morals. That one sentence just changed our narrator in a trice.

Why was  Mrs de Winter or the narrator of the story nameless? Was it because even after marrying Max de Winter, the owner of the famous Manterly, she was reduced to a shadow of his first wife. Perhaps yes!

She was living in her own world of imagination.

The revelation by Max that he never loved Rebecca came as a pleasant surprise to her though it came with a heavy price to pay.


Mrs Danvers was a woman who was absolutely mesmerized by Rebecca. They were alike in spirits -absolutely inconsiderate of other’s emotions. She considered Rebecca’s audacity to continue her clandestine relationships under the nose of everybody at Manderley as something heroic. Mrs Danvers was a cruel soul who lacked judgement. According to Mrs Danvers, Rebecca loved only herself.

Judith Anderson

Max, on the other hand, loved his second wife. But he was smarting over his own pain that he could not explicitly express that he was in love with Rebecca. I would say he was not bold enough to confront the reality.


Speaking of the cast, Joan Fontaine who played the second Mrs De winter was perfect for the role. She could bring forth a naive, timid girl. After ‘ Gone with wind’ actor Vivian Leigh who was Olivier Laurence’s fiancee then wanted to take up the role of second Mrs De Winter. She also gave a test. But it never happened as it was deemed that her personality was too strong to play the demure, timid and gauche second Mrs De Winter.

Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier

I have read the book before watching the movie and I could never imagine anybody else in the role other than Joan Fontaine. Though Vivian Leigh could not work with Hitchcock in that movie, Alfred Hitchcock thought there was one role she could play and it was none other than the role of ‘ Rebecca’.

Like Joan Fontaine, the other actor who took her character to another level was Judith Anderson. The sinister look she had on her face was horrifying and the rigid look never wavered even for one single moment.


One of the main alterations which Hitchcock did with the movie was the death of Rebecca. When Daphne made Max kill her, Alfred made it an accidental death.

Alfred Hitchcock

Laurence Olivier was good in his role as Max but it was more of Joan’s movie. My imagination of Max after reading the book was a bit different, the primary one being his look. I imagined him to be somebody without a moustache. It did not mean that I did not like the ‘ Olivier Max’. Daphne like his Max.

Out of 11 nominations, Rebecca won two Academy Awards - Best Picture . It was also the opening film at the first Berlin International Film Festival in 1951.

Loved the movie and always a Hitchcock fan.

by Shalet Jimmy

American Sniper directed by Clint Eastwood ( 2014)

YEAR :  2014
(American biographical war drama film directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Jason Hall)




American Sniper can be easily categorized into a war – movie, but with many underlying layers to it- emotions, faith, duty and certain viewpoints which are of course debatable.

Based on the real life story of Chris Kyle, acclaimed as the most lethal sniper in the US military history who had 160 official killings to his credit, the film solely speaks about ‘ Chris’, though the war is the backdrop. Nevertheless, through him many perspectives come to the fore, the first one being the definition of ‘Evil ‘which is no doubt, Iraq. If we keep aside that particular aspect for a while, the film is worth watching for its sheer display of emotions – a man caught between his duties towards his country where he has to take lives to protect his people and the humanity in him.

When the movie opens, Kyle is on his first operation at Fallujah, Iraq. He is on the rooftop of a building aiming at his enemy. His first target is a woman and a son. The woman, presumably his mother hands over a grenade to the little boy and he is about to throw it towards the convoy. One single shot - the boy is down. Chris is unflinching in his duty but is sad without remorse that he has to gun down the little boy.

It’s the lesson taught by his father that he should be a sheepdog who protects his flock, makes him one of the best snipers. When he guns down his enemy, there’s no remorse written over his face. He is clear – the evil should not thrive. The humanity in him is intact, but that does not deter him from taking over his enemy irrespective of who it is. But when he is away from the war - front, the gore and the violence consume him. As the film progress, we could see the real man whom he has subdued for a while. The scene where he struggles with himself when he has to aim another little boy who picks up the weapon dropped by a terrorist who has been shot by Chris clearly reveals his dilemma. When the child drops the weapon without firing, he heaves a sigh of relief.

Bradley Cooper is at his best that we could never find a trace of him in his character. Sienna Miller, though her scenes are a few, her acting made her presence felt all through the film. Her scenes throw light on what the families of the soldiers go through.

Chris might be the ‘legend’ as everyone calls him, but, when he’s home, we can see a mentally torn Chris struggling with the conflict that’s brewing inside his mind. But he refuses to acknowledge it. Besides, it is also the protector image which is ingrained in his mind right from the inception of his childhood aggravates his dilemma. He feels that when his buddies are dying in Iraq, he is with his family unable to save them.

It draws our attention to a universal issue – the trauma experienced by the soldiers all across due to their exposure to wars. Whether they are being addressed is the burning question. The scene in a bar where Chris spends time before going home after the war-front is a perfect example of that. As the audience are immersed in his dilemma, the scene cuts to another shot which is the last shot where Chris is seen enjoying with the family and goes out with a war veteran who later kills him. It seems as if the issue has been abruptly cut rather than delving into it a little further.

For a foreigner watching the movie, the answer to the question ‘ why did the war veteran kill Chris’, will be ambiguous, leaving him/her to rely on Google. When you search, you will figure out that he was killed by a psychopath who was affected by the sheer violence he had to see while he was deployed.

Eastwood and Jason decided to cut the final scene after a request from Chris Kyle’s widow – Taya Kyle. The team of American Sniper came up with five different endings once Kyle’s widow informed them that “ This is going to be how my children remember their father, so I want you to get it right.” The film ends with the ‘real funeral scene’ of Chris Kyle.

When every intention of Clint Eastwood was to portray war as something that annihilating, there’s another side to that portrayal – Dehumanisation of Iraq

Though not explicitly, Eastwood has shown it as an evil that has to be obliterated which makes the story one-sided.The explanation on why ‘Iraq’ became one of the ‘axis of evil’ is glossed over conveniently. Iraq is completely dehumanised in the movie.

Barring this single aspect, he deserves every appreciation for making one of the best war movies which is also the highest grossing war movie ever made.

Interestingly, the release of the movie ran parallel with the trial of Eddie Ray Youth who was guilty of murdering Chris Kyle.

The movie was nominated for six Oscars including best actor for Bradley Cooper and best picture. It won several other awards including Academy Award for best sound editing.

Ends