Confused and plagued by technical failures

"Rebecca" "Netflix" does not live up to the vision of Alfred Hitchcock

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Everyone who opened the "Netflix" app last week found the movie "Rebecca" in front of him.

Few know that the greatest filmmaker in the history of cinema, the legend Alfred Hitchcock, directed the original movie version in 1940, and "Rebecca" Hitchcock won the Oscar for best film at the time, and his Oscar was the orphan.

After 80 years, "Netflix" brings back that classic again, without taking it out of its chronological context (the thirties of the last century), with a new staff, and there is no law prohibiting the remaking of classics, but it is difficult to violate classicism, especially if the modern version is poor and does not rise to Sayyid's vision. Thriller movies.

But when the film is renewed, the question is always: Who is the director?

It's between Wheatley.

“Rebecca” was written by Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel, and Amy Waterhouse, and is adapted from Daphne de Morier’s novel with the same title, published in 1938. Some historians see it as an independent and others list it under horror as a sub-trend, although the beginnings of horror cinema were influenced by Gothic and not the other way around, and the most prominent German directors who fled to Hollywood from Nazism, such as Otto Brominger and Fritz Lang, did not hide their influence with Gothic in their films.

There were several quotes by "Rebecca", the first being a radio play by Orson Welles, the second being a Hitchcock classic, and then a series of short series. Although Du Maurier wrote more than 15 novels, Rebecca is the most famous, which has not been cut off in print to this day.

The essence of the story is about a naive woman who is fascinated by a mysterious widower named Maxime de Winter, and moves with him to live in his family's mansion called Mandirley, there she finds herself in a world controlled by his dead ex-wife, Rebecca, but her presence is felt everywhere from the palace, even the bed and pillows with the first letter From its name.

Everyone who works in or visits the palace says that Rebecca is the most beautiful woman he has seen in his life. Here the girl, or the new Mrs. De Winter, fears that she will not be able to reach the level of Rebecca .. and her fears are justified.

The film begins with the voice of the heroine saying that she dreamed last night that she returned to Manderley before moving to the beginning of the story in Monte Carlo, France, where we see a girl (Lily James) who works for an opportunistic woman named Van Huber (Anne Dowd) and suffers from her.

One morning, Maxime de Winter (Armie Hammer) rescues the heroine from an embarrassing social situation, captures his heart, invites her to a car ride, rumors circulating that Maxime is still heartbroken over the death of his wife, Rebecca, but after a short romance with her, he asks her to marry and takes her to Manderly.

As soon as Mrs. Danvers (Christine Scott Thomas) enters with her dark, cold eyes, like a snake, in her first scene, to meet the new mansion inhabitant, the main theme of the film, which is jealousy, ignites, Thomas lays a strong foundation the second she enters.

Her face is extremely white from heavy powdery coat, her lips are a bright red color, and her performance somewhat reminiscent of the role of Judith Anderson in the same terrifying character in 1940. The new de Winter wanders in the palace and finds only everyone's obsession with the former palace lady, which hurts her feelings and deepens her feelings. Confusion, and to make matters worse, her husband turned from a lover to an angry man who hides secrets from the past.

Flopping Lily James for the role, she is flustered at first and gratuitously strong in the second half of the movie!

If we look at the 1940 version, we find that John Fontaine's performance unequivocally reflects that the heroine’s experience with Maxime is her first experience with a man. We find confusion, weakness and naivety dominating her performance from the first minute to the end of the film, in every sense of the word, especially the shot of her passing out Famous in the trial scene.

There is a scene in which the heroine hallucinates in the middle of a party in the palace, and you hear everyone calling her Rebecca, the question here is: If we omit this scene, will we understand that the heroine is suffering a psychological struggle?

Or why did we feel the power of conflict in Hitchcock's 1940 version without him having to make a similar scene?

Armie Hammer's performance is pretentious and boring, the film starts strongly and is lost after that, especially in the part in which Rebecca's secret comes out, and his performance in general does not arouse the curiosity of the viewer.

Clint Mansell's music has nothing to do with what is happening on screen, although his music in previous films such as "The Hole", "Moon" and "Black Swan" were masterpieces.

When Maxim begins to talk about his sad past, we hear a piano playing in the background that does not correlate it with what is being said, the music creates a somewhat nostalgic, somewhat sad, and somewhat depressing atmosphere in that scene, as if the music is not sure of its role!

Neither James is convincing, nor Hammer satisfying, nor does Thomas know how Mrs. Danvers performs acceptably even though she is better than her colleagues. Even when Thomas is in her best moments, she looks like she was in another movie, the performance of the three never stands up when compared to John Fontaine, Lawrence Olivier and Judith Anderson In Rebecca Hitchcock.

Black and white films have an expressive and artistic power that color films lack, and few filmmakers manage to show the expressive power in color films (Steven Spielberg, for example).

"Rebecca" in black and white and under Hitchcock's management is a cinematic masterpiece that won even the best cinematography of the time.

In other words, had this movie been attributed to Spielberg, "Rebecca" Hitchcock might have been renewed.

There is a huge difference between feeling the presence of a dead character in the film, without seeing it because of the camera language, because the director is able to his material and uses only two colors to highlight this: black and white, and when you see the director forced to enter the character's hallucination scene, to tell you that the dead is there And you do not actually feel its presence, although the scene contains all colors: red, blue, yellow, white!

There is a scene in "Rebecca" Hitchcock, ahead of his time, in which Maxim talks about the accident of Rebecca's death and the camera describes her movements in sitting, standing and walking. We only see the movement of the camera and hear Maxim's voice. This is exactly what is called cinema or filmmaking, this is what distinguishes cinema from other arts.

There is a reason for Hitchcock’s decision that the camera should describe the scene, not Maxim, and that is the reason for the failure of "Rebecca" Ben Wheatley in the technical aspects.

It is noteworthy that "Rebecca" is Hitchcock's second film rehearsal. Gus Van Sant re-tested "Psycho" in 1998, retested shot by shot, and failed a resounding failure.

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Armie Hammer's performance is pretentious and boring, the film starts out hard and gets lost after that, and his performance does not arouse the viewer's curiosity.

The essence of the story is about a naive woman who becomes infatuated with a mysterious widower and moves with him to live in his family's mansion.

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