Double penalty for those who now want to adapt
Rebecca
to the big and small screen
.
We must not only do honor to the novel, homage to Gothic literature, by Daphné du Maurier.
We must also accept to be constantly brought back to the masterpiece of 1940, with Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier which won the Oscar for best film to Alfred Hitchcock.
This is the challenge that British director Ben Wheatley will take up on October 21 for Netflix.
To read also:
The Nest
with Jude Law triumphs at the American Festival of Deauville
The first trailer, posted this week by the platform, can be read as a true declaration of independence.
Abandoning the points of anxiety of the master, Ben Wheatley seems to emphasize the feelings which push Maxim de Winter to take for second wife a young penniless companion, met in Monte Carlo.
And the strange dynamic of this marriage based on secrets and the unspoken.
In this version, the wealthy widower and owner of the fabulous Manderley estate in the British countryside has the features and impeccable accent of Armie Hammer (
Call Me By Your Name
) The young and innocent ingenuous whom he seduces those of Lily James (
Downton Abbey
and
Cinderella
).
From the sun of the Riviera to the oppressive camera of Manderlay
The state of grace, symbolized by their meeting in the enchanting and shimmering summer of the Riviera does not last.
Manderley is an austere and intimidating Gothic mansion.
Like his housekeeper Mrs Danvers, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, who gives the new bride a cold welcome, mocking her popular origins and constantly comparing her to Maxim's sublime first wife, the haughty Rebecca, disappeared under strange circumstances.
His shadow hangs in every room, and even the toiletries, which his successor uses, but no one wants to explain to the new Mrs. de Winter the circumstances of
Rebecca's
death
.
And even less Maxim.
Author of rough and violent thrillers such as
High Rise
and
Free Fire
, Ben Wheatley explores, it seems with relish, the hold of the deceased on those who remain and the fragile foundations of a stammering marriage and the neuroses of a heroine seeking to assert herself.
Here and there, the filmmaker slips nightmarish visions, borrowing from the codes of genre films a blue and red palette.
To
Empire
magazine
, however, he declared: “
I wanted to do something that has more love, to delve into this aspect of our humanity.
Rebecca
has dark elements and is based on an obsession, but it is also about these two people in love ”
.
A modern rereading which will try to have as much impact as that of Andrew Davies
(
Pride and Prejudice) and Emma Thompson (
Reason and Feelings
) exerted on the work of Jane Austen.
