Tv Show (miniseries) – Rebecca
Score : 8/10Year : 1997Director: Jim O'brien (I)Cinematography: Red MaidmentMusic : Christopher Gunning
Country : UK, Germany, USA. Language : English (bit of French) Duration: 3h02 (1h35+1h33)
Authors : Daphne du Maurier (novel) (it's review is here)Arthur Hopcraft (screenplay)
Full cast : IMDB
Just a couple years after Du Maurier released her eponymous novel, Hitchcock directed the first cinematic version. It was quite faithful to the book, retaining 80 or 90% of its content and adapted the second Mrs de Winters' inner thoughts very nicely. Despite that, some elements hadn't made it to a 2some hour long feature, and this is where this tv-miniseries comes, in an attempt to fill in the gaps and extend the story to about 3 hours. The narrator remains unnamed ; she impulsively marries Max de Winter, whom she met in Monte Carlo. The book hadn't specified when the story took place, but a basic research finds that it's mostly set in the 1930's. This miniseries starts in 1927, and ends around 1938, so it merely adds specifics to a vague portion of the book, which is quite alright.
They move together to Manderley, his estate in Southern England, where most of the story takes place (the location is fictional and presumed to be in Cornwall where Du Maurier herself lived).
Just like in the book and Hitchcock's version, during her life there, the second Mrs de Winter is always compared to the first wife, Rebecca, who have been dead, in this version, for 10 or so months (the 1940 movie makes it a round year).
Cinematography, lighting and direction are just well done, but don't shine like Hitchcock. Not only this is a change from black and white to color, but the entire gothic aspect of the book, which had been preserved in 1940 is totally absent in this miniseries. Everything is brighter, much less gloomy. The mansion filming location is Luton Hoo Estate, Luton, which is a 5 star hotel in Bedfordshire, near London. It's a pretty estate, but only imposing in size and doesn't have a personality and darkness of its own, contrary to the constructed set for Hitchcock's movie - here, I have mixed feelings, between a real location that is pretty, and the fact that we lack the gothic aspect altogether.
Characters are also generally less gloomy : Charles Dance as Max de Winter is more likeable and less moody - he's somewhat more clinical in approach than Lawrence Olivier, who captured the emotional instability much better. Here, instead, Max's emotions are less frail, he looses his temper less often ; the pace makes it that instead of contant instability, Max is more at ease at first, and looses as the story escalates, which works for its own merits and has a shock element in its sudden explosiveness.
The unnamed narrator, who is the second Mrs de Winter, is more emo and less socially awkward than Joan Fontaine had been. We see more of her impulsivity and attempts to get into her new life, and struggle against the comparisons, but we also don't get Fontaine's affirmation moment. Her anxiety and lack of self-esteem are somewhat more subtle to discern, but it works.
The best, however, is Diana Rigg who makes an excellent Mrs Danvers, who actually goes a tad farther than was possible in 1940, and that's all I'll say... Her costuming is exquisite and the only remnant of anything gothic, which is a plus.
Jonathan Cake does a really good George Sanders impersonation, in the role they share: Favell. He's a sly, conniving man, and I think took great pleasure in exploring his character.
Faye Dunaway is a more exuberant Mrs Van Hopper and also does a good job at her role. Her 1920's boho attire is the best costuming in the movie, so nice!
Interestingly, this miniseries chose to show Rebecca, mostly focusing either on her eyes or mouth as she talks in flashback scenes, to when she was still alive. This is a change, but it works insofar as she remains mostly a mystery, and Lucy Cohu captures this in her delivery.
With this longer duration, we have also a few additional scenes, such as the one with Jean Anderson as Max and Beatrice's grandmother, mentioned in a short passage in the book's chapter 15 but absent in Hitchcock's movie ; the Ball party is shown longer, with more people, and we see more of the Mansion's personnel as well.
Some of the dialogues are directly word-per-word from the book ("it's easy, isn't it?...") and the others are also well written, albeit we can criticize the way Max infantilizes his new friend and later bride, their cringe age-difference (he's a widower of 42, she's half his age), but also the cringe elements in other relationships discussed, both in the book and its adaptation. I'm not sure if Du Maurier intended her novel as a social critic of any of these aspects - I actually guess that perhaps not, as these were still normal in the 1930's.
Christopher Gunning's music is usually well suited, albeit not as eerie as Franz Waxman's in Hitchcock movie, which I think works because they chose to drop the gothic aspects of the story.
The acting ranges from good to very good, and stars :
Charles Dance as Maxim de Winter
Emilia Fox as Mrs. de Winter
Lucy Cohu as Rebecca de Winter
Diana Rigg as Mrs. Danvers
Geraldine James as Beatrice
Denis Lill as Giles
Tom Chadbon as Frank Crawley
Jonathan Cake as Jack Favell
John Branwell as Ben
Faye Dunaway as Mrs. Van Hopper
Also Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Bate, Jean Anderson, Jonathan Stokes, Kelly Reilly, Timothy West, Wendy MacAdam
This miniseries retains a high % of faithful adaption from the novel, rather well paced and acted.
Being longer, it allows us to see more character development and motivations, some of which weren't socially acceptable to show in the 1940 movie.
I personally like it, and love those few additions, but deplore the reduction of gothic elements to Mrs Danvers alone ; I like the few changes compared to Hitchcock's movie, but, oddly enough, or perhaps because of this comparison, I prefer the movie, whilst also recommending this miniseries.
If you haven't read the novel, do so, and then watch - compare, talk about the comments left by the author and enjoy !
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Rebecca miniseries... in the medias
I watched this on Kanopy, a website and app for streaming that is a bit different : it requires a library card, from a list of available libraries - and you can watch 15 videos a month.
This miniseries comes in English, with optional close captions.
It also exists to buy or rent from other platforms : Amazon prime video (usa = 2,99$, the other countries don't seem to currently list it).
A search of the title with the year or cast members yields several results, but it seems that most of them end with an erroneous or unverifiable ASIN number on amazon and cannot be converted to EAN. I'll give results that actually work.
USA & Canada : ASIN B00008DDRZ & EAN 0783421366695. Zone 1, Color, total 176 minutes (2h56, so several minutes are cut, I assume they must include the short partial nudity with Emilia Fox).
Bonus : Q&A with Diana Rigg, Cast filmographies, poster gallery, scene selection, Closed captions, and I assume that since it was released in 2003, the special website access won't work.
I took this info from here
UK : ASIN B0002VF64W & EAN 5037115067234. Zone assumed to be 2. Color, and total 189' (3h09) runtime announced ; is it a longer version, slower, or just counting some adverts? I don't know and can't check. Also, amazon uk says it's from Portugal, and yet, doesn't appear to be any edition there, so I'm guessing the cataloguers were mistaken. Bonus unknown.
Assumed language for the above edition is English, and subtitles aren't announced - to be verified.
Germany : ASIN seems an error but EAN is 4250148711375 as can be seen in the scanned images on amazon.de and if the description is right, comes as 2 dvds, zone 2, and even longer runtime of 191' (3h11)... again, am not sure why there is a discrepency, nor if there are adverts. Here we have both original English as well as German dub, and subtitles, in Dolby Digital 2.0.
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