Joan Fontaine

through her job as a companion. The young women is haunted by her new husband’s late wife. Maxim de Winters (Laurence Olivier) is a very calm and knowingly cool character. He knows how to take control of a situation like he did when Mrs. deWinters (Joan Fontaine) had to tell Mrs. Van Hopper that he was going to marry her “companion”. Although he is a strong male character he falls for the awkwardly shy girl that only goes by Mrs. De Winters. We never find out her first name making it easier…

To Walk Again in Manderley It was a wonderful day indeed when on May 13, 1907 British writer Daphne Du Maurier came into this world. How very different it would all have seemed if we hadn’t had the chance to read her fascinating and interesting novel “Rebecca” which she wrote in 1938. She was born in London, England and received her education in Paris, France. She was already born with creative genes I would say since her father was a well-known actor and theater manager. When Du Maurier was in…

actor’s faces are hugely enlarged, and the performers must control their expressions minutely” (Bordwell, 2008, p. 134). While Bordwell makes this point with regards to contemporary cinema, it applies equally well to Dreyer’s film. In The Passion of Joan of Arc, Falconetti is not seen pacing rapidly around the room or raising her hands in a dramatic manner while depicted in a long shot or medium shot. With her body being largely immobile, the focus of the film shifts on her expressive face…

It is often difficult to do justice to a novel through a film adaptation especially of a classic novel like Rebecca in which the characters are layered, subtle and subject to so many interpretations that the explicit cinema can never potray them accurately. Furthermore, it becomes difficult to make a film in a limited time not losing the soul of the novel. The novel Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier published in 1938 has never been out of print. Many attempts have been made to revive the classic…

In Hitchcock’s films there were recurring themes like, suspense, the ordinary person and a staircase, that dominated in most of his films. These themes were able to better the overall storytelling of his films, because they added more depth to his films. One of the first themes that Hitchcock uses is one that he is known for and that is suspense. In his films Hitchcock uses suspense instead of just surprising the audience is because surprise will just assault the audience with some frightening…

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo is now considered by the American Film Institute to be the best film of all time. With that title comes some flack for “beating” out all of the other films that come out ever. Obviously this title is subjective and doesn’t make the film anymore better or meaningful than it previously was, but the backlash from film critics are kind of ironic being about Vertigo. People are writing article after article and blog post after blog post about how Vertigo doesn’t…

CTCS 469: The Genius of Billy Wilder Part 2 of Notebook (due July 1st) Professor: Dr. Drew Casper TA: Isaac Rooks Jinghan Mao Tel: 608-770-1992 5) The Lost Weekend (1945) shows six “noir” style thematic and formal components that are discussed by Professor Casper in his book Postwar Hollywood 1946—1962. First of all, there are two visual narrative flashbacks in the film. According to Casper, the narrative flashback is “an indication not only of the use of the past to explain the present…