I've been trying to track down a copy of Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca ever since I read the novel a few years back but have had lousy luck. If it's considered one of his best movies, why is it so hard to find? On Amazon you can find a Criterion Collection edition of the film but it's $89. Sigh.From The Guardian:
'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again', the opening of Rebecca, is Daphne du Maurier's most quoted line. And from 10 May, the centenary of her birth, we should all be prepared to revisit Manderley repeatedly, as in a recurring dream. For du Maurier is about to be comprehensively celebrated...
Why is it that du Maurier still has such a hold? Why do so many women writers (with the exception of PD James, who voted Rebecca as 'worst' novel) want to write about her? After spending the past weeks submerged in the novels, I can volunteer one thing, and it is not an answer, more the beginning of a question. Du Maurier was mistress of calculated irresolution. She did not want to put her readers' minds at rest. She wanted her riddles to persist. She wanted the novels to continue to haunt us beyond their endings. And several of them do.
More here.
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