Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1940)
Synopsis-A shy ladies' companion, staying in Monte Carlo with her stuffy employer, meets the wealthy Maxim de Winter. She and Max fall in love, marry and return to Manderley, his large country estate in Cornwall. Max is still troubled by the death of his first wife, Rebecca, in a boating accident the year before. The second Mrs. de Winter clashes with the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, and discovers that Rebecca still has a strange hold on everyone at Manderley.
I choose to look at an older thriller to see how conventions may have changed. The music at the beginning is very dramatic, suspenseful and loud which immediately connotes the thriller genre and builds atmosphere which still occurs in modern thrillers also. The first shot is of an isolated location with just a patch of fog, this is very mysterious and as an audience we think of this as a subtle clue of this enigma.
Whist the credits are showing the locations behind are still very mysterious with the isolated locations for example the image of a single tree connotes a single antagonist or the idea of a single identity.
After there is a wide shot of the night sky and a moon, the darkness suggests a thriller and the idea of fear.
There is a voiceover of a women who says words such as 'possessed and supernatural' connoting a thriller and this could be what the story is revolves around. The score underneath is still low pitch, yet quieter now.
The camera tracks through a metal gate connoting we are being let into this mystery and are part of the story as voyeurism as we are watching and following which is also a typical convention of a thriller.
Overall Rebecca still fits thriller conventions the same way as a more modern thriller would.
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