The new version of "Butterfly Dream" starring Lily James and Amy Hammer has finally been broadcast online.
Unsurprisingly, I hate it very badly.
How classic was the film "Butterfly Dream"?
Truth be told, it may not be the most iconic work of the master of suspense Hitchcock, but in this film, he has created an intoxicating world.
Deep manors, ubiquitous spirits, mysterious murders, trance-like housekeepers, all these elements are permeated with a mysterious and charming gothic temperament.
The great director Paul Thomas Anderson, before filming The Phantom Sewer, said —
"There have been a lot of people who have tried to copy Butterfly Dream and have failed; I may be the next person in this queue."
However, like the heroine Rebecca, who occupies the english title of the film but never appears in the film, Butterfly Dream is also like a film with self-will and does not belong to anyone.
The reason why it is so elusive is because behind its scenes, there is too much wrestling and tearing.
Producer David O. Selznick and Hitchcock's struggle for control of the film, and the two actresses Vivien Leigh and Joan Fonten for the film's heroine, all these "dramas" are intertwined with the dramatic conflicts on the screen, which ultimately create this classic that is not uniform in style, but unique and incomparable.
It is not replicable at all.
Today, I will talk to you about one of Hitchcock's masterpieces, and the behind-the-scenes drama is even more wonderful masterpieces -
Butterfly Dream
The main story line of "Butterfly Dream" is a battle for the manor named Mandre in the film, and the two sides of the battle are a newlywed couple on one side and the soul of a deceased person on the other.
Rebecca, who died at the beginning of the story, is a haunting ghost throughout the film.
She once used charm and grace to capture the wealthy bachelor Maxim De Winters (Lawrence Oliver), but soon after marriage, she got tired of him and indulged in sneaking pleasures with other lovers.
Maxim killed Rebecca by mistake after learning that she was pregnant with an unknown person.
In his loss and confusion, he falls in love with the naïve girl played by Joan Fonden, but Rebecca's shadow still hangs over the newlywed life of the two of them.
Audiences more than seventy years ago may have seen Rebecca as a scorpion woman who crossed ethical boundaries. However, from a modern perspective, Rebecca's posture has a hint of feminism.
On the surface, the film only uses Maxim's one-sided words to show an unreasonable and promiscuous Rebecca; but from Maxim's attitude towards his second wife, we can roughly feel the reason why Rebecca rebelled against Maxim.
Maxim's rudeness, rudeness, and moodiness toward women would tire any woman with an independent spirit; and the reason why he chose to marry a naïve woman who was completely different from Rebecca after Rebecca's death was because only such a woman would be willing to obey his domination.
But Rebecca is not such a marionette, so she uses the "wandering skeleton" method to practice her soul freedom and sexual freedom. In the face of male power, she failed, her flesh perished in the deep sea, but her soul merged with the Manor of Mandray, and only the raging fire could defeat her.
Another way ahead of The Butterfly Dream is its veiled representation of homosexual relationships.
In addition to the legitimate lover played by George Sanders, Rebecca also used her charm to charm the manor's housekeeper, Ms. Danfoss (Judith Anderson).
Under the restrictions of the Hayes Code, Hitchcock could not verbally point out the relationship between Rebecca and Danfoss, but Danfoss showed Joan Fonten's character the bizarre act of Rebecca's wardrobe, and her fetish obsession with Rebecca's coat and underwear, which had made the sexual tension between the two unobstructed.
Unfortunately, in the cultural environment at that time, lesbian characters like Danfoss could only be portrayed as eccentric and intimidating villains.
However, with the fermentation effect of time, Danfoss has also become an iconic image in gay culture, and perhaps her classic wardrobe scene in "Butterfly Dream" has also contributed to the formation of the word "coming out".
The filming process of "Butterfly Dream" can be said to be a struggle between the two control freaks of the director and the producer.
When "Butterfly Dream" was filmed, it was the period when the big producer Selznick was most satisfied. Running out of MGM to go it alone, he has just completed his life's work, Gone with the Wind.
At the same time, he also held the rights to the most popular best-selling novel of the time, "Butterfly Dream". He decided to use the novel as bait to seduce a round-headed director on the other side of the ocean.
Hitchcock in the late 1930s was at the bottleneck of his career. He has already stood at the top of British cinema with "Thirty-Nine Steps" and "The Disappearance of a NobleWoman", but the cash-strapped domestic film industry has not been able to meet his growing ambitions.
Hitchcock aspired to go to Hollywood, where he could make the masterpiece of his dreams. As an old friend of the father of the original author of "Butterfly Dream", Daphne Dumurie, he read the novel in advance and was obsessed with it.
Selznick's invitation came in time, allowing Hitchcock to shoot a story he most yearned for in the place he longed for most. And Selznick's ability is to ensure that he has the widest audience immediately after he sets foot in the United States.
However, before the film officially began, Hitchcock's vision was shattered by the harsh reality. He has always had complete control over his films, from actors and scripts to costumes and props. However, Selznick, who was in power in Hollywood at the time, was also known for his control over the film in every detail.
In Hollywood at that time, the producer was the center of power of a crew, and as for the director and screenwriter, they were just craftsmen who could be easily replaced.
So Selznick exercised his power unreservedly: he rejected Hitchcock's first draft script at the outset, demanding that the latter be as faithful as possible to the original.
During filming, their creative methods also clashed frequently: Hitchcock liked to create tension with step-by-step shots, while Selznick loved panoramic shots because he didn't want to waste the interior of the manor he had spent a lot of money creating.
Even in the post-editing phase, Selznick was still working on Hitchcock's footage: he modified some of the lines, had the actors remix some of the dialogue, and even remade a few scenes himself despite Hitchcock's protests.
But Hitchcock couldn't do anything about it, because in the contract they signed, the final editing rights of the film belonged to Selznick.
In his work Rear Window, more than a decade later, Hitchcock completed his own little revenge by moving the villain's character image closer to Selznick.
In the famous "Dialogue between Hitchcock and Truffaut", Heffield once refused to admit that "Butterfly Dream" was a work of his own. But Hitchcock's unique sense of touch still permeates the film's brilliant moments.
From the bizarre shot of the entrance to the manor at the opening scene, to Maxim's empty shot of himself moving as he tells the truth about the murder, Hitchcock still has his trademark precision control over fear and suspense.
But without Selznick's usual lavish and extravagant production taste, the scene in which Mandray Manor was burned to the ground would not have had the epic feel it has now. Hitchcock and Selznick may both think that the other is clamping their hands and feet, but in fact, they are also accomplishing each other.
"Butterfly Dream", there is also a struggle between the female protagonists behind the scenes. Only this time, the inappropriate supernova lost to the right Cinderella.
Vivien Leigh in 1939 had just finished filming "Gone with the Wind". At that time, there was still controversy about her winning the role of Scarlett Hao, and only people who had gone through the entire filming process knew that a superstar belonging to the future had been born on film.
But Vivien Leigh did not relax at this time, but rushed to the audition site of "Butterfly Dream", because Selznick and Hitchcock had already decided that Lawrence Oliver would play the male lead of the film, and Vivien Leigh was Oliver's lover at that time.
But Selznick and Hitchcock didn't show much enthusiasm for Vivien Leigh. This is obviously not because Vivien Leigh's acting skills are not good, but because the heroine of "Butterfly Dream" is a docile, shy and even clumsy woman, and Vivien Leigh's strong personality is obviously not suitable for this role.
In Vivien Leigh's audition with Oliver, everyone can clearly see the spark between them, but this is exactly what Hitchcock did not want to see, because Maxim's relationship with his second wife in the film should have been jerky and awkward.
Even Lawrence Oliver himself had reservations about Vivien Leigh's positive auditions. At her request, he lobbied Selznick and Hitchcock, but deep down he believed that the two men who had gone through the dog-blood drama of abandoning their spouses would need a while to give each other a vacation.
Oliver knew that his hesitant attitude hurt Vivien Leigh: "Vivien Leigh was the complete opposite of Scarlett Hao, who always said: 'Tomorrow's things are left to worry about tomorrow.'" And Vivien Leigh is always worried about everything, whether it's yesterday, today, or tomorrow. But she is really incredibly beautiful. ”
Although Vivien Leigh did not appear in the film as she wished, in Hitchcock's view, she was indeed the best person for a role. In a later conversation with Henri Langlois, former director of the French Film Archive, he said:
"For Butterfly Dream, there really is a perfect candidate for Rebecca. She even wanted to star in the film, but unfortunately she auditioned for an inappropriate role. Leigh Leigh is Rebecca herself, they are both beautiful and strong, they all know how to get what they want most, they are women, not girls. ”
Vivien Leigh eventually lost to joan Fonden, who was not yet famous, and Oliver, sandwiched between Selznick and Vivien Leigh, was not able to show much kindness to Joan Fonden.
Hitchcock, who observes the awkward atmosphere between the two, is happy to sit back and enjoy it, not only telling Joan Fontaine that Oliver hates her, but also adding to the fire that The whole crew doesn't like her.
Seduced by Hitchcock, Joan Fontaine becomes extremely cramped and restrained in front of the camera, which is exactly what Hitchcock wants to see. The following year, the two collaborated on "Deep Doubts," a film that made Fontaine an Oscar-winning actress.
However, Leigh's shadow did not completely disappear in the narrative about "Butterfly Dream".
Although she and Hitchcock, who admired her, never worked together, at least in the Poster of the Italian version of Butterfly Dream, Rebecca's silhouette was depicted in her image.
In this way, Vivien Leigh lost touch with "Butterfly Dream", but the rebecca who never appeared in the film became the most outstanding role she never played.