Analyzing The Adaptation Of Rebecca From The Novel To The Film In Light Of Classical Chinese Aesthetics

Daphne du Maurier has established herself as a major eminence on the literary horizon in creating a world full of mystery and suspense. Due to her great contribution to literature, she was awarded Dame of Great Britain in 1969 and won the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America in 1977. Rebecca (N) is known as Daphne's masterpiece. Being published in 1938, the novel became a bestseller and brought Daphne instant international acclaim and recognition.Rebecca (N) was filmed by English famous director Alfred Hitchcock in 1940. He is good at creating suspense and is known to his audience as the"Master of Suspense". Rebecca (F) is one of his representatives, which won the Academy Awards for nine nominations in 1940 and Best Picture and Best Cinematography at last.Many scholars and critics at home and abroad have appreciated Maurier, Rebecca (N) and the film of the same name from different perspectives. Nowadays, both the novel and the film have been the classic. However, studies on them just focus on feminism, gothic novel, female gothic, comparison between the novel and the film, movie review, narrative technique and so on. It is undoubted that the novel reflects Maurier's consciousness and endeavor to create a world full of mystery and suspense. Similarly, Hitchcock is skilled in presenting the unique mystery and suspense by means of his own adaptation method. In other words, the"spirit"of the novel is transferred to the film successfully by Hitchcock; he grasps the"soul"of the original in the film adaptation. That is to say, the"artistic conception"is similar in the novel and the film from the aesthetic perspective. And some features of classical Chinese aesthetics provide the necessary theoretical explanation for it.Thus, the thesis attempts to interpret the adaptation of Rebecca from the novel to the film in light of classical Chinese aesthetics. It falls into six chapters: Introduction, four chapters of analysis and Conclusion.Introduction includes a brief introduction to the author Maurier and Rebecca (N), the director Hitchcock and Rebecca (F), including their lives and accomplishments and Hitchcock's adaptation method. Next, the literature review to the novel and the film is included. Then, the significance of the thesis is presented that the thesis, through the analysis of Hitchcock's adaptation method, attempts to inquire into the core of adaptation from the perspective of falseness and trueness, blank and the black-and-white of classical Chinese aesthetics.Chapter One is the theoretical foundation of the whole analysis. Falseness and trueness, blank and the black-and-white of classical Chinese aesthetics are explained in some details. Classical Chinese aesthetics originates from Chinese philosophy. The distinguishing feature lies in that it regards"artistic conception"as the aesthetic standard, and falseness and trueness, blank and the black-and-white are the important factors in artistic appreciation. In literary and artistic works, trueness refers to the direct aesthetic feeling which has access to people. Falseness is the aesthetic imagination which resorts to people. Then, as one of the artistic characteristics of Chinese painting, blank is a kind of artistic creation based on artistic imagination. Moreover, spatial awareness of Chinese art speaks highly of the charm of the black-and-white;"Color without color is best color".Chapter Two provides an analysis of Hitchcock's adaptation from the perspective of falseness and trueness. The first section introduces the"falseness"in Rebecca and the"trueness"in the narrator from the characters. There is a sharp contrast between the two characters. However, the sharp contrast helps to generate mystery. Rebecca's"falseness"/invisibility makes the narrator's truth more clear, and the narrator's any action sets off Rebecca's mystery better. The second section expounds the"falseness"in dreamland and "trueness"in reality through the situations. The combination of dreamland and reality, and the marriage between memory and actuality wind through the whole story. The two kinds of combination make the plot quirky and twisting and the mystery intense. Therefore, the"marriage between falseness and trueness"is demonstrated very well.Chapter Three focuses on Hitchcock's adaptation in terms of blank. On one hand, the director Hitchcock compresses or deletes some plots of the novel in order to create characters and perform the film better, such as the masquerade, the talks and the visits. On the other hand, Hitchcock pays more attention to the characters'blank in speech, especially the narrator's speech. The narrator's character trait is described vividly and incisively. It achieves an effect of"beyond the sound". So blank not only shapes the characters effectively, but also creates an"artistic conception"of implication and gives the audience endless imagination.Chapter Four goes on to analyze Hitchcock's adaptation in light of the black-and-white. Through the black-and-white photography adopted in the film, the characters are portrayed very well, especially Mrs. Danvers, the narrator"I"and Ben. In addition, the theme is performed well in order to keep the"soul"of the novel effectively by means of the images, such as the manor, Manderley, and the sea. The charm of the black-and-white reflected in the characters and images just goes the same line with the"color without color"in Chinese painting. Analysis of its artistic charm is a best way to understand the director's skilled technique in creating suspense and the quirky artistic style of the film.Based upon the above analysis, in the Conclusion, a summary is made about the research that novel and film belong to different artistic form. It is no doubt that there are some immutable differences between them. However, Hitchcock's skilled method in Rebecca (F) may be observed in light of falseness and trueness, blank and the black-and-white of classical Chinese aesthetics. Moreover, there is a reasonable explanation for his method: the key point in the adaptation from the novel to the film is to grasp the"soul"of the novel, and from the perspective of"artistic appreciation of the ideorealm", the"soul"of the original is presented in Rebecca (F) successfully. So film adaptation not only considers"similarity in form", but also draws much attention to"similarity in spirit". The latter is the essence of film adaptation. The unique"artistic conception"of the novel should be mastered, if the adapter aims to retain the"soul"of it.