Issue 26
Vanishing Points

A Defense of Impure Cinema: the Function of the “Other woman” in 'Rebecca' and 'Jane Eyre'

Tecla González Hortigüela
Universidad de Valladolid
Bio

Published 2018-07-01

Keywords

  • Rebeca,
  • Jane Eyre,
  • adaptaciones cinematográficas,
  • teoría feminista del cine,
  • psicoanálisis,
  • la Otra mujer.
  • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

González Hortigüela, T. (2018). A Defense of Impure Cinema: the Function of the “Other woman” in ’Rebecca’ and ’Jane Eyre’. L’Atalante. Journal of Film Studies, (26), 145–156. https://doi.org/10.63700/648

Abstract

In his article “Pour un cinéma impure”, André Bazin offers a passionate defence of film adaptations of theatrical and literary works. It is our aim to build on Bazin’s defence of an “impure cinema” through the films Rebecca (A. Hitchcock, 1940) and Jane Eyre (C. Fukunaga, 2011). By presenting an interpretative analysis of these two film adaptations, we raise two points. First of all, that the discourses of both films, by highlighting the Gothic interweaving of violence and sexual passion, come into contradiction with the “civilised” sexual morality characteristic of capitalism. And secondly, that in placing the ghostly figure of the Other Woman at the centre of the narrative trajectory of their heroines, both films are privileged artistic spaces for investigating the cultural function played by this classical female fantasy.

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References

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