"last night i dreamt i went to manderley again..."
". . . I came upon it suddenly; the approach masked by the unnatural growth of a vast shrub that spread in all directions . . . There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the gray stone shining in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and terrace. Time could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls, nor the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand."
-'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier
-o0o-
i love this book so much when we studied it in our lit class in high school. over the years i must've owned five copies of this book, but what i have now in my bookshelves is the book of the bbc screenplay. funny thing is i yet have to see that bbc movie. have you seen it? is it any good?
hopefully, i can do a re-shoot outside of some stately mansion or maybe by the lake before the camera settings challenge's end date. that would be interesting to the passersby, i reckon.
this is for the fiveplustwo's theme this week, dreams. also for the camera settings challenge of ghostly settings.
@claireuk - thank you , my good friend claire. it's actually easy, one of the first crazy things i've learned. set your camera to a long exposure, point it towards your subject, take the shot and linger in front of the camera , move around until the camera's done. :-)
@dh - thank you, d. I love her descriptions, of her characters or places - they just paint the images in my mind.
@678tabby - was it good? I read the screenplay and I thought it was an exact rewrite of the novel. but i had always been disappointed in seeing movies made after the book. i shall look up the movie during the holiday respite, maybe download it for watching on the long flight over the pacific in january. thank you, june.
@northy - shall we go find out? :-) methinks we can get as far as a tad bit inside the gate. we can ask the guard if we can just do a few shots by the front steps, else we shot from the street. i had this idea of a ghostly figure with a large mansion in the background. the first line of the book just kept eating at me and i had to execute it no matter how crappy. the only thing near "mansionly" in my house is my china cabinet.
@summerfield just possibly tomorrow night (i'd have to check - but i think it might be doable for a short jaunt)... sunday is out, tho'... not sure what next week or weekend is like in terms of kids' sports and my hubby's schedule...
@northy - sunday's no good for me either i have the grandsons from 9 to 5 and i have to photograph at the office kids' holiday party. i'm sure i'll be near dead halfway through. we can do tomorrow night, si tu peux. check and let me know what time. please and thank you. :-)
This is a clip from the old film with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontain. I have seen her lovely home in Cornwall from across the bay. My favourite book was 'My Cousin Rachel'. This shot is perfect for the theme. I love it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jii9JLEGLaU&list=PL9E89967E9459A603
Rats! The boys have something this afternoon from 1 to at least 5pm... Might be able to go in the evening - can't remember what the grounds look like and how close we'd likely be able to get... Any idea?
@northy - from the sidewalk, there's 2-ft deep concrete fence the height of which is about to my chest; i don't think it has bars on the top, so that you get a view of the castle. from the fence, the front steps/entrance would be about 200 feet or less. i know there are grid iron gates so i'm thinking if they close at 5 they might also close the gate. in which case we would have to do our thing from the sidewalk.
sorry, we were out to buy a new van so i didn't see this until now. :-)
Car shopping is always fun... At any rate I'm thinking more fun than what I'm doing... I'm at Ricoh centre... It's a zoo... My kids' school is here to sing oh canada or something... We had to be here at 1... Game starts at 3... I have a migraine now... Yuck
@northy - well, you let me know if you're up to it later on. would 7 be too late? i surely would love company to go there. and curious, too, to find out if it's worthwhile to go there once in a while after dark for our more fun hobby. or we can go to mr. pleasant cemetery. hahahahahaha! i kid you on that one.
@northy - well, i'll be doing laundry now and i should be done by 4:30. otherwise, if we want "old, mansion-ish spooky" type we can always try going to the UofT by the hart house or somewhere in the vicinity.
OMG! I totally adore Rebecca! I talked about it on here once before. I got a shot of lights coming up behind trees and said it looked like Manderly burning. i don't quite know what it is with that book..it touches my soul. Part of it is that was one of the first books I read that was " really adult" but I was not an adult yet. I got it off my mom's shelf. Mom loved it too. Carol Burnett on her skits TV show did a skit with Ms. Danvers and Rebecca once.... We loved that too. And then we watched the movie. It reminds me of my youth, of my mom...I just read it at an impressionable age I guess. I listened to it on my ipad in the car about 6 months ago. It still "gets me." Every time! That beginning! T hat ending! Wow.
@espyetta I will keep my eyes open for it on AMC and TCM. Like you a Daphne du Maurier novel was one of my first grown-up books too- Frenchman's Creek and it was my mother's book. We both loved it. But I don't know if it was ever made into a movie. I still have the book too. A little piece of Mom I can't part with. You know how that is!
@dh - thank you, d. I love her descriptions, of her characters or places - they just paint the images in my mind.
@678tabby - was it good? I read the screenplay and I thought it was an exact rewrite of the novel. but i had always been disappointed in seeing movies made after the book. i shall look up the movie during the holiday respite, maybe download it for watching on the long flight over the pacific in january. thank you, june.
@aecasey - thank you, april.
@northy - thank you, m.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jii9JLEGLaU&list=PL9E89967E9459A603
@netkonnexion - thank you, damon.
sorry, we were out to buy a new van so i didn't see this until now. :-)