Cinematography technique · used in 8 films
Setting the story in a large, decaying or out-of-date house that mirrors its owner's mind. The building shows the feelings and history that keep the people inside trapped.
Examples
Alfred Hitchcock · 1940
Manderley is a character in this film. Its corridors and its west wing are each full of Rebecca's personality, and Mrs. Danvers has kept it all as a shrine. The new Mrs. de Winter can't live in her own home because a dead woman already fills it. The house is the main tool the film uses to get inside her head.
Where to see it: The narrator's first approach to Manderley. The estate is so large and so beautiful that you know at once she cannot hope to fill it.
David Lean · 1946
Satis House is decayed and cobwebbed, a mansion where Miss Havisham has stopped time. The house mirrors her mind and traps Estella and Pip inside it. It was recreated at Denham Film Studios.
Where to see it: Pip at Satis House. Miss Havisham has Pip keep Estella company in her decaying mansion.
Billy Wilder · 1950
John F. Seitz's camera treats Norma Desmond's mansion as a haunted house. You see the dark rooms, the covered furniture, the dead pet monkey, the organ and the projection room for her old films. The house is her delusion in the form of a building, a place where time stopped in the 1920s.
Where to see it: Joe's first exploration of Norma's mansion. The house is shown as a museum of a star nobody needs anymore.
Alfonso Cuarón · 1998
Ms. Dinsmoor's mansion is called Paradiso Perduto, which means paradise lost. The real Ringling mansion in Sarasota was dressed to look decayed and overgrown. It rots around her the way her life stopped when she was left at the altar.
Where to see it: Ms. Dinsmoor's warning. In her crumbling home, she tells young Finn he will fall in love with Estella and get his heart broken.
Park Chan-wook · 2013
The Stoker house is large, quiet and full of secrets. Its rooms, closets and basement hold what the family doesn't say. The house feels like the family's mind.
Where to see it: Charlie's arrival at the house. He moves into the big home after the funeral, and it begins to feel like his place.
Guillermo del Toro · 2015
Allerdale Hall is a decaying house in Cumberland that is slowly sinking into a red clay mine. The rot in the house matches the rot in the family that lives there. Its look tells you the Sharpes are trapped by their past.
Where to see it: Arrival at Allerdale Hall: Edith moves into the sinking mansion with Thomas and his sister Lucille.
Darren Aronofsky · 2017
The big country house is the film's whole world, and it reflects the mother's mind and her work. As visitors damage it, the house changes with them. The place never lets her leave.
Where to see it: The house under repair. The mother works on the walls and floors while her husband stays shut in his study.
Sofia Coppola · 2017
The old school stands apart from the war, half empty and falling out of date. It mirrors the women's lives, kept in a place that time has left behind. Once McBurney is inside, the house turns from a refuge into a trap.
Where to see it: The music room. Farnsworth locks McBurney inside for the women's safety.
Questions
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