I first saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) on September 21, 2017. It was the fourth film screened as part of Professor John Bertolini’s course “The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock” at Middlebury College. Prior to the course, I had never seen a Hitchcock film. The three films that preceded my viewing of Rebecca — The 39 Steps (1935), Young and Innocent (1937), and The Lady Vanishes (1938)  — interested me, but it was not until that night in late September that I was truly enthralled with Hitchcock’s cinema.

From the opening minutes, I was taken by Rebecca. I can remember sitting in Dana Auditorium in awe with my classmates. And when Maxim shared his hatred of Rebecca with “I,” I, like many of my classmates, gasped and yelled, “What?!” at the screen. As I left the auditorium, I felt as though I had a run a marathon. I had never before had such a visceral reaction to a work of art. It remains the most important movie-going experience of my life.

I bring to this project all of the biases that come with being in love with a film.