|
Introduction |
Title Graphics |
Camera work And editing |
Lighting |
Iconography |
Music and sound |
Costume |
Comments |
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1931 James Whale |
Story teller Evening suit / showman Formal intro / Friendly Warning and explains the themes |
B/w – blurred Faces and fists / Mad eyes surrounding Devilish face |
Long pan around Mourners / long Uncut sequences/ Long close ups / Straight cuts/ Fade to black/ Very static camera |
Low key/ Sharp shadows/ gloomy |
Stakes/ burial Ground/ mourners/ priest/ grave diggers/ Grave robbers/ gibbet and body/ hunch backed Assistant/ figure looks Like ‘Death’?/ barren landscape |
Opening Scary music then none / no dialogue for long time / Diegetic noises only e.g. storm, Church bells, shouting of mob |
Men in suits / fashion of the 1930s/ Elizabeth in white plus blonde hair/ Peasants in Rustic clothing |
Dispenses with start of story entirely, starts with Henry (wrong name) and Fritz (stereotypical name) robbing graves; Henry and Elizabeth engaged; Victor is best friend; monster’s brain came from a criminal; nobody dies except one of his professors! Ends with …
Question: did this director read the book at all??? |
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1997 Kenneth Branagh |
Female voice over reading quotation from book |
White text gradually growing larger on screen : Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and scrolling up screen a note about the setting and themes of the story. |
Establishing shot of ship in storm; slow zooms in on characters, intercut with close ups of reactions to storm and of approaching ice, shot reaction shot; lots of edits a high speed visual montage; mid shot lingers over loss of man over side; later close up on bloody hand on ice; long shot of figure looming in the mist in the distance; later scenes in the wood panelled captain’s cabin. |
Natural; dark with a sense of moonlight in the storm, lanterns, later full day light but no shadows almost a white out. |
Storm Dark Screaming Weird sounds Figure looming out of mist Howling dogs Sudden death of dogs Bloody hand Fear of sailors. |
Storm and dramatic music; men shouting and dogs howling, peculiar and spine chilling sounds; mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. |
Early 19th century costume. (of the right era) |
Obsession of Walton clearly shown as link between the two men and set as focus of story. |
Frankenstein quotes to be sprinkled in your essays!
‘I am in good spirits: my men are bold …nor do the sheets of floating ice…appear to dismay them.‘ (Walton of his quest to find the North Pole; this shows him as a sort of Romantic hero, obsessed by his ambition and not thinking of others – FLAWED)
‘What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?‘ (said by Walton but links to Frankenstein – both determined, obsessive…)
‘You seek for knowledge as I once did… you are pursuing the same course…exposing yourself to the same dangers [perhaps] you can deduce an apt moral from my tale.‘ (Victor tries to help Walton to learn from his mistakes)
‘Elizabeth…became…[so] much more [to me]’ (Romantic writing) ‘My passion for science‘ (Romantic obsession)
‘Nature’s rule over man was evident and she forbid herself to give up her secrets. Man would have to take rather than receive.’ (said by Frankenstein but also
see Walton above!)
‘I would use this path of chemistry to…unfold the mysteries of creation itself.’ (challenges God)
‘I vowed that it would be I who would break nature’s grasp.‘ (ambition)
‘At a sacrifice of family and friends.‘ (the typical tragic romantic hero)
‘When I found so astonishing a power placed in my hands, I hesitated concerning the manner in which I should employ it.’ (morality / conscience?)
‘A new species would bless me as its creator and I would be the father to a race of children.’ (arrogance / wants to be like God.)
‘It was on a dreary night of November… the rain pattered dismally against the panes as I stole lightning from the sky and channelled it into my creation.’ (Gothic style of writing setting up grim foreboding)
‘With an anxiety that amounted almost to agony.‘ (Romantic depth of emotion) ‘I had selected his features as beautiful…his hair was of a lustrous black, his teeth of a pearly whiteness, but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes…his dun white sockets…his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.‘ (Transition from Romantic to Gothic)
‘…but now that I had finished, the dream vanished and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I rushed out of the room.’
‘The immense mountains and precipices…. The dashing waterfalls… ruined castles… cottages peeping forth from among trees… formed a scene of singular beauty. But it was rendered sublime by the mighty Alps…‘ (Typical descriptions in the Romantic style/ contrast this with the earlier one about November – they show how Shelley employed both styles in her writing to appeal to a mixed audience.)
‘Begone you are not a being worthy of life.‘ (whose fault? Does the creature not deserve compassion? Has it got a soul? What kind of man is Victor really?)