Frankenstein Reaction
For this first response paper I
decided to take the ten minutes to watch the Edison take on Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.
It was made in 1910 which is 20 years before the version we will watch to night
in class. The movie was short and incredibly to the point as with most of the
Edison films we watched, but the special effects used to make the monster
creation scene were haunting. Along with the ending which hinted at slightly
more than the typical evil monster story many take Frankenstein to be.
The movie opens as Frankenstein goes
away to college and uses a bluish frame of lighting hue to show this scene, signifying day time. The
descriptions that come up between scenes do not do much in the way of
explaining anything said, so even the actors moving their mouths has to be
totally filled in by the viewer. The transition of the bluish hue to an orange
one seemed to notify the transition of scene. The young Frankenstein creates
his monster, and it was not the scene I expected, or the classic lightning bolt
capturing tower with Igor at the switch. Frankenstein adds ingredients to a
cauldron and then the crazy part happens. A monster seems to grow out of the
cauldron. Knowing what I know about film technology I understood the simplest explanation
was that they were doing some kind of reverse footage. I tried to place myself
in the shoes of a teenager seeing this movie in 1910 and I think that they would
certainly be at the very least uncomfortable with this specific scene. They
seem to play a dummy being melted backwards on the film, so it looks like this
creature grows out of the cauldron! Mind blowing stuff in my opinion and
probably pretty technical to shoot for a movie that used no close ups.
Speaking of no close ups, the
entirety of the movie seemed to be shot from very far away. Nearly the entire
film was single frame shots with no cuts until the next white on black text
explanation for the following scene. Only the monster creation scene used
several cuts from the dummy melting to Frankenstein looking on. This no cutting
creates a sense of suspense for me, because it’s uncertain what will come onto
the camera next and from where when you aren’t cut to where you should be
looking. There is a great scene where the monster sees itself in a mirror and
freaks out. The mirror is used throughout the scene to show an extra part of
the room, and specifically a door used to enter the room. This allows us to see
the monster come in while the doctor doesn’t. Giving the audience a weird sense
of knowledge which ascribes to our sense of being in on the scene and the
scare.
The last thing I will talk about is the ending of the movie. The
movie ends in the mirror room as the monster walks towards Frankenstein. As the
monster gets closer he merges then disappears and suddenly is gone. The
question left lingering with the audience is was the monster a phantom of
Frankenstein’s evil that was there to scare off his bride? The slides say that
love overcame the monster and he disappeared. Is the idea that love will outweigh
the evil in Frankenstein and save his marriage? The monster seemed to desire
the love of Frankenstein’s bride, but sought it out in an unapproved manor. That
resulted in the bride freaking out. Maybe seeking love in the wrong way is the
undoing of man?
A beautiful film, masterfully done with the technology available at
the time and it makes me excited to see the next versions of the story.
Glad you checked this one out, Sergio, as I've always found Edison 1910 vision of the story to be surprisingly imagined. The cauldron, I suppose, interprets the creation scene as an act of alchemy rather than of "modern" ("electrobiological,""chemicalgalvanic!) technology, hence maybe aligning Frankenstein more with Dr. Faustus than with the "mad scientist" type of 20the-century cinema. At any rate, your post is pleasure to read for its discussion of filmmaking strategies in this early film. Thanks for your thoughts, and I'll look forward to reading more from you soon.
ReplyDelete-MH
When I first watched this film, I also tried to imagine that I was a contemporary viewer. I thought the creation scene in particular would have been frightening to viewers in 1910; I still found it pretty creepy as a modern viewer. Even though the 1910 version creation scene is not the most famous, I thought it was almost more memorable than the 1931 version, which is less focused on the monster and more focused on the people around it. This version gave you a more close-up look at it's "birth". Also, thank you for explaining how they filmed it. I thought the effect was really cool, but I had no idea what was behind it.
ReplyDeleteThis is an insightful examination of the Frankenstein film that preceded the 1931 version we watched in class. Your focus on the proximity of the camera to the action is an interesting aspect of the film to note, and it's interesting to think about the differing effectiveness of close shots rather than shots from further away. The differences between the creation of the monster in the 1910 Frankenstein stands in great contrast to the 1931 version, and indeed seems to put more focus on the monster itself. The disappearance of the monster in the final scene sounds like a very interesting alternate ending for this monster creation tale. I personally haven't seen this particular title, but your notes about it make me want to give it a go. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteTraditionally, early films (the first decade of the twentieth century) were composed of medium and long single frame shots because the camera was not mobile, it was only able to change location between scenes. Consequently, this "limitation" creates a completely different way of telling a story and has a unique effect on the viewer. Before the addition of close up shots, the filmmaker was forced to rely on other methods to convey the emotions of his characters. In other words, early film was more theatrical in a sense because the actors performed exaggerated displays of emotion to help evolve the narrative without the assistance of the camera.
ReplyDeleteI was enthralled by this early Edison version of Frankenstein -- I thought it was fantasctical. Thanks for the intriguing post.