Tag: Film

Introduction  

Title Graphics 

Camera work

And editing 

Lighting  

Iconography  

Music and sound 

Costume  

Comments  

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??? 

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 19^th century costume. (of the right era)

Obsession of Walton clearly shown as link between the two men and set as focus of story.