TRACKING
SHEET FOR SHINING DUE TODAY (2nd
part of EXAM 1—15% of grade! Email by midnight ok)
NEXT
CLASS READ FRANKENSTEIN CHAPTERS 8-17
FRANKENSTEIN QUESTIONS
II.
Return exams/discuss other assignments. Inclass Exam 2 in 14 days,much less material (Monsters + 3 handouts)
III.
QUICK DISCUSSION of the 15 filmic elements in the Shining…
THEN
5 minute break
IV: Discuss SYMBOLISM side of handout
V INTRO TO MONSTERS
V INTRO TO FRANKENSTEIN (no later than 7:30)
II. NEXT TWO ASSIGNMENTS (basic descriptions on
newclassroom.com à Calendar
A)Makeup inclass exam available Wed Dec 9 (See syllabus) Cumulative, replaces any 10%
B)The “pitch” – most people do “pitch” (10%
OF GRADE, due Oct28 or Nov 4) and “tracker
sheet” on same film or book.
III.
15 Filmic Elements in the Shining
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1)Plot/Story |
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2)Character & Acting |
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3)Setting |
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4)Thought (message) |
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5)Diction (Dialogue) |
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6)Music |
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7)Spectacle (stunts & special effects) Freaky memorable Moments? |
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8)The Budget |
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9)The Screenwriter/Director/
Producer/ Cinematographer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVTVa4B1rSc&NR=1
stanley kubrick bloopers |
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10)Pre-Production |
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11)The
Shot types/ Framing |
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12)The Angles |
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13)The lighting/Color of Film |
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14)The Edit/’Cut’ |
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15)The Shot types |
IV. Symbols
Symbols are a person, object, action, place or
event that:
a)stand-ins
for concepts across cultures
b)suggests
a hidden or secondary meaning
c)substitutes for abstract ideas
d) is short hand language for complex meanings and emotions
KEYS TO RECOGNIZING A SYMBOL:
1)
Repetition
(especially at key moments): if a character looks at a clock once, prob no symbolic meaning.
But if that character, everytime he sees a
couple gathering together looks at his clock, there is a symbolic meaning.
2) Extra focus or Detail: extra specific detail that may
appear unnecessary to the story
(EG in THE LOTTERY:
the black box where tickets are put is described as: “splintered badly
along one side…and in places faded or stained” has the possible symbolic
meaning that the ritual or tradition of the LOTTERY is also deteriorated or
fading”
3)
Special
Attention: A normally mundane object given special attention (EG named in the
title or a camera lingers
4)
Offbeat location
or Use: Object Placed in a strange location
(A mother who places all her butcher knives in the baby room); A butcher
knife used to pull down the sheets on a man or woman in bed)
5)
Commentary by
Character: If characters keep noticing and talking about an object, time,
person
6)
Lost or Found:
Items etc that are lost and found at a criticial moment
7)
Mirrors an Action
or Character: An action, event, or
behavior is mirrored in how an item works, stops, starts, or acts (EG a
timepiece that stops when someone dies; details of how complex a motor is,
works with tiny explosions, mirroring a quiet complex character who looks like
he’s about to lose control.)
8)
Acts/ Actions can
be symbolic (look at dance or rituals – eg ‘stoning’
is symbolic of everyone agreeing and participating in condemning someone to
death)
9)
A character/name
can be symbolic of a group or type/archetype of person (Hutchinson in Jackson’s
Lottery can be symbolic of the hypocrite, the superficial believer –
believes and or enforces a rule as long as not at her expense)
Archetypical symbols: universal symbols: voyage or trip
as symbolic about going down road of life, young as symbol of energy, old as
symbol of winding down (a scene of a community of old men sitting in chairs is
symbolic of something winding down)
Cultural symbols:
symbols that suggest the same thing across similar cultures or
subcultures, but can mean very different things in dissimilar or distant
cultures/subcultures .
EG, white is
the color of wedding dress in many culture; but in Chinese and some other asian cultures, white is the color of death and red is the
color of marriage. SO
white dress as a symbol of marriage is a cultural symbol.
EG: The
swastika: Shown to most, it means nazi. But in India’s
culture, it means God’s Blessing and is often part of the procession in a
marriage ceremony.
EG finger in
devil’s horn pose: to headbangers means one thing, to
modern pagans mean focus of energy to a purpose (spell), in sign language means
something different
Cultural
Symbols can be ‘abused’ or overread by someone who is
only looking to interpretation for a particular subculture, or specific
critical (obsessive?) interest
Literary symbols:
symbols that only have meaning for people familiar with an author, a work, a
style, or a subculture. Can be either
archetypical or cultural, but carries
extra meaning for a fan, author, style, etc.
Often gives a clue or insight about character, action, setting,
secondary message or theme.
FOR
EXAMPLE: In Hemmingway’s Farewell to
ARMS, rain
becomes a literary symbol because whenever it rains in the novel, someone dies.
V. HORROR TYPE I, ”PRIMAL
Scare” & MONSTERS
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster” –Nietzsche
TWO PRIMAL ‘SCARES’ TYPES:
The Hidden [monster
category of horror]: “revolves around
proving, disclosing, discovering and confirming something ‘impossible’ “ Carroll, Noel, Paradox of Horror
|
The Hidden/Unseen Things
that Go bump in the night --only you know --There,
but you don’t know it |
The Hunt/The Hunted --The chase |
Eight
major TYPES of Monsters/”THEM” in horror lit & film:
|
Superbeasts & Hybrids --Giant Monsters (Rodan, --Giant animals (Night of --fantastic creatures --Superpredators & -- Animal Forms (Cat People,
The Howling) |
Summoned, unleased, or forbidden Supernatural Evil --Poltergeists --Demons --Other Dimensions -- Possession(mind/spirit) |
Body
Taken Over (‘Body gone bad’) --Diseased --Aging and Decay (Thinner) -- Mutations (Tetsuo) --Body jumpers (The Hidden) --Body invaders (Robin --Clones,
‘Substitutes’ -- Possession/Body as Other -Shape shifters --’Turned into’ |
Man
Made Monsters /Experiments Gone Wrong (Frankenstein) --Science/Military Made monsters(Godzilla,
Aliens 4) --Made by Curses --Reanimation (Reanimator,
Pet |
|
Man
Sized Monsters & Mutants --Mutants (Nightbreed) |
Invaders
& Superior life -Aliens (Predator,
The --body snatchers --robots --Resource Hunters (V --Slavers (Battlefield:
Earth) --insects or animals -- Plants(Day of the Triffids) |
Nature’s
Revenge/
Avatars of Vengeance --Hubris payback -- --Nature/God’s retaliation |
PROTECTIVE Monsters -- Resistance Monsters/ --Protectors/Friends of Man (Where
the Wild things are, Gamera, Hellboy)
|
FRANKENSTEIN:
BOOK
AND FILM:
Frankenstein film is based on the 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by 19-year old British author Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley [1797-1851].
Movie: Gothic: about a night of the young poets on Laudenaum, a popular hallucinogenic drug during the 19th century,: Lord Byron, his physician Dr. Polidori, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Claire Claremont (Mary's half sister). When Lord Byron challenges them all to come up with the most horrific tale they can muster…
Help from her husband? Percy Shelley the
poet?
FRANKENSTEIN
THE MOVIE: James Whale --director, uncredited
for directing HEll's Angels, the Howard Hughes RAF
film
Gods
and Monsters
James
Whale, influenced by silent German film and his experiences during World War I
1914
marked the end of a relatively peaceful century in Europe with invention and
new science. The 19th century vision of a peaceful future fed by ever-increasing
prosperity through technology went bad…
Armored
Cars, submachines, auto riflestanks,… the technology that made strong lasting metal machines
now made strong repeat fire weapons.
Beginning use of chemical weapons: Chlorine gas, mustard gas by Germany….
FEAR OF SCIENCE’s WORK IN MASS WARFARE KILLING…1918 and on…
Actually, Movie from stage play: 1823 stage dramatization (in Two Acts) by Richard Brinsley Peake. Stage play, Presumption or The Fate of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley – not notified, without her knowledge but ultimately with her full blessing and approval.
Wrote in her diary: "Lo and behold, I found myself famous. I was much impressed. The play seemed to excite a breathless eagerness in the audience."
Peake's play received unanimous praise.
After a season at London's Covent Garden, the whole company travelled to New York for a Broadway presentation in 1825. This also proved a triumph, with both critics and general theatregoers heaping particular praise on Thomas Potter Cooke who virtually stole the show with his brilliant, sympathetic portrayal of the silent monster, which Cooke played 400 times before the play finally closed. With a supposed budget of about $291,000 Frankenstein, made in 1931 after Dracula’s success earlier in 1931
Except for the fact that there was a Frankenstein who created a "monster" from corpses and brought it to life, and the Monster remained unnamed (referred to as "the creature," "the fiend," "the dæmon," or "the wretch"), few similarities
FIVE of the major differences between Shelley and Play and movie:
1. In the novel, the monster not only speaks fluently, but has a most impressive vocabulary and eventually becomes quite verbose. In the play, Peake introduces a silent monster who can do no more than grunt.
2. Peake gives Frankenstein a loyal, eager but not over-bright assistant named Fritz. In the novel, Frankenstein has no assistant at all. 3. The play, like this movie, features a detailed creation sequence; novel pays little attention to the actual creation of the monster (1 paragraph). In Shelley's novel, the Frankenstein monster was 8 feet tall. 4)Ygor/Igor didn't enter the picture until 1939 in Son of Frankenstein. In Frankenstein, the first film, the doctor's assistant was Fritz (Dwight Frye).
5) MONSTER IN FILM: Basically ,a very large baby,who
does not understand the world around him
The
book's Creature commits murder out of jealousy and to prove points, to COMPLETE
innocents. Add the fact that the creature in the book understands the
consequences, and feels no remorse
For example The novel's creature kidnaps a child to "make him my
companion" then gleefully kills him when he learns he is Frankenstein's
brother and frames a servant girl for the murder. The film's Creature gently plays
with a little girl, but accidentally drowns her
Boris KARLOFF:Karloff's acting with face and body /mime. The Oscar that year went Frederick March as Dr. Jekyll...it should have gone to Boris. Part was first offered to Dracula’s Bela
Lugosi:
Bela
Lugosi rejected the part…eventually died in poverty/felt anger about Karloff’s
rise to fame…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWsKR2xg6HE Martin Landau
WHALE’s influence on MOVIE FORM..
Why does the script insist that the brain is a criminal one at all when the monster means no one any harm—at least before people attack him? [WHALE ON HOMOSEXUALITY – England, until 1967, Homosexuality was a crime] study of what it's like to be a true outsider; Whale, open about his homosexuality in Hollywood
ROLE
of the UNIVERSE and AUDIENCE: Where
so many early talkies were static and wordy, Frankenstein skips unnecessary
dialogue and exposition and drives through its plot
Whale made his camera a fluid part of the action.
He uses the camera to take the viewer into the scene. A small example is the way Whale filmed characters moving from one room to the next. The camera moves with the characters. Another example is the tracking shot Whale uses as the father carries his dead child into the town
REMAKES: Many sequels
and remakes. Andy Warhols’
Flesh For Frankenstein (1973).
Kenneth Branaugh’s (Doing Thor Movie in 2011) Frankenstein
1994 (most true to novel)
HOWEVER, not as current as vampires – WHY? Frankenstein and his monster don’t have the sexual elements of vampirism. Lumbering monsters who give chase on clumsy feet with their arms outstretched closer to [Napoleon Dynamite -- Chickens have talons, gosh]
COMPARISION OF FRANKENSTEIN, THING, TETSUO (John Carpenter’s THING = alien clone body made up from DNA level cloned appearance vs Japan's Frankenstein with parts built from scrap, tech) vs FRANKENSTEIN
Sample honors Video mashup/youtube video: Pixies Music 2:23sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvg5-8pwL80
Sample creative ‘pitch’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q7PqJ9MKRU
Video version of Analysis paper (Sun
symbolism in Shining)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivFs8SKHW7k&feature=related
Video version of native American symbolism analysis paper (shining)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUavRrCMUZ0&NR=1
4:20 native am vs flag
Video version of analysis paper: what’s hidden in the blood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7-GKHM5HZ8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM7LJUQX-4o&feature=related
(family guy/shining
Danny Llloyd, the kid in the Big Wheel. Lisa Burns
earned a degree in Literature, while both her sister and Danny became
microbiologists.
http://community.livejournal.com/howtheylooknow/152954.html