Frankenstein (1910)

“…”

Oh my. I’ve no idea how I’m supposed to judge this film, more than a hundred years after it was made. It’s completely alien to my entire conception of what a film actually is, far more so than the several 1920s silent films I’ve seen. At least they can be watched from a modern perspective of what cinema is supposed to do, minus sound. This can’t, but it’s utterly fascinating to see.

For a start, it’s just twelve and a half minutes long, which is why I’ve been able to knock out two movie reviews in one day. That’s only long enough for half a dozen set-piece scenes which is what we get. Such plot as there is gets relegated to the intertitles.

The picture is so blurred that it’s impossible to make out the actor’s facial features, which isn’t helped by the fact that everything takes place in mid-shot. The camera is completely static- it’s more like watching a play than a film, even one from as little as ten days later. One scene is quite clever, though, using an on-screen mirror to give us two different perspectives on the screen.

Given how blurred and indistinct the actors are, the acting styles are not exactly understated. There are lots of big, big gestures from actors who are presumably based mainly in the theatre. It’s often not so much like narrative but something closer to dancing. Everything is about spectacle rather than plot.

It’s fascinating to see the different tints for different scenes, which works particularly well in the scene where the monster is slowly coming to life from skeletal beginnings in a large cauldron. The orange tint gives a real sense of being in a furnace. The whole scene is extremely effective, and is actually a superb example of special effects. It’s just a pity that the picture is so blurred that we never really get a proper glimpse of the monster.

One historical oddity is that the first thing we see is a credit to Thomas Edison, whose company was responsible for this film. That’s how long ago this was.