Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Tributes... the next Jane Austens in the art of parodying?


            Now that my group’s video project, a parody trailer of The Hunger Games which incorporates the Gothic themes from our class, has been presented I wanted to comment on what I’ve been thinking about parodies and the art of parody.  Though the video focuses more on and features the characters from Frankenstein, The Monk, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “Manfred”, and “Christabel”, and therefore none of the characters from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, the one Romantic novel we read this quarter that parodied other Gothic works was this one. 
            A parody is defined by Merriam-Webster as a work which “closely imitates” another for “comic effect or for ridicule”; also “a feeble or ridiculous” imitation.  What interests me is that adjective feeble to describe an imitation.  Since full-on imitations are frowned upon as plagiarism, how could you make an imitation that wasn’t feeble?  Still, it is interesting that artists would intentionally create a work that is feeble, and what is even more fascinating is that’s what makes the parody funny.  A parody of a bomb explosion wouldn’t involve an explosion with a bigger fire or more impressive detonation; it would make fun of the original with a “wimpier” fire, so to speak.  As I was watching my group’s completed video in class today, I caught myself laughing at all the moments that were intentionally weakened in comparison with the imitated moment in The Hunger Games trailer—that’s why it was both helpful and necessary that we showed the original trailer before showing our own parody trailer.
            Northanger Abbey employs similar tactics to parody the popular novels of the Gothic era.  Henry fantasizes playfully about a fearful storm during Catherine’s first night at the abbey, and though there actually is a storm at the abbey during which Catherine is sleeplessly terrified, as Tricia pointed out in her oral presentation there is no more terror in the storm once it is over.
            The second volume of the novel hones in more closely on Catherine’s point of view, and ironically, this part of the volume seems more realistically Gothic than Gothic parody even though we are seeing the action through the eyes of the character being parodied for her obsession with Gothic novels.  As we discussed in class, by this transition away from the tone of parody it almost seems that Austen began Northanger Abbey by trying to parody Gothic literature but got swept into the terrific elements in the narrative as she continued writing.  Not to mention that in parodying the obsession readers in Austen’s time had about other Gothic novels, Austen’s description of the obsession itself and the way Catherine succumbs to her imagination is, in fact, terrifying.
            My group had a similar experience as we delved into the planning of our video.  When we started, we wanted to use modern Gothic literature (The Hunger Games) to play off of Gothic themes from our class, but spoofing it was not initially in the plan.  When we looked up the original movie trailer, we stumbled upon independent parody trailers that other people had made for fun, and our videos is similar to others in that the most intense moments in the trailer are the exact ones we chose to weaken and therefore parody in our own video, for example the countdown scene when the tributes are preparing to run at the start of the games.
            Before making these connections, I didn’t know making a parody was such an art.  Maybe my opinion is based on the fact that my group just completed a project parodying Gothic literature for a class that spent all quarter studying Gothic themes, but I think parodying Gothic themes is the most fun to parody of all the other literary periods.

After many failed attempts at posting my blogs, here is one of my two class blog posts! I had intended to post this after we had discussed A Sicilian Romance in class, and our thoughts on casting the characters in the novel for a movie. Please feel free to comment. Thanks! Rachel                 

             After discussing in class how we would cast A Sicilian Romance, if a movie adaptation should ever be made, I couldn’t help but want to delve more into the idea of a movie adaptation of this novel. Film adaptations have always fascinated me. The idea of attempting to condense a novel, written in thousands of words, into a screenplay, that is only able to last at maximum three hours, is an extremely daunting idea. However, the market for such films is ever growing with adaptations, such as The Great Gatsby, ready to hit theatres as soon as this upcoming December. It seems to be a pop culture phenomenon, the adapting of novel for film, but what is lost along the way in these condensed, modernized versions is the eloquence of the original text, and intricacy the authors intended to be understood. Having these thoughts at the back of my mind, coupled with our in class discussion of creating a Hollywood adaptation of A Sicilian Romance, I felt compelled to plot out how I would not only cast this film, but also the ways in which I would facilitate a screenplay production that would allow for Ann Radcliffe’s words to truly shine.
            As a jumping off point, I utilized all of your brilliant ideas, and thought of the casting each of you had decided upon for the characters of this novel. Below is the ideal casting for our class:

English 590.04H A Sicilian Romance Cast
Louisa Bernini: Taylor Swift
o America’s Sweetheart
o She has a sweet disposition and a genuine nature
o Her music speaks of being wronged by men
Cornelia de Veneza: Monica Bellucci
o Italian descent
o She is a motherly type figure
o She is young, but not too young
o The roles she typically plays are on the darker side
Duke de Luovo: Aaron Eckhart
o In The Dark Night, the character he play was very evil and decieving
Abbott of St. Augustin: Ian McShane
o Usually portrays characters who are slightly a little off, or a bit of a creep
Ferdinand: Orlando Bloom
o He is dark and attractive
o Sometimes can be brash
o He is good at playing characters who are passion-stricken
o He typically goes against the grain
Hippolotus: Ryan Gosling
o He is handsome, graseful and masculine
o He is good at playing romantic and mysterious roles
Julia: Felicity Jones
o She is passionate and gentle
o She really looks innocent
Madame de Menon: Julia Roberts
o She is very experienced
o A motherly type figure
o She is able to pull off characters who have been through a lot
o She would make for a great instructor
Maria de Vellorno: Angelina Jolie
o She is older and beautiful
o She did steal Brad…
The Marquis of Mazzini: Alan Rickman
o He looks very sinister
           
            The characters that you each came up with certainly have their pros and cons for each of their castings. I think before I delve into my ideal casting, I need to explain the ways in which I would transform Radcliffe’s words into a screenplay, and the ways in which I would provide visual image to help portray my concepts.  First, and perhaps most important, is the selection of a setting. One of the most poignant aspects of this novel is the way in which Radcliffe utilizes scenery in order to further the reader’s understanding of major plot points, connect plot points to one another, as well as utilizing certain scenery as symbolic representations of the story line. The ruined castle, once belonging to “the noble hours of Mazzini” is where it all begins. A crumbled ruin, stones missing, crumbled, and destroyed. The beauty, elegance and elaborate nature of a castle is gone, the ruble as the only reminder. I picture filming taking place somewhere in Europe, perhaps at some of the palaces and castles in the Baltic region, such as Riga, Rundale Cesis, Turaida, or Bauska. Below is a picture of the Turaida castle. While this castle seems to be better kept than I envision, the castle and its run down general appearance, and its elaborate size, would work out very nicely.


            As far as a screenplay of the novel goes, I understand how it is difficult for screenplay authors to fully include a novels breadth while still appeasing audiences with a movies length, visual appeal, and star power. Most importantly, I want to make sure that my screenplay follows the events outlined in A Sicilian Romance, including, but not limited to,  the ways in which the marquis leaves Julia and Emilia to live within the estate, exemplifying the complexities of love, as shown through the eyes of Julia, and the final realization bestowed upon Ferdinand by the marquis.
            In the future, I would be very interested to see if this novel will make it to the big screen. The setting and casting seem to be the simple part of the equation, while the screenplay is the more difficult and complex aspect. I cannot begin to imagine the work that must go into writing and creating a screen play, but from the few things I mentioned above, I can only assume that it is an extremely daunting task. As I close this post, I leave you all with my thoughts on casting my cinematic version of A Sicilian Romance.

Rachel Edelman’s A Sicilian Romance Cast
Louisa Bernini: Dakota Fanning
o Can play both types of roles – those who require a sweet disposition, and those that require a rougher edge
o She is very able to portray a character who has a more complex inner self than the outside self portrays
o Old enough to portray Ferdinand’s first wife, but young enough to still show that naïve nature of a young age
Cornelia de Veneza: Monica Bellucci (I would stick with this casting for the same reasons)
o She is of Italian descent
o She is a motherly type figure
o She is young, but not too young
o The roles she typically plays are on the darker side
Duke de Luovo: Heath Ledger (if it was possible)
o Along the same lines of the casting decided on in class, his porttrayl of the Joker, with the convoluted sense of right and wrong fits perfectly
Abbott of St. Augustin: Ewan McGregor
o His character in Angels & Demons portrayed the Catholic Church in a bad light, which is along the lines of what this character was intended to do in the novel.
Ferdinand: Josh Hutcherson
o He is dark and attractive
o With his casting in The Hunger Games, his mysterious nature and the ways in which he goes against the grain would give a perfect combination of morality to this charater
Hippolotus: Zac Efron
o He is handsome, graseful and masculine
o He is good at playing romantic roles
o His youthful innocence connect with the novel
o He has played roles that have a little more substance to them, and would be able to create an inner sense of character for Hippolotus
Julia: Alexis Bledel
o She is passionate and gentle
o She really looks innocent
o The roles that she has played in the past are always connected to a love that cannot be
Madame de Menon: Meryl Streep
o She is very experienced
o A motherly type figure
o Her innate ability to give her characters multiple layers of complexity
o Her wealth of knowledge inherently makes her a face of being a mentor
Maria de Vellorno: Angelina Jolie (I would stick with this casting for similar reasons)
o She is older and beautiful
o She did steal Brad…
o She has played many characters who need to be conniving and sneaky with their actions
The Marquis of Mazzini: Anthony Hopkins
o He is an older actor
o Some of his more memorable roles have been sinister, evil, and at some times sociopathic
o He has been in movies based off of novels or plays, like Titus

Gothic Pirates final project.


http://gothicpirates.wordpress.com/

Frankenstein: The Pop Culture Monster


After many failed attempts at posting my blogs, here is one of my two class blog posts! I had intended for this to go up before my oral presentation, but please feel free to comment on the blog itself or in conjunction with the oral presentation. Thanks! Rachel      

             After having the opportunity to delve into the theatrical world of Frankenstein, I left feeling slightly perplexed as the various portrayals of Mary Shelley’s monster within these modern day adaptations. As I will present in class, there have been quite a few different adaptations of Shelley’s text, the earliest most well known adaptation surfacing in the early 1930s. Each of the adaptations have focused on a similar story line of mad scientist creating Frankenstein, the name of the monster, and the ways in which this creature terrorizes the town, only bringing destructions in its wake. However, in almost every one of these cinematic portrayals, the Frankenstein monster is a dumb, mindless creature that has no coherent human thoughts, but rather the simplistic thoughts congruent with a young child, speaking in monotones and single syllable communication.
            This most well-known early movie adaptation is James Whale’s Frankenstein, produced in 1931. Here, the monster is depicted in this mindless way: Frankenstein is a garish looking monster, whose body looks more robotic than human skewing the idea that this monster was supposedly made from human parts. Rather, this version of Frankenstein elicits more of a sense of fear for audiences instead of the complex nature of Shelley’s original interpretation. Having this cinematic version as a jumping off point, the movie versions that have followed have consistently stayed within these parameters of an almost robot like monster, eliciting little to no communicative skills.
            In the majority of popularized cinematic adaptations, the representation of the monster’s physical state tends to stay very constant.  The garish, clay like skin, broad forehead with little to no hair, small scars across the face, tale and lanky body frame, and some sort of un-human characteristic, such as bolts on other side of the neck as seen in the picture below. As cinematic quality and technology progressed, adding color to the big screen productions, the monsters gained a green colored hue, often times making the monsters look pretend, doll like, and clearly fake. This is indeed an extremely skewed vision of Shelley’s original intentions. No longer is the monster a product of human body parts, but a true “creation” seemingly from scratch.
Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster in Bride of Frankenstein
            Throughout the past few decades, the Frankenstein phenomenon and cult fascination has grown exponentially. Cinematic portrayals are no longer the only ways in which Shelley’s Frankenstein has come to “life”. Various parodies and satires, such as Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein, television derivations, like The Munsters, and stage adaptations, including Young Frankenstein – The Musical, have all surfaced claiming to portray the story of Frankenstein, or at least an attempt at this portrayal. As these new forms of popularization have surfaced, the ways in which popular culture identifies Frankenstein is in no way related to the character in Shelley’s novel. Rather, like the ways in which early cinematic creations depict the monster (green looking skin, tall and lanky frame, speaking incoherently or at a very reduced level) is how these modern adaptations depict the monster.
            Children, many of whom utilize television as their first contact with popular culture, are given this false image of Shelley’s monster, believing that “Frankenstein” is a mindless, robot creation whose only objective is to scare people, potentially even hurting them. Shows such as Arthur, Scooby-Doo, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and even SpongeBob SquarePants have all utilized this imagery of “Frankenstein” at some point of their television run. Their false presentation of the true imagery of Shelley’s Frankenstein makes it extremely difficult down the line for introduction to Frankenstein. I myself was a product of these pop culture representations, and found it quite difficult to transition from the mental picture of the giant, green, scary monster to the more human depiction in Frankenstein. What truly amazes me is the way in which one, seemingly innocent, director’s vision of Shelley’s monster generated an entire sub-culture where there are no longer any aspects of the original left in existence. I hope that, as the cinematic world progresses further, more true to text adaptations of Frankenstein will surface, creating a new culture for future generations where Shelley’s work truly comes to life.


Frankenstein. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Perf. Robert De Niro, Kenneth Branagh, Helena Bonham Carter, Ian Holm, Tom Hulce, Aiden Quinn, and John Cleese. Tristar Pictures, 1994. DVD.
Frankenstein. Dir. James Whale. Perf. Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, and John Boles. Universal Pictures, 1931. DVD
IMDB.com, Inc. International Movie Database. Amazon.com Company, 1990. Website. www.imdb.com.
Wikipedia contributors. "Frankenstein in popular culture." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 May. 2012. Web
Young Frankenstein. Dir. Mel Brooks. Perf. Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Kenneth Mars, Richard Haydn, and Gene Hackman. 20th Century Fox, 1974. DVD.



Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Gothic Games

For our group project, we made a trailer of a fictional film parody of The Hunger Games that uses some elements of the Gothic that we've learned about this quarter.

If you haven't seen or read The Hunger Games, here are two trailers from the real film:

Teaser Trailer

Theatrical Trailer <-- This one is longer and explains the story more.

The real trailers inspired some of what we did in our project.

Important things to note:
- In our version, the oppressive Capitol which used the Games to teach the Districts a lesson is represented by The Catholic Church, which decided to put on the Games as punishment for people who have done something immoral or otherwise defied the Church.

- The film is narrated by the Ancyent Mariner, played by Chuck, who must wander the earth and tell people about his ordeal in the Games.

- Other characters include Agnes (played by Tricia) and her baby, Dr. Frankenstein and his Creation, Julia / Christabel (who were made to look similar because in Gothic Literature, most of the female characters were pretty much identical), Ambrosio (the creeper), Julia's lover, and Manfred (who is dressed and black and, as a result of his constant desire to die, is pretty apathetic about being in the Games). The Madman was also chosen as a tribute but doesn't appear in the trailer because he does his own thing and manages to stay away from pretty much everyone.

We hope you enjoy our video.
- Leah, Kate, Tricia, and Chuck

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Team Guess: "The Penitent"

Please comment on our comic page here! comic found on carmen: https://carmen.osu.edu/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=10294553&tId=4783892

--Noa, Natalie, Rachel, Max

A Preview of Our Final Project: Frankenstein in the style of The Office


     Hey guys, so I know we’re all busy getting ready for finals (and some of us for graduation) but I hope you get a chance to read this before Thursday, since this is basically a preview to our presentation on Thursday.
     My group decided that we wanted to do a modern rendition of Frankenstein in the style of The Office, a TV show that I’m sure many of you are familiar with. There was so much going on internally that we felt The Office’s style of having characters do asides/monologues commenting on what was going on would be perfect for Frankenstein.
     In creating the modern rendition of Frankenstein, there were a few things that I felt either changed or enhanced perceptions that I had from reading the novel. First off, there was Dr. Frankenstein’s construction of the Creature. It wasn’t really given a specific reason in the novel as far as I recall, it was simply science for science’s sake. When we modernized it however, during Dr. Frankenstein’s monologue about why he created the Creature, I found him very lacking in good reasons. We struggled with a purpose for making the Creature precisely the way that he did. This enhanced my previous views of Dr. Frankenstein. Being a fellow scientist, I was rather angry and annoyed with Dr. Frankenstein for lacking in a plan after creating the Creature. There should have been a plan and a goal, and when those weren’t met there should have been a backup plan. Dr. Frankenstein also had a pretty hard time accepting responsibility in the novel, and in our video he also runs away after the Creature is completed. Dr. Frankenstein’s carelessness is greatly emphasized in our version, since as the story progresses onward the Creature kills more and more people.
     However, I also ended up feeling much more sympathetic for the Creature (Dave in our video). After his birth/creation, Dave ends up living in the basement of the company building that Dr. Frankenstein created him in. Instead of eating berries and other natural foods, he’s forced to eat out of the vending machines instead. Although this is a rather small detail, when I really thought about the way Dave would have to survive there, I found it to be a rather pitiful existence. In having to “create” our own Creature for the modernized version, I actually felt pretty bad for him, something that I hadn’t felt as much in the novel.
     Also, it took us a while to really think about what “love” would be in Frankenstein. There was the obvious inclusion of Dr. Frankenstein and Elizabeth’s relationship, the most obvious topic of “love” that we could discuss. We kept this in our video, but we decided to make Dr. Frankenstein a woman (Kate B), adding a little bit of modern controversial love issues into the mix. But what was love for Dave? In our version of Frankenstein, we decided to change the “wedding night” scene from the novel. A drunken Elizabeth comes to the company building in search of Dr. Frankenstein, and in her drunkenness throws herself all over Dave. This presents an interesting situation for Dave, something that the Creature from the novel didn’t have to face. Here, for the first time, there is a human being who not only is touching him, but is willingly touching him (in her drunken state at least). Dave talks about feeling wanted in his monologue, as he struggles with the decision of whether or not to take advantage of the situation.
     In the end, as the company building burns down with Dr. Frankenstein and Dave both inside, Dave has one final monologue in which he talks about what we decided love meant for him. Love for Dave was ultimately understanding and acceptance from human beings. He talks about how other humans don’t understand how lucky they really are to receive this on a daily basis. The fact that other people will walk by you, and maybe even flash you a smile as you walk to class or to work rather than scream and run away from you. That basic lack of rejection as a fellow living creature is the smallest iota of love, and is something that Dave never truly received.
     I hope you guys enjoy our video on Thursday!