Frankenstein - Directed by James Whale 1931 "It's Alive" Scene Analysis

Frankenstein is one of the most famous horror movies of all time and contains many stereotypical horror conventions.

The scene 'It's Alive' starts with a static mid/two-shot of Frankenstein towering over Dr. Waldman. This shows the importance of the conversation they're having as there are no distractions taking place for me to avert my eyes elsewhere, and instead it allows me to pay full attention to what they're saying. The positioning of the characters emphasises Frankenstein's self proclaimed superiority as he slams Dr. Waldmans teachings as false and puts his own findings on a pedestal to yet again highlight himself as the dominant character. As the conversation gets more heated, the cameras change to slow paced alternating close ups of both characters to increase the intensity and as Frankenstein allows Waldman to view the body the angle switched to a wide shot for the first time to allow the audience to see the surroundings. As this took place a loud, non-diagetic crack of thunder can be heard, this could be a warning sign to the spectators of  the danger that is yet to come from Frankenstein's monster. Thunder is a typical convention of horror films as it brings a great sense fear to the audience. The room has very low key lighting which alongside the black and white creates a sense of secrecy and isolation even though the room is filled with 5 people. As Frankenstein frantically stands in front of his monster and announces 'one man crazy, three very same spectators' the camera starts to shake and tilt to a slight Dutch angle to signify his delusion and insanity. I felt a sense of intensity as Frankenstein's demeanor became shaky to highlight a sense of instability and I feared for the spectators as they were in the hands of a psychotic man.
As Frankenstein's monsters body gets risen up to the roof, there is intense flashes of lightening which intensifies the drama and creates a sense of fear within the viewer. The flashing also  correlates to the change of camera angles onto the spectators to show their reaction to this phenomenon. The majority of reactions seem terrified and highly anxious as they're waiting to see if his monstrous creation worked. There is also no music in this scene as they're only relying on the haunting thunder and machinery sounds, this makes the scene incredibly spooky and gives it a supernatural element and made me apprehensive as to what would happen once the body was returned back to Frankenstein.
Once the body was back on ground level, there was an extreme close up of the twitching hand of Frankenstein's monster, and then a shot of Frankenstein frantically staring at the movement in awe, there is a touch of side lighting on his face, meaning the right hand side was darker, this emphasises an intimidating and scary effect to show that he is crazed or secretive.
Right at the end of the scene the screen darkens and all that can be heard is Frankensteins haunting cackle which shows another sign of insanity as he we know he is being restrained at this point and he has also just created a monster out organs from many different organisms and yet he finds amusement out of this.

My Favourite Film

Released in 1998 and directed by Peter Weir, The Truman Show, which follows Truman Burbank, whom was given up as a baby and raised as the star of his own television show in a town called Seahaven created by Christof, completely unbeknown to Truman.

It rose to huge success with its highly creative, thought provoking and emotional plot-line and is still to this day my favourite film.

There are many reasons as to why I love this film, and the first and foremost being Jim Carrey. His iconic portrayal of Truman was extremely clever as he managed to maintain the emotion of the character without compromising Carrey's lovable humour. Carrey always managed to perfect a characters persona, and he did that with Truman making him extremely charismatic, cheery and all round nice guy.

The Truman show is one of the only films I have ever watched more than once, simply because I could never get bored of it, and it never ceases to amaze me how creative the plot is, and yes, it is a very obscure concept which would probably never happen in real life (because who really has the time) but the fact that Weir makes it seem effortlessly real will always make it stand out to me.

I always felt extremely sorry for Truman whilst watching the film as he was completely unaware that his family, friends and his whole entire life and upbringing was a lie. Everyone he thought cared about him were paid actors and even his "wife" would get paid an extra $10k every time she slept with Truman. The immense betrayal he had been faced with left me with every sympathy for him.

At the end of the film, Truman managed to escape the made up world of his and reaches the set wall. This scene is truly heart wrenching as you know that he is leaving what he thought was his life behind, and stepping into the real world that he wasn't even aware existed.

What I take away from this film is that perfect places don't exist. Christof created Seahaven as a Utopia, so a perfect area many people could only dream of living, but can that really be justified when the whole island is just a big lie, it proves that it's impossible to achieve perfect without destroying something in the making, and in this case Truman's life was destroyed as he was never able to see the real world or make his own friends or just be himself.

I find the whole concept truly remarkable and it's unlike any film i have seen prior or subsequently to it, and if there was to me a remake or a film with a similar concept I truly don't believe anything would compare.