Spooky Isles: Mary Shelley and the Birth of Frankenstein, Part 5

Originally published on Spooky Isles, June 29th 2012, as the final instalment of a five-part series; available here.

By the time of her death, Mary Shelley was the respected author of seven novels, at least twenty-three short stories, and even some children’s literature. She was also an accomplished biographer, poet and editor of the works of her husband Percy, whose status as one of the major poets of the Romantic period was largely assured by her efforts. Despite the significance of works such as The Last Man (1826), however, her full importance as a writer is only just beginning to be understood: it’s interesting that, when her later work was more critically acclaimed at the time, it has mostly been forgotten, while Frankenstein’s reputation continues to grow.

It’s one of the most accomplished Gothic novels of the period, borrowing heavily from the conventions pioneered by her father among others, but at the same time its voice is unique. Mary’s own chequered personal life provides themes and preoccupations which are not articulated as strongly by anybody else – her insight into the traumas of childbirth and parenthood, as well as her own struggle to live up to the reputations of her famous parents, shine through in Victor Frankenstein’s struggles to create a human being and then to make a man. The suggestion that the two are not the same is one of the keynotes of the novel.

Science fiction as a genre in English largely owes its existence to Frankenstein, which is probably the earliest and one of the most influential examples. Even modern writers acknowledge its influence; elements of Shelley’s work have been in detected in the shocking twist of Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory and Stephen King’s It. Perhaps most interesting is that fact that science itself has been influenced by Mary’s thinking: the technology she envisioned became an inspiration for real innovations.

There are as many reasons for the novel’s perpetual success as there are readers, but the truth is that everyone who comes to Mary’s masterpiece now brings with them certain expectations. The image of Frankenstein’s Monster is burned into our cultural memory thanks to nearly two hundred years of adaptation for stage and screen and even modern music: think of Metallica’s ‘Some Kind of Monster’ or Alice Cooper’s ‘Feed My Frankenstein’. The name has entered everyday use, and we all have our own idea of what it means.

In fact, it’s often surprising to encounter the novel for the first time and notice how it differs from the image we’ve inherited. The ‘monster’ isn’t green. There are no bolts through his neck. There are no hysterical screams of “It’s alive!” and, most importantly, Frankenstein is the name of the scientist and not his creation. Still, that the creature and his maker are identified with each other would have pleased Mary: it supports her argument that corrupt political systems make victims of the empowered and disempowered alike.

It’s the politics that are often overlooked by Shelley readers, mostly thanks to the Victorian habit of domesticating women’s writing and relegating Mary’s work to the status of ‘romance’. In many ways, though, the political element is what holds the rest together: questions of responsibility, control and the abuse of power remain at Frankenstein’s core. Over the intervening years, it has continued to strike a chord in the wake of scientific as well as political progress – whether it’s the governing class or the scientist in the laboratory, in the end, Frankenstein explores the consequences of men playing God with the lives of others, and that theme never dies.

The Bubble Film: The Rise of Motion Capture

Originally published in The Bubble Film, February 17th 2012, available here.

This article nearly began as a standard complaint about Oscar nominations. Michael Fassbender overlooked for Shame, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross ignored despite an exceptional score for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... Then I realised that some of the snubs about which I felt most strongly shared a common thread. The Adventures of Tintin – a film I’ve mentioned before on The Bubble – received just one nomination, though admittedly for a well-deserving score by the legendary John Williams; Rise of the Planet of the Apes, last year’s ‘intelligent blockbuster it’s acceptable to like’, is nominated only in the Visual Effects category. Now, while it may be obvious that these are both special-effects heavy multiplex pieces, it’s perhaps less apparent that each of them uses a particular technique which the Academy – and the film industry in general – is proving reluctant to accept. Though it’s been in use for years, performance capture (or motion capture) is still struggling for the recognition it deserves.

Even those who haven’t heard the term before will probably be familiar with some of the products of the technique: they include Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong in the remake, The Polar Express, the young Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy and, of course, Avatar. They also include Tintin and Caesar, the principal ape in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to pretend Beowulf never happened). An actor wears specialised markers at key points on their body and face, allowing their movements to be sampled multiple times per second. This data is then mapped onto a 3D model, meaning that the actions of the performer are carried out by the digital figure. As a result, filmmakers can benefit from all of the subtleties of an actor’s contribution, inevitably lacking in a purely computer-generated character, without sacrificing that character’s visual appearance to the demands of costume and makeup.  

The big question is ultimately how to categorise performance capture. The film industry seems undecided as to whether it’s just a visual effect or a manner of representing a performance – and there really is a big difference. Just look at the difference in the two names given to the technique: ‘performance capture’ puts the emphasis on the whole contribution of an actor; ‘motion capture’ implies nothing more than a collection of actions converted into data. The latter is a huge underestimation of the performer’s significance – Andy Serkis, for example, researched primate behaviour extensively to play Kong, even further to prepare as Caesar, and every move those characters make belongs to him. He is directly responsible for the audience’s response to his character, just as he would be in a live action film. The same can be said of his work on Gollum, or Zoe Saldana’s performance in Avatar (easily the best thing in that film that wasn’t the visuals); they are characters who must be approached like any live action role. Given the added difficulty of acting in such a manner – without full costume or other accoutrements which help actors to get a sense of character, place and period, often without a complete set – considering performance capture simply as a form of animation seems insulting.

The other side of the coin is an entirely purist view of acting as a craft. Prejudice remains about the idea of a technical team mediating a performance, leaving an impure form of acting. Still, given the advances made in recent years, especially in facial performance capture, it’s becoming harder and harder to see where subtle gestures and movements could be lost, and when appearances have to be altered, it is to enhance the character without losing what the performer has given. Saldana would never have been able to play a 9’ tall, strangely shaped blue cat-person in a pure live action film owing to the fact that, while there are plenty of tricks to give the illusion of height, she isn’t blue and isn’t strangely-shaped. At the very least, she would have needed extensive makeup, and doesn’t that work on the same principle – altering an actor’s appearance to aid their performance? 

This brings me back to the Academy question. Tintin won the Animated Feature Golden Globe, but wasn’t even nominated for the Oscar, despite the fact that it beautifully blended performance capture and CGI to make a visually impressive and irresistibly fun adventure, which karate chops the inexplicably nominated Kung-Fu Panda 2 to pieces. Still, this can perhaps be put down to the timing of an autumn release and the success of Spielberg’s other piece of award-bait War Horse. More significant is the snubbing of Caesar – while there might be a case for saying that Serkis is let down by the film itself, the same has been said of Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady as well as many previous nominees, and it’s all too tempting to suspect that Hollywood’s uncertainty about performance capture explains why Rise was only deemed worthy of a Visual Effects nod.

I strongly suspect – indeed, genuinely hope – that Andy Serkis will win an Oscar one day for a performance capture role. He probably deserved one for Gollum. I fear, however, that like Alfred Hitchcock, he will be ignored by the Academy until the latest possible moment, when an honorary statue will be thrust into his hands. Here’s hoping that, as studios and filmmakers have increasingly embraced the storytelling possibilities offered by the technique, the opportunities it affords actors will be equally appreciated.

The Bubble Columns: Lego in Space

Originally published in The Bubble Columns on August 18 2011, available here.

Once again it’s been a while, readers. I’m hoping that over these summer months, when you really should be outside or doing as little as possible, your patience will extend to another odyssey through the more unusual side of world events. In fact, this article may be more summery than the weather wherever you are – after all, the Sun always shines in outer space.

Forty-two years ago, the sight of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon changed the world forever (right, conspiracy theorists?), and ever since, countless children have dreamed of following suit, myself included. Of course, for a brief period in between my time as the sixth member of the Spice Girls and digging up dinosaurs I was destined to travel at warp speed and talk to little green men, boldly going where no man had gone before. Gargarin, Armstrong, Kirk, Skywalker, Parkin. Alas, life hasn’t quite panned out the way I envisioned – I haven’t even found a pterodactyl under Palace Green yet – but it turns out that another relic from my childhood is finally living out my dream: NASA’s latest flight crew are made from Lego.

The spacecraft Juno launched on Thursday, beginning a five-year journey to discover the origins and development of Jupiter. It carries no human crew, but does contain Lego figurines of the Roman gods Juno and Jupiter as well as Galileo Galilei, the Italian Renaissance scientist who made several of the earliest discoveries about the planet. Carrying his telescope and rocking an impressive beard alongside his deified friends, Galileo is one of many Lego characters produced by the partnership between The Lego Group and NASA which began last November.

The two organisations are working together under a three-year Space Act Agreement to undertake educational and public outreach projects aimed at increasing participation in engineering, science, technology and mathematics under the title of “Building and Exploring Our Future”. As a result, this year’s Lego City line includes four NASA-inspired sets including educational materials, while the space shuttle Discovery carried a commemorative Lego shuttle on its November flight. NASA also sent special Lego sets to the International Space Station in February to be assembled by astronauts as well as earth-bound students and children. Sadly, the Pirates of the Caribbean play sets were out of stock.

It’s the kind of partnership which makes total sense. The Administration has had a rough time of late. The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed for the final time in July, marking the end of a thirty year era for the shuttle programme and making way for an age of commercial space flight. Controversial budget cuts have threatened the scope of its research. NASA has to demonstrate value for money in years to come, continuing to deliver the benefits to mankind for which it was established; consequently, the education and public outreach projects which go along with its missions are becoming more important than ever before. A generation of future voters and politicians fascinated by space exploration can’t harm its chances of survival either.

Meanwhile, Lego is the perfect choice. Space, the final frontier, is full of the unknown and a perfect canvas for the imagination, while Lego is designed to encourage creativity. However, the process of realising a design from the imagination teaches principles of engineering which NASA uses every day to build crafts like Juno and the upcoming two-craft lunar mission GRAIL. It may make little sense to lock plastic people into a scientific instrument in which they are unlikely to be seen again, but it’s encouraging to think that there may be children around in 2016 still following the mission in the hope that Galileo and the gods reach their destination. We can only hope that Toy Story 4 will feature their wild parties as they dance around the magnetometers.

As Douglas Adams once told us, “space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.” It’s staggering to think of how much is out there, waiting to be discovered. We’ve barely scratched the surface of this universe – and is it really the only one? – so here’s hoping Lego inspires a generation to finally build me that Starship Enterprise.