Episode 145 - Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) (with David Sandner)
Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935).
The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!
This year’s Halloween special of the podcast goes back to 1930s Hollywood with this look at Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935), the follow-up to Universal Pictures’ 1931 feature Frankenstein also directed by James Whale. To discuss the horror and humour of this most monstrous and macabre sequel, Chris and Alex are joined by special guest David Sandner, author and editor of multiple works on fantasy literature and a Professor at California State University. David has published widely on histories of fantasy, including the books The Fantastic Sublime: Romanticism and Transcendence in Nineteenth-century Children's Fantasy Literature (Westport, 1996) and Critical Discourses of the Fantastic, 1712-1831 (Routledge, 2011), alongside the edited collections Fantastic Literature: A Critical Reader (Praeger, 2004) and The Treasury of the Fantastic with Jacob Weisman (Tachyon, 2013). Topics for this spooky instalment include the film’s status as a work of fantasy and horror, and the framing of Frankenstein’s original author Mary Shelley as a practitioner of the fantastic; early cartoon exhibition practices, the notion of “theatre animation,” and the influence of the twentieth century’s pervasive culture of animation on Bride of Frankenstein’s special effect technologies; questions of adaptation and the new invitations to fantasise made by director James Whale; the film’s self-reflexivity around film production; links between size and the sublime, and how an uncanny portrayal of homunculi sites the film’s story within screen histories of the miniature; and how Bride of Frankenstein negotiates a pleasure in agency, creation, reanimation, and restoration.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
Suggested Readings
Constable, Catherine. 2015. Postmodernism and Film: Rethinking Hollywood's Aesthetics. London: Wallflower.
Fairclough, Mary. 2018. “Frankenstein and the “Spark of Being”: Electricity, Animation, and Adaptation.” European Romantic Review 29, no. 3: 399-407.
Klein, Norman M. 1993. Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon. London: Verso.
Millhauser, Steven. 1983. “The Fascination of the Miniature.” Grand Street 2, no. 4 (Summer): 128-135.