Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Tod Browning's Expressionist Bodies

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 31; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10509208.2013.811361

1543-5326

W. E. Dodson,

Gothic Literature and Media Analysis

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. I use the politically incorrect term “freaks” throughout in discussing carnival and circus sideshow performers to underscore their outsider status. 2. This is doubly unfortunate, because once sound technology developed enough to allow moving cameras and clear recordings, Browning did some notable work, including Mark of the Vampire(1935) and The Devil Doll (1936). The former film was a comedic remake of Browning's now lost silent film, London After Midnight (1927), and featured Bela Lugosi lampooning his Dracula image; the latter featured Lionel Barrymore in drag and some rather advanced special effects with miniature humans. 3. This is not wholly without merit. According to David J. Skal, Browning was indifferent to dialogue performances on the set of Dracula, and in fact, on all his sound films. Browning had little interest in “actors who did not direct themselves,” and was used to directing scenes as they were being shot, rather than prepping his actors with rehearsals (Hollywood Gothic 183–5). Browning preferred to “sit in his chair, giving occasional instructions … [and] remain stationary on the set, rather like a member of the audience, watching the story unfold” (Skal and Savada 60). This sort of organic style was impossible once the expense of sound spurred the development of assembly-line studio control. In fact, studio interference—the film was trimmed by almost twenty minutes, and new material was inserted as Browning's material was shorn away—may have been another primary contributor to Dracula's clumsiness. Skal and Savada interviewed William S. Hart, who said he saw Browning's cut of the film, which was much longer. Hart said, “You hardly saw him [Lugosi] at all. He was such a soft unknown thing that the horror was what he might be,” and that Browning's timing in cutting made the whole film flow like a dream (151–2, author's emphasis). 4. Primarily works starring Lon Chaney, like Outside the Law (1920), The Unholy Three (1925), and his masterpiece, The Unknown (1927). It is Lon Chaney's name, of course, that serves to promote the releases. 5. For summaries of these critical assessments, see Bernd Henzograth's introductions to The Films of Tod Browning (2006) and The Cinema of Tod Browning (2008). 6. It is impossible to know whether he had a physical injury, though Skal and Savada point out that he may have suffered such an injury in his 1915 auto accident, which left him hospitalized for many months. He also wore full dentures, which caused him pain, from an early age (whether from the accident or for another reason is unknown) (47–50). On the psychological end of things, Browning probably was familiar with Freud. Both The Unholy Three (1925) and The Road to Mandalay (1926) make direct references to Freud's concept of the Oedipal Complex and his essay “The Uncanny.” Herman J. Mankiewicz, who scripted The Road to Mandalay, had lived (with his brother Joseph) in Berlin during the early 1920s, and was very familiar with the current psychoanalytic vogue. We do not know for certain what Browning read or knew of Freud, but given his direct references to “The Uncanny” in The Unholy Three, which was made before Browning knew Mankiewicz, it's safe to assume he knew something (Skal and Savada, 100–6). 7. It should be noted that there is as of yet no large body of Browning criticism. Along with Skal and Savada's biography and Skal's earlier The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (1993), only two edited collections on Browning have been published, both edited by Herzogenrath, in 2006 and 2008. 8. According to Edgar G. Ulmer, “Tod Browning was perhaps the first one to have seen what were called then ‘fantasy’ films—which were being made in German and Sweden. … [He] was a man of infinitely wider culture than most people. He was widely read, and not only knew Poe by heart, but all of English ‘Gothic’ literature” (Skal and Savada, 154–5). 9. Even scholars who recognize Browning's familiarity with Expressionism confine themselves to examining his lighting. For example, Bernd Henzograth, who writes, “Browning was more inspired by the cinema of German Expressionism, the harsh black and white contrasts of films such as F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, 1922, and Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920. Browning was about to bring shadow its due attention in the movies” (“Monstrous Body/Politic,” 191). 10. As “The Hypnotic Living Corpse,” Browning would be buried alive for up to three days, surviving on a hidden stash of malted chocolate and water. Browning called these periods of confinement “conducive to thought” (Skal and Savada, 26). 11. Other similarly visually ambitious shorts include Peggy, The Will O’ the Wisp (1917), The Eyes of Mystery (1918), The Legion of Death (1918), etc. 12. Browning was an early proponent of what he called “rational lighting,” stating in a publicity interview, “What could be more foolish than a flood of light … when a painted ‘set’ reveals a cloudy sky[?] Light should come from natural sources and should not, as if by magic, appear for no reason, equally strong at all points” (Skal and Savada, 54). 13. Until the assembly-line studio system was formalized, Browning's ability to work quickly and deliver products under budget earned him a great deal of independence on the set (Skal and Savada, 61). 14. We might note the story structure of Freaks is a mirror image to that of Caligari. The carnival barker bookends and, we presume, narrates the story to an eager crowd. Savada has pointed out that the entire story may just be the carnival barker's spiel, making the entire story false (“The Making of Freaks,” 25–35). Such is the case with Caligari, in which the entire story turns out to be the mad ravings of Francis. Even more interesting, both films have the bookend structure due to studio interference. 15. Browning originally intended the film to open with the freaks playing at the pond. The studio demanded the prologue and epilogue of the barker describing Cleopatra's just punishment. Nevertheless, the film retains its carnival structure. 16. None of the freaks refer to other performers or patrons as normal. In fact, Hans says Cleopatra is the “most beautiful big woman I ever met.” To him, their only difference is their size.