American Cinematographer - May 1985 - 61

Something Wicked This Way
Comes, The Outsiders, Rumblefish
and Body Double.
"The interesting thing is
that the elements are so unusual,"
Burum said of The Bride. "Here
we have Jennifer Beals, of Flash-

dance, and Sting, lead singer of
The Police, - a rock music group
from
"What

have done,

basically, is
Mary Shelley's book reworked
with the emphasis thrown to the
bride of the monster," Stephen
Burum, ASC, said of his new pic¬
ture, The Bride. This decidedly
we

different version of the Franken¬
stein theme was filmed in England
for Columbia Pictures release. It

produced by Victor Drai, di¬
rected by Franc Roddam and writ¬
ten by Lloyd Fonvielle.
Mrs. Shelley wrote her

was

classic novel, subtitled "or,
Modern Prometheus,"

the
in

first adapted
by Thomas A. Edi¬
son, Inc., as a highly praised onereeler in 1910. It has inspired nu¬
merous other films, the most fa¬
mous
being those made by
1916-18, and it

for the

was

screen

Universal in the Thirties with
Colin Clive as Baron Frankenstein
and Boris Karloff as his creature
made from dead bodies. In the
second of these, Bride of Franken¬
stein

(1935), Elsa Lanchester

por¬

trayed a female monster created as
companion to the lonely and
fearsome original creation. This
picture provided inspiration for
The Bride, although there is little
similarity between the two. The
new film shies away from the "hor¬
ror" aspects of the yarn to stress
human drama. As director of pho¬
tography, Burum provides a great
deal of the beauty and atmosphere
so necessary to the effective telling
of a tale of fantasy.

a

Burum

is

one

of the

leading cinematogra¬
phers, a classmate of Francis Ford
Coppola at the UCLA Film
School. After doing the second
unit photography for Apocalypse
younger

Now and The Black
was

The

director of

Stallion, he

photography of
Escape Artist, The Entity,

England - in this highly phil¬
osophical picture. It takes place in
Hungary in the 1840s. Franken¬
stein isn't a mad scientist, but he's
somewhat of a social outcast. He

Jennifer for the monster,
Clancy Brown, but she is fright¬
creates

ened and the monster runs away.
The monster meets a dwarf on the
road and they join a circus. Mean¬

while, Frankenstein is educating
the girl,
of that

unlike the other
era.

Thus both

being educated,

are

while the other is
to

one

on

women

creatures

formally,

the road, so

speak, learning in the school of

hard knocks. Once Jennifer gains a
lot of knowledge - especially phi-

losphical knowledge - she begins
to ask questions. Frankenstein
doesn't want to tell her he created
her. He's now able to be accepted
in society because of his charming

'niece,' and they

go out to parties.
interested in other
very happy.

When she gets
men,

he's

not

"All this is told intel¬

ligently and loaded with wonder¬
ful philosophical discussions."
Obviously, The Bride
isn't the usual genre piece. Direc¬
tor Roddam summed it up at the
start of production: "My ambition
is to give the audience something
outside common experience."
Such

an

audience

can ex¬

something more than ordi¬
nary cinematography.
Burum was on the picture
from May 27 to October 6, 1984.
pect

through Germany, France, Austria
for several months.
set in Budapest in
1840, rather than in Mrs. Shelley's

and Hungary
The Bride is

The

lights in the

windows

are

photofloods.

1816 Switzerland.

"Budapest

was

really

made up of several different places
in France," Burum explained.
"The big main square is at Sarlat-

la-Caneda, a historic city in the
Perigord region of south-central
France. Carcassone is an ancient
medieval walled city located on a
hill like an old crusaders' fortress.
We used it for the big long-shots
of the city and the ramparts, and
we built the circus set there." Car¬
cassone is one of only a handful of
Western European cities which
has kept its original medieval ar¬
chitecture intact, with no modern¬
ization to spoil the vistas. "Other
scenes were made at the old town
of Perouge, near Lyon, and at a
real chateau in Clermont Ferrand,
Orcival.
"We chose

places that
stretch and gave
us a 360° latitude so that we didn't
have to limit ourselves to cramped

gave us room to

views. We wanted

to

be able

to

get

fresh, spontaneous things. Un¬

planned things come up all the
time. Nobody can plan them all,
so you have to give yourself lee¬
way and use these elements in a
creative way. The whole trick is to
plan it to give yourself enough
room.

"We built a tower on the
side of the chateau and added a
section to join the garage to the
main house to make it look larger.
Two French painters who had no
theatrical experience painted the
stone work on the plaster sides
and made the place look better
Mood

lighting at its

"We made almost all the exteriors

best in

in France in under 40

Frankenstein's

rest was

days. The
ShepStudio Centre in Mid¬
filmed

on

stages at

laboratory.

perton
dlesex. All of the interiors were
constructed sets with the excep¬
tions of an interior of a church in
France and a French tavern."
The French locations
were selected initially by the direc¬
tor,

Franc Roddam, who traveled

May 1985

59
American Cinematographer - May 1985

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