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The Brazen Head in Alphonsus King of Aragon and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay

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The Aesthetics of Spectacle in Early Modern Drama and Modern Cinema

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Abstract

In George Méliès’s silent French fantasy film of 1902 L’homme à la tête en caoutchouc (The man with the rubber head), a scientist, played by Méliès, removes a severed head from a box and places it on a table (Illustration 5).1 The head is alive; it speaks and looks around the room anxiously. The scientist removes his head scarf: it is George Méliès. Through a series of gestures, he demonstrates that his head is identical to that on the table. Using a pair of bellows, the scientist inflates and then shrinks the head, to the head’s apparent horror. Assuming control of the experiment, Méliès’s assistant gets carried away and over-inflates the head until it explodes in a puff of smoke. Furious, Méliès kicks his incompetent assistant out of the room before bursting into tears.

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Notes

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  1. University of Nottingham, UK

    Jenny Sager

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© 2013 Jenny Sager

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Sager, J. (2013). The Brazen Head in Alphonsus King of Aragon and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. In: The Aesthetics of Spectacle in Early Modern Drama and Modern Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137332400_5

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