Tag: Mary Shelley

MARY SHELLEY Original Motion Picture Soundtrack By Amelia Warner Drops May 25

Universal Music Classics/Decca Gold announced today, the release of the score to the highly anticipated biopic from IFC Films, Mary Shelley, which features original music by composer Amelia Warner (Mum’s List).  Mary Shelley will be released digitally on May 25th – the same date the film premieres in theaters in the US.

In describing the composition process, Amelia emphasized the ghostly themes of the film by utilizing vocalists and orchestral rhythms to assist in telling this illuminating tale.

“We used a lot of synths layered with the orchestra. The real strings layered with electric synths created a strangeness and modernity that I think works well with Mary’s character. We found some amazing musicians and two incredible singers who are a huge part of the score. We used a soprano and a counter tenor and had them sing in a very expressive way. For example, when things start to go a bit crazy in those Geneva scenes, we got the singers to scream and to slide up and down the scale to create an unsettling disorientation.  It was a difficult cue and took a while to get right. Voice was really important as were the strings, which are slightly discordant. We also used breath and heartbeat to feel like we are experiencing it as Mary.”

Mary Shelley the original motion picture score is now available, and the track list is as follows.

01 Mary Shelley
02 Storm in The Stars
03 My Sanctuary
04 Rights of Woman
05 Mary’s Decision
06 We Shall Become the Same
07 It’s Time We Left This Place
08 An Unreal Mystery
09 Bloomsbury
10 Mary Meets Percy
11 Kings Cross
12 Caged Bird
13 Mary’s Nightmare
14 The Book
15 Séance
16 Scotland
17 None of This Will Matter
18 Clara
19 Lost in Darkness and Distance 

Mary Shelley is directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, and stars: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, Bel Powley, Ben Hardy, Tom Sturridge, Maisie Williams, Stephen Dillane, and Joanne Froggatt.

For more information on composer Amelia Warner, visit her website, www.ameliawarnermusic.com and her Instagram: @awarnermusic

The film follows the stormy relationship between Shelley and renown romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley.  Mary and Percy declare their love for each other and much to her family’s horror they run away together, joined by Mary’s half-sister Claire. In the midst of growing tension within their relationship, during their stay at Lord Byron’s house at Lake Geneva, the idea of Frankenstein is conceived when a challenge is put to all houseguests to write a ghost story. A monstrous character is created, which will permanently stake its claim on popular culture worldwide, but society at the time puts little value in women authors. At the young age of 18, Mary is forced to challenge these biases, to protect her work and to develop her own identity.

Born in Merseyside in 1982, the only child of actors Alun Lewis and Anita Ekblom, Amelia Warner first made a name for herself as an actor. She starred in the 2001 BBC production of R.D. Blackmore’s Lorna Doone, and soon established herself as a performer of quiet insight in films such as Philip Kaufman’s Quills, Adam Rap’s Winter Passing and Stephen Wooley’s Brian Jones biography, Stoned. On the set, in down time, Warner would compose music and write songs, a passion that had been there since childhood.  Using the name Slow Moving Millie (a playful nickname from friends who felt she should do more with her music, and fast) Warner began to create music. Her first major project was scoring British short film Mam, which won several awards on the film festival circuit.  Working with an old midi keyboard, Warner came to Universal a new EP titled “Arms”, produced by Fyfe Dangerfield. These five poignant, textured pieces for grand piano took Warner to No. 1 in the iTunes classical music charts. Following “Arms” came her second EP “Visitors”, which featured 7 songs each based off of a fictional female character and gave her another No 1. on iTunes.

In 2016, Amelia scored her first feature length film – Mum’s List – and is now scoring the upcoming film Mary Shelley, a movie about the writer’s love affair with Percy Bysshe Shelley – the relationship that inspired her to write Frankenstein.

It’s Friday The 13th – Watch The Trailer For MARY SHELLY, Author Of Frankenstein, Starring Elle Fanning, Maisie Williams And Bel Powley

MARY SHELLEY tells the story of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Elle Fanning) – author of one of the world’s most famous Gothic novels ‘Frankenstein’ – and her fiery, tempestuous relationship with renowned romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (Douglas Booth.) The pair are two outsiders constrained by polite society but bound together by a natural chemistry and progressive ideas that are beyond the boundaries of their age and time. Mary and Percy declare their love for each other and much to her family’s horror they run away together, joined by Mary’s half-sister Claire (Bel Powley.)

In the midst of growing tension within their relationship during their stay at Lord Byron’s (Tom Sturridge) house at Lake Geneva, the idea of Frankenstein is conceived when a challenge is put to all houseguests to write a ghost story. An incredible character is created, which will loom large in popular culture for centuries to come, but society at the time puts little value in female authors. At the tender age of 18, Mary is forced to challenge these preconceptions, to protect her work and to forge her own identity.

IFC Films has released a first trailer for this terrific film.

The screenplay for MARY SHELLEY was written by Emma Jensen, with additional writing by director Haifaa Al Mansour. Haifaa credits finding a kindred spirit in MARY SHELLEY for her taking on the project, saying “I come from Saudi Arabia and although it’s an English period film about the story of a young girl growing up who is trying to find her voice, surrounded by superstition that she wants to break free of, I really identified with the main character.” Producer Amy Baer said of the spec screenplay that was sent to her “I was astounded that Mary was only 18 when she created and wrote Frankenstein and I felt that this was a story that had to be told.” Fellow producer Alan Moloney added that the story “essentially subverts everything that we think we know about the early 1800’s in England, and I liked that!”. Producer Ruth Coady said she was “blown away by the strength and fight that this extremely young woman found within her,” and that the life of Mary Shelley is “a powerful story that feels very relevant right now.”

For leading actress Elle Fanning, who plays Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, her closeness in age to the character at the time of her writing Frankenstein, and her progressive outlook, made the author an ideal role – commenting that “to be able to play a woman that was so ahead of her time in so many ways was really what attracted me to the script. I was very nervous and scared because no one has ever told HER tale before, and because it’s such a special one that I think needs to be heard. Although set in the 1800’s, I think her journey is so modern and relevant to today’s world.”

Commenting on the strong team of creative women behind the scenes on MARY SHELLEY, Haifaa said “I feel I honestly connect with female protagonists and have been very excited about working on this particular project – with two female producers, a female editor and a female composer.” Elle Fanning, who plays Mary Shelley, said of having Haifaa as a director that “in a way she just knows what it feels like to be a young girl, to grow up and go through the hardships that women have. A lot of strong women have lived with this script, it’s very powerful and you can feel that on set which I think is crucial and important in telling Mary’s story.” Douglas Booth, acting opposite Elle as her partner Percy Shelley concurs, “I think be-cause Haifaa has had to fight for every single thing that she has ever achieved, she has a very real understanding of a woman that has a story to tell but society is not letting her tell it. She understands Mary’s journey. She has a great understanding of humanity, the core of people and I think this really shines through in this film.”

MARY SHELLEY opens in theaters May 25.

www.ifcfilms.com/films/mary-shelley

Frankenstein Double Feature: BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN Oct. 20th at Washington University


“We belong…Dead!”


Please join Washington University’s Film and Media Studies and the Center for the Humanities as they celebrate the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with a free screening of Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Young Frankenstein (1974). The event takes place at Brown Hall, Room 100, Washington University in St. Louis Friday October 20th, 2017 at 7.00 pm. This is a FREE event and there will be free popcorn and soda there as well. 


Two hundred years have passed since Mary Shelley, the British novelist and dramatist, published her novel Frankenstein. Since that moment, her creation has not only caused a big impact in the literary world, but also in cinema, an art that was not even alive when the monster was born. In celebration of Frankenstein’s upcoming birthday, Film and Media Studies and the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis is organizing a free screening that will combine horror and comedy on the eve of Halloween.


Bride of Frankenstein (1935), “Warning! The Monster Demands a Mate!” Widely considered the high point of the 1930s Universal horror cycle, BRIDE is a brilliant blend of black humor and Gothic style. Boris Karloff reprises his greatest role as the Monster, with Colin Clive as his reluctant “father,” the hilariously creepy Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius and Elsa Lanchester as the screaming-mimi Bride. (American Cinematheque)


Young Frankenstein (1974), Director Mel Brooks’ hilariously abby-normal homage to 1930s monster movies – one of the strangest, funniest, most brilliantly conceived comedies since the heyday of the Marx Bros. Gene Wilder (who co-wrote the script) stars as Dr. Frankenstein (“That’s Frahnk-en-steen”), grandson of the famed mad scientist, struggling to breathe life into tap-dancing monster Peter Boyle with demented help from hunchback assistant Marty Feldman, lusty Teri Garr, neurotic girlfriend Madeline Kahn and Frau Blucher herself, Cloris Leachman. Kenneth Mars is outlandishly memorable as one-eyed, one-armed German Inspector Kemp, “ze leader of zis community!” “The biggest problem we had in doing YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN was that we had to do so many takes because we couldn’t stop laughing.” – Teri Garr. (American Cinematheque)


What: Free screenings of Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Young Frankenstein (1974)

Where: Brown Hall, Room 100, at Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, EE.UU.

When: Friday, October 20 – 7 P.M.

Who: Program in Film and Media Studies and the Center for the Humanities

Plus: Free popcorn and sodas!