The Post-Modern Prometheus

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"The Post-Modern Prometheus"
The X-Files episode
Dana Scully and Fox Mulder at a Cher concert
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 5
Written by	Chris Carter
Directed by	Chris Carter
Production no.	5x06
Original airdate	November 30, 1997
Guest stars
Tracey Bell as Cher Lloyd Berry as Old Man Pollidori Stewart Gale as Izzy Berkowitz Chris Giacoletti as Booger Dana Grahame as Reporter Jean-Yves Hammel as Izzy's Friend C. Ernst Harth as Huge Man Vitaliy Kravchenko as JJ John O'Hurley as Dr. Francis Pollidori Chris Owens as The Great Mutato Xantha Radley as Waitress Miriam Smith as Elizabeth Pollidori Jerry Springer as Himself Pattie Tierce as Shaineh Berkowitz Jean-Yves Hammel as Goat Boy
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Detour" "Christmas Carol"
List of Season 5 episodes List of The X-Files episodes

"The Post-Modern Prometheus" is the fifth episode of the fifth season of television series The X-Files.

[edit] Plot

The episode chronicles Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully's (Gillian Anderson) investigation when a letter from a single mother leads them to a small mid-Western town where a modern-day version of Frankenstein's monster lives. The two agents travel to Bloomington, Indiana to meet with the author of the letter. The creature who attacked her is similar to a comic book character her son created and named "The Great Mutato". Her son and his friends take the two agents to a wooded area where they lay a trap for the monster using peanut butter sandwiches. They see the creature from a distance and the group gives chase but they lose him in the darkness.

Mulder meets an old man who claims the monster is his son, Dr Francis Pollidori, a renowned scientist whose research is in the area of genetic manipulation, possibly a tragic victim of his own genetic tampering. Mulder and Scully find themselves the centre of attention in the local community following a newspaper article quoting Mulder confirming the existence of the monster. The two agents endeavour to locate the creature and find themselves wondering who the real monsters are as wild hysteria and mob mentality takes control of the town.

[edit] Production

[edit] Conception

The original idea for the episode came from the science advisor Anne Simon. The sudden idea behind the episode came when Simon invited Chris Carter on a visit to a university in Bloomington, Indiana. A friend of Simon showed Carter some experiments on flies, he was able to manipulate the genes to create manufactured leg. He created "little monsters", Carter thought this idea was interesting, he finally came up with the idea of a Frankenstein story, which Carter had wished for a long time to work with on The X-Files.^[1]

[edit] Casting

Chris Carter thought the casting part was "interesting" because the episode was originally intended to feature Cher and Roseanne Barr, both of whom had expressed interest in appearing in the show. Both Cher and Barr couldn't appear because they both had important schedules to meet. So Pattie Tierce took Barr's part as Shaineh Berkowitz, they also cast a Cher look-alike for her scene. John O'Hurley had auditioned for a role various of times, until he was finally cast as Pollidori.^[1]

Izzy Berkowitz (Stewart Gale) was, as Carter puts it, played by a "non-actor" whom Carter met when he was going down to a swimming pool around lunchtime. Carter saw Gale sitting back on a truck and started to talk to him. Gale's father had worked with a Hollywood movie crew; he was a bit suspicious when Carter asked his son if he wanted to be featured in an episode of The X-Files. According to Carter, Gale's father wasn't sure if Carter actually worked on The X-Files, but he eventually consented, and Gale and Carter traveled up to Vancouver, Canada. The friends of the character in the episode were also "non-actors"; one of them had worked on The X-Files (1998) film as a snake wrangler. Carter had had contact with him for a while. He was trying to figure out some way he could use him on the show. Jean-Yves Hammel was cast as Goat Boy at a local coffee shop Carter used to visit in Vancouver. Carter "just asked" him if he wanted to be featured in The X-Files without really knowing him. Chris Owens would later be cast as the recurring character of Jeffrey Spender for a total 10 episodes.^[1]

[edit] Filming

The influence behind filming this episode in black-and-white came from various James Whale films because of their "fairy tale" like "quality". Chris Carter felt he wanted to do something "new" for the show. While Carter thought it would be easier to shoot the film in black-and-white, he commented that it was "a lot harder" than expected. The director of photography used a lot of time lighting each scene because they needed gray scaling.^[1]

When The Great Mutato broke into Shaineh Berkowitz's (Pattie Tierce) house, steady camera work was done by a second unit camera operator. Carter said he was "less experienced" than Carter had hoped for. The leaves seen after the opening sequence were originally "yellow in reality". Carter made the production crew change the schedule for the shooting of the episode because he knew those leaves "would fall", so he wanted the effects displayed in black-and-white. The sky in that scene was also added by the special effects crew, to give it a Frankenstein-like feel. The entire episode was shot with wide-angle lenses; this forced the actor to act "right into" the camera.^[1]

[edit] Music

This episode features three Cher songs: "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore", "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" and "Walking in Memphis" as The Great Mutato character was a big fan of Cher.

[edit] Cultural references

The title and basic plot is a reference to Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, which was subtitled "The Modern Prometheus." As in the novel Frankenstein, in this episode Dr Pollidori at one point leaves for Ingolstadt. The University of Ingolstadt, where Dr Pollidori is to deliver his lecture, was closed in 1800. The University is frequently mentioned in The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Dr. Pollidori's wife is named Elizabeth, which may be a reference to Victor's wife from Shelley's Frankenstein. The name of John O'Hurley's character, Dr. Pollidori, is an homage to Dr. John Polidori, one of the writers on vacation in Switzerland who challenged each other to a scary-story writing contest. Lord Byron's tale was eventually abandoned. The Vampyre, Polidori's story, is considered the foundation of the modern vampire tale, and, of course, Mary Shelley produced the most famous work of the three, Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus. The mob scene of "villagers with torches" echoes that of many old Universal horror movies; similar mob scenes are seen in, for example, the 1931 version of Frankenstein. On the DVD commentary, Carter mentions that he designed the entire episode as an "homage to the James Whale version" of the Frankenstein movies.

This episode appears to be heavily influenced by The Elephant Man. The episode's "carnival music" score is similar to the music during the film's opening and closing credits, and The Great Mutato shares obvious characteristics with the film's title character. Like The Elephant Man, the episode was filmed in black and white. This episode contains a scene in a building overlooking the street below, mirroring a similar scene in the film. The mob psychology exhibited in this episode echoes a famous scene in The Elephant Man in which a mob chases after the film's title character. At least two lines of dialogue in "The Post-Modern Prometheus" are from The Elephant Man: "Do you think he understands?" "I hope not."

[edit] Reception

The episode was nominated for seven 1998 Emmy awards by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences:

• Outstanding Writing
• Directing
• Art Direction
• Cinematography
• Single-Picture Editing
• Makeup
• Music Composition

It won the award for Outstanding Art Direction.^[2][3].

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• "The Post-Modern Prometheus" at the Internet Movie Database
• "The Post-Modern Prometheus" at TV.com