Kanye West and Le Ravissement de Frank N. Stein
Introduction
At 10pm Sunday August 22nd Kanye posted an image of a room with two rectangular prisms in each corner to his Instagram. My first impression was that it may have had something to do with Drake because of how the prisms appear to be the same size but one has a larger shadow than the other. Later on twitter I came across the link to the video, posted by 81 point bean @beeayeembeeeye under a Watching The Throne @KanyePodcast tweet. The YouTube video is titled Le Ravissement de Frank N. Stein and was posted by William Scanlon on the 25th of August 2013. Could August 25 be a protentional release date? Two days from the upload of this photo? Unlikely. The description of the YouTube video is âby Georges Schwizgebel, 1982â. This is the only video William Scanlon has ever uploaded since joining the site 4 months prior on May 1st 2013.
Metadata Analysis
Here we have the metadata of William Scanlonâs channel. The channel was created 2013-05-01T21:36:18Z, the first of May 2013 at 11:36 pm Zulu time, more commonly known as UTC, coordinated universal time. His subscriber count is hidden. I didnât know you could do that all the way back in 2013.
Here we have the metadata of the video itself. 2013-08-25T09:28:36Z, the 25th of August 2013 at 9:30 in the morning. Thatâs a 115 days, 21 hours, 52 minutes and 18 second difference between his channel creation and this videos upload. The video was uploaded with three tags; âAbstract Expressionism (Art Period/Movement)â, âExperimentalâ, âAnimationâ and âTime (Dimension)â. The tags Experimental, Animation and Abstract Expressionism are pretty self-explanatory. (joke) it kinda feels like Francis Baconâs take on those YouTube gamer commentary videos but instead of some hype song its just an aphex twin track. What gets me is the âTime (Dimension)â tag. What does this video have to do with time? The metadata also details that the video is 2 dimensional, I think this actually about the video but it could have something to do with how YouTube had those 3d & 360 videos for a while. All that exists of the topic details is a Wikipedia link to a page on Entertainment.
Georges Schwizgebel
There isnât much information about the artist Georges Schwizgebel himself. His Wikipedia is bare and all we know is that he is a Swiss animation film director. Georges Schwizgebel made all his films under an animated film production company he founded with 3 friends, Studio GDS. Even the website doesnât have any deeper information on Georges.
Le Ravissement de Frank N. Stein
Le Ravissement de Frank N. Stein is French for The Rapture of Frank N. Stein. Rapture is an interesting word to use because I donât see any rapturing happening in this video. However this does remind me of the second DONDA listening party where Kanye raptured himself. Another translation of âravissementâ is ecstasy. Could this have something to do with Kanyeâs single, XTCY?
There is a painting that goes by a very similar title, Le ravissement de saint Paul by Paul Scarron, known in English as the ecstasy of saint paul, not the rapture of saint paul. It does certainly look like heâs being raptured in the painting thought. Saint paul was an apostle of christ, considered one of the most important people in Christianity after Jesus. I donât know what else to takeaway from the possible saint paul reference aside from maybe Kanye is the most important thing in Christianity now after Jesus. Idk, im not Christian, the painting might have nothing at all to do with anything. The point is this could be the rapture of Frankenstein or the ecstasy of Frankenstein. Judging by the end of the video where Frankenstein doesnât get raptured & by the possible painting reference, Iâm going with the ecstasy of Frankenstein.
The Studio GDS website provides a short description of the film. The film is explained as âThe slow construction of an image on a rhythm of steps, ends with the meeting of the monster and his fiancĂŠeâ.
Malibooyah1789 on r/WestSubEver linked an animation review blog that gave the video some more context.
âLe ravissement de Frank N. Steinâ starts with very abstract images, which resolve into Frankensteinâs laboratory as depicted in the film from 1931.
After 1â40 we become the monster itself, walking through endless chambers and corridors and staircases in an almost computer animation-like long sequence of perspective animation. The rooms, initially filled with abstract shapes, become more and more complex. They contain more and more windows and human forms, and finally moving human forms, ending with multiple copies of the monsterâs bride. In the end we watch the monster itself, in his depiction by Boris Karloff. He smiles at his bride, but she only screamsâŚ
So, itâs pretty solid to assume that Kanye is Frankensteinâs monster. Letâs get into the analysis of the video itself.
Analysis
The beginning of the video starts off with abstracts. These abstracts slowly take form to show us Frankensteinâs laboratory. Once we see Frankensteinâs laboratory we begin to move in the perspective of Frankensteinâs monster. This is where we begin to go thru this seemingly endless number of rooms, one after the other. The rooms themselves are constant, with the only changes being the geometric figures appearing and taking a more human shape, the shape being of the monsters bride.
The monsters bride in this context is Kanyeâs ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. Kanyeâs hinted in the past that he doesnât like LA, mostly because the city took his mother from him. The way I see this is in relation to the Kim K effect. Lots of influencers come to LA and the majority of them end up looking like Kim or Kylie. This is no secret, plastic surgeons say that Kimâs face is the most requested face without a close second. Circling back to the video, it could be assumed that Kanye is walking thru LA and seeing these clones of his wife, imperfect clones because even though they resemble Kim, theyâre not fully detailed. The lack of detail could indicate two things; either theyâre just attempts to copy Kim or theyâre part of a second possible meaning; Kanye is becoming more aware.
The second possible reason for these geometric figures to be gaining definition as the film progresses is that itâs Kanye becoming more conscious of his surroundings and literally looking closer at the details. Kanye is becoming hyperaware of the people around him and moving thru these rooms to get away from them and to his wife, which weâll also get into in the final scene.
At the point the room disappears and itâs just the figures, here is Kanye is in the dark before the light. After the last dark room Kanye walks into the light again. This time itâs a hallway. The arches are reminiscent of the Jesus is King Arches & the arched hallways in his own home. The music makes this scene feel like a transition because the music changes as soon as he enters the hallway and quickly becomes chaotic as the scene changes from the hallway to a few seconds of a boat on water and then back to the dark rooms. The boat scene reminds me of the snippet Ye posted to twitter for the Believe What I Say snippet. I believe in when he posted that snippet he was quiet before and after on twitter, possibly alluding to how this was a momentary break thru him trying to get out of the dark rooms.
Heâs in the dark rooms once again but this time there are windows shining light to illuminate the room a little. This is all feeling like his strong awakening as a Christian and his searching of faith. This bit is short and soon heâs in what appears to be on the outside of a building. The walls on the right are gone and you can see what looks like a sunrise or sunset.
If itâs a sunrise its continuing the theme of awakening, if itâs a sunset it could indicate that he feels like heâs running out of time and is trying to get to something before itâs too late. Then weâre back into the darkness. This time its not just clones of Kim, but of Kanye as well. Iâm not sure what this could depict aside from this one bar from I Love Kanye;
See I invented Kanye, it wasnât any Kanyes,
And now I look and look around and thereâs so many Kanyes
When the view is taking us down some stairs to a room with two doors, itâs an optical illusion and shows us Frankensteinâs monsters face. I believe this is telling us that this entire Journey was in his mind, Kanye going thru all these rooms, perceptions and this mental journey within himself.
He walks down the stairs smiling to his wife, who responds with a scream. This could be something personal in Yeâs relationship and how maybe Kim perceived Kanye to be a different person when he was in different mental states or how Kim reacted to the changes Kanye made in himself or his actions over time and episodes.
The ending scene zooms out of the monsters face out to a theater and out a strip of film. I think this ending scene is the most obvious. Itâs Kanye West, the celebrity, being watched by the world as he goes thru his horrors. His existence, broadcasted to the world, for better or for worse for their entertainment, their reaction to his life recorded and put online all for him to see again from a twisted perspective not of his own, a feedback loop fading to black.