how film might be involved

I was watching the 1933 film adaptation of The Invisible Man last night, and Danielle the other day had mentioned something about how film being born around this time might have influenced the way Victorians were thinking about reality and realism. I think I can parallel the "special effects" in the film with the crisis of seeing and knowing that the characters have in the narrative when confronted with the Invisible Man.

In the same way that the villagers in Wells' narrative cannot handle the fact that seeing does not correspond to knowing and being, spectators of James Whale's The Invisible Man (1933) experience a more pleasurable horror when thinking about the film's ability to represent reality. These spectators judge the extent to which special effects in a film can alter reality as it is represented on screen. When Jack Griffin removes his head bandages for the first time, for example, one might cast a discerning gaze on his "face" to see if there are any traces of filmic trickery or illusion. When he, while only wearing a white shirt, dances in the air, a spectator of the film might try to find the "strings" that hold up that shirt, that assure us that the shirt is just a shirt and does not have an invisible man inside. Alternatively, when a scene like this is well done and the "strings" are undetectable, the spectator derives pleasure from entertaining the possibility of an unconventional reality.

It is TECHNOLOGY that allows filmmakers in 1933 to extend the boundaries of reality.

I need to do research on how the special effects were done in the film and what technology existed in the 1933 film industry.