Alas, I thought this Summer of Narnia was over. But then I saw this production still from the Netflix The Magician’s Nephew which features Queen Jadis running through the palace of Charn with Digory and Polly.
It’s very different from how I imagined Charn — my view is more titanic and epic, with an ancient Babylonic look — but it fits with the silver outfit Jadis wears from last year’s photo reveals.
The set has the look of classic science fiction illustrations from the 1920s though the 1940s, before the sleek design of Hitler’s V2 rockets hit the public (both literally and figuratively) and started the space age in real life. I’m talking Frank R. Paul’s monumental cityscapes here, the ones that were featured on the covers of Amazing magazine and other Hugo Gernsback publications.
City of the Future, Paul R. Frank, 1942
The repeated motif of globes and railings in this illustration were also features of the Gerwig set. Below is the set again, lightened by me so you can see more detail.
Jadis as she appears in The Magician’s Nephew
Paul’s art may have been influenced by photos of the exotic electrical experiments of Nicola Tesla, which were much in the news at the time he was painting. But the starfish chandelier at center top pays homage to Pauline Baynes’ drawing of Jadis’s crown from the original book, as you can see at the left. Going by some the other Easter Eggs in the film, the choice was deliberate. I see some tattered curtains on the left, but other than that, I can’t guess at the other elements in the set.
Frank was no slouch in B&W drawings, either. These cityscapes might look like Charn’s exterior.
Warriors at the Gate, by Frank R. Paul
Two-page cityscape spread for a magazine. Probably text went in the empty space at top left.
If these illustrations seem familiar to you, the same style of architecture — known as New York Modern in the 1930s — was used by many artists as the template for Gotham City in the Batman comics, and not a few of the movies as well.
Speaking of movies, Paul’s illustrations influenced an earlier one: MGM’s Forbidden Planet (1956) which was widely regarded as the first “serious” SF movie with state-of-the-art special effects which were more than sparklers stuck inside a metal can hung on a wire. Of course, Paul inspired the look of those schlocky Saturday matinee movie serials as well.
Below are two stills from Forbidden Planet. Really lovely even if outdated.
Set from Forbidden Planet (1956)
Set from Forbidden Planet (1956)
I can see Charn having some unusual buildings, like the two below, contest entries for a skyscraper design. (It never was built.)
What might inhabitants of such a place look like?
This looks like a Russian catalog page, perhaps for dance costumes. They look very campy, so I don’t know how well they would fit into Narnia.
The following two are fashions from the 1960s designed by, or inspired by, Paco Rabanne.
I admit I’d be very disappointed if this description of the clothing wasn’t included in Gerwig’s version though:
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This time Polly took the lead. There was something in this room which interested her more than it interested Digory: all the figures were wearing magnificent clothes. [ … ] The figures were all robed and had crowns on their heads. Their robes were of crimson and silvery grey and deep purple and vivid green: and there were patterns, and pictures of flowers and strange beasts, in needlework all over them. Precious stones of astonishing size and brightness stared from their crowns and hung in chains round their necks and peeped out from all the places where anything was fastened. |  |
