Intended as a companion to the highly
successful Bram Stoker's Dracula
(dir: Francis Ford Coppola; USA 1992), the aim of the film makers was to stick
as closely as possible to the literary source. Although director
Branagh, who also played Victor Frankenstein, and writers Steph Lady and
Frank Darabont still changed some parts of the plot, they nevertheless
ended up with a film that was at least made in the spirit of Mary Shelley.
Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein
begins on the north pole, where polar
explorer Walton's ship hits an
iceberg. The crew then picks up a man travelling the icy polar regions, who
reveals his name as Victor Frankenstein. Unlike most other Frankenstein films,
Branagh has kept the frame narrative where the story is now told to Walton by
Frankenstein. The film then shifts to Geneva and presents Victor
Frankenstein's childhood and adolescence. Here the film differs from
the novel in many
details: In Branagh's version Victor's mother dies giving birth to
William; his experiments
with lightning have no equivalent in the novel; and Victor does not make the
acquaintance of Henry Clerval before he enters the university in
Ingolstadt.
Aidan Quinn as Robert Walton, complete with heavy metal hair-do
There Frankenstein meets Professor Waldmann, who once performed experiments
similar to those of Frankenstein, but gave them up "because they
resulted in abomination." When Waldmann is killed in a hospital,
Victor takes the Professor's records in order to continue his works. He
begins to
assemble his creature using the body of Waldmann's murderer, Waldmann's
brain and the limbs of various corpses. Waldmann's death and his involvement
in experiments dealing with the creation of life were added by
screenwriters Lady and Darabont. In the original novel Waldmann is simply a
Professor of chemistry who encourages the ambitious Frankenstein. In
Branagh's film, Victor intends to preserve the brain and spirit of the
brilliant scientist, a plot device found in many earlier Frankenstein
movies, for instance Hammer's Curse of
Frankenstein.
True to
the tradition of Frankenstein movies, and of course following the
expectations of a cinematic audience, Branagh
and the screenwriters had to show how Victor animates his
creature. In a giant laboratory in the attic of his house he puts the
creature into an aquarium filled with amniotic fluid and animates it with
electricity produced by eels. When the creature finally comes to life we see Victor struggling with a naked, goo-covered man, who appears clumsy
and can barely walk. Again and again the man staggers and falls until Victor,
taken by horror, speaks, "What have I done?" Believing the
creature dead he goes to sleep. Director Branagh comments on his creation
scene: "The image I had in mind for the birth sequence is of a child
being born to parents who then walk out of the delivery room and leave
this bloodstained, fluid covered thing to just crawl around on its
own." (1)
"It's alive!" - Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) awakens the fiend
Consequently, the
film also provides an explanation why Victor is so horrified by his creation
that he immediately abandons it. In his journal he writes, "Massive birth
defects. Greatly enhanced physical strength but the resulting re-animant
is malfunctional and pitiful, and dead."
Learning to read: Robert
De Niro as the Monster
The
following experiences of the Monster are massively shortened, compared
to the novel. We only see the Monster being mistreated by the townspeople
once; after that he flees into the woods, where he hides in
a poor family's pigsty. He secretly supports the family by bringing in potatoes
from their fields and learns reading by watching the mother teaching
her daughter. Here the film completely drops the episode with the Turkish
girl Safie. The Monster also does not educate himself with classical
literature because in the film there are no books by Plutarch, Milton and Goethe. Instead
the film introduces a brutal landlord whom the Monster kills when he
rescues the blind grandfather. Branagh also drops the Monster's narrative.
Instead the film's plot develops chronologically (except for the
beginning), shifting between the Monster's and Frankenstein's adventures.
The next deviation from the novel occurs in the episode concerning
the murder of William Frankenstein. In the film the falsely accused
Justine is not put to trial but immediately hanged by an enraged lynching
mob from the city before Victor's and Elizabeth's eyes. This change mainly
affects the character of Victor, who at this moment neither knows that the
Monster is still alive, nor that it killed his brother. In the novel he knows
exactly what has happened, but does not save Justine because he is afraid
of giving away his horrible secrets. This goes hand in hand with the new
conception Branagh had in mind for Victor Frankenstein, who now appears in
a much more positive light than in Shelley's novel. Branagh comments:
"It
is no longer a melodramatic story about a madman, I think that Victor
Frankenstein is dangerously sane. This is an intelligent man who believes
that he is doing the right thing. He is a good man, sort of a
visionary." (2)
Victor
Frankenstein first meets his creature after the lynching of Justine. The
Monster only says, "I will meet you there, on the sea of ice."
and disappears. Dropping the Monster's narrative of course makes the
encounter between Victor and the Monster a much shorter one than in the
novel. Later the Monster demands a female companion and Victor initially
agrees to build a new creature. He immediately begins to work but changes his mind when the
Monster brings Justine's dead body as raw material for his bride. In
the novel it takes much longer before Frankenstein begins to assemble the
Monster's bride. Branagh also completely leaves out the murder of Henry Clerval
and Victor's journeys to England, Scotland and Ireland.
The Monster is going to break Elizabeth's heart (De Niro and Helena Bonham
Carter)
In their wedding night the Monster then kills Elizabeth by ripping out her
heart. This final murder is the initiation for the most radical deviation
Branagh and his screenwriters made from the original novel. Frankenstein,
almost insane over the loss of his love, now assembles a female with the
body of Justine and Elizabeth's head and brings her to life. This female
creature, as ugly and deformed as Frankenstein's first creation, sets herself on fire
when, confronted with the Monster, she realises that she is as pitiful and
repulsive as him. This scene, in particular the dance of Victor with the
horribly disfigured Elizabeth, is the grotesque climax of the
extraordinary love between Elizabeth and Victor. Branagh wanted to
emphasize the relationship between them and also show the development of
their love. He said:
"It
was important to me to have a very strong woman's role in a film of this
size, and not just a token of love interest. [...] I wanted Elizabeth and
Victor to be two equal partners." (3)
The story twist of bringing back Elisabeth and making her commit suicide
was surely influenced by works such as Brian Aldiss / Roger Corman's
Frankenstein Unbound, which introduces a similar twist, of course
one, that seems totally logical, although Mary Shelley had not thought
of such a continuation.
Then
the film shifts back to the north pole, where Frankenstein finishes his
tale and dies. It ends with the Monster setting Frankenstein's funeral
pyre on fire and drifting off on an ice floe and Walton heading back home
Branagh's
faithfulness to the literary original particularly shows in his
presentation of the Monster. Like no film before, Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein presents the Monster as the victim of
circumstances, as a pitiful creature, who is driven to evil by society and
his maker. By casting Robert de Niro, an actor of average height, as the
Monster and not making him an 8 foot tall giant, the Monster also physically
appears more
human. In addition, he is sophisticated and eloquent, "with the tone
of a philosopher", as Branagh stated. "It should be clear that,
for all the horror of his appearance, he is not in fact a monster, but a
man." (4) De Niro's Monster is allowed to show emotions when
he weeps at his creator's death bed or after having been beaten by the
family from the forest. In the beginning he is like a child, whom the
audience sees growing up. He quickly learns the ways of man and in the end
consequently announces, "I am done with man."
Despite
the changes in the plot it can surely be said that of all film
versions Kenneth Branagh's movie is among those closest to Mary Shelley's novel. The
movie preserves the central ideas of the novel, straightens the plot and
removes implausible elements, for which the novel has often been
criticised.
Click above to watch the original trailer in
full color on youtube.com
Cast & Crew:
Victor
Frankenstein
Kenneth
Branagh
Elizabeth
Helena Bonham
Carter
Henry Clerval
Tom Hulce
The Creature
Robert De Niro
Robert Walton
Aidan Quinn
Professor
Waldmann
John Cleese
Baron
Frankenstein
Ian Holm
Screenplay
Steph Lady
Frank Darabont
Music
Patrick Doyle
Cinematography
Roger Pratt
Producers
David Barron, Kenneth Branagh, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De
Niro, Fred Fuchs, James V. Hart, Jeff Kleeman, David Parfitt, John
Veitch
Director
Kenneth Branagh
Footnotes:
1 Branagh, Kenneth. Mary Shelley´s Frankenstein: The Classic Tale of Terror Reborn on Film(New York: Newmarket Press, 1994) 20. 2
Salisbury, Mark. "Kenneth Branagh: Bringing Life to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.".
Fangoria 138, November 1994: 30. 3 Branagh 1994: 146 4 Branagh 1994: 23
