Throughout the years, since 1818 when it was published, “Frankenstein, a modern Prometeus” has thrilled and excited its audience. I talk about “audience”, not merely of a reading-audience, because right since 1823 it started being performed on stage and Mary Shelley herself attended that very first performance.
Cinema, more than Theatre, has given many performances of this story, some more faithful than others, highlighting every time the modern Prometeus’ topicality.
The three, most famous movie versions that any film-goer of the 1999 would remember are: FRANKENSTEIN by James Whale, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN by Mel Brooks, and MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN by Kenneth Branagh. Who approaches the young, romantic author’s novel can’t help of identifying the horrible face-lines of the creature with the famous icon of the monster with a square head and metal bolts in his neck. It was William Henry Pratt, aka Boris Karloff, who gave life to this famous, moaning creature in 1931, under the sharp and ironic direction of James Whale, leaving a remarkable trace in everyone’s memory forever.
It was Kenneth Branagh who restored the stolen identity of the monster, but he just couldn’t resist the temptation of giving the monster a female partner to fulfill the monster’s need of someone to love. So, there appears a brand new bride, knitted and patched as the lonely, deformed giant requested!
Helena Bonham Carter steals the scene off from the two male opponents for a while, wearing scars, bruises and a worn out wedding dress she finds the fighting spirit that in the shoes of the sister-lover Elizabeth had been laying hidden. Her performance as a she-monster is remarkable indeed, the voice cut-off turns out to be an ace rather than a hurdle, she manages to bewilder and get the audience’s simpathy at the same time. I dare say that it is her, not the monster De Niro, who really make us understand the pain felt by a deformed, wounded and scared creature.
This mended, patched, not healed Adam in the ugly appearence of a meat puppet must have raised many obsessions in those who have dared to give him life. Mary Shelley herself (first, real creator) prophetically said “what terrified me will terrify others...” and confirmations to this prediction come from the creator in the novel, Victor Frankenstein, but also from the make-up artists, screenplay writers, directors, actors, etc... These people have had to create a new, plastic nightmare, which would scare for his actual similarity to his creator and which could embody modern times’ obsessions. The lesson we learn is that there’s no limit to fear and no limit to the ways of expressing it, but once we are face to face with fear we usually take the easiest decision, which is: avoiding the problem, hiding the results of our actions.
I guess this is the reason why that ridiculous experiment of a visionary, created to draw the dead closer to the living (resetting the intermediate condition of those in a sorry state!), lived, lives and will always live (I fear) ill treated and cast-off.
The young writer dreamt of the monster and gave it life in the novel through the hand of a young medical student with a natural bent for miracles. A young film director, Kenneth Branagh, decides to try again the experiment in the nineties, a time when the nightmare of death survives the miracolous cut-and-knit of the modern Frankensteins. Some people think the experiment didn’t succed, someone else just appreciated the effort, some (happy few) others consider it the perfect representation of a young man’s obsession, portrayed by a young man with the right passion towards his artistic creature. Victor Frankenstein used the means and materials he had at hand, bits of bodies found here and there, while Branagh put his own body in the creation and used what he had at hand to give it life: lights, steadicam, dolly, etc...
In my opinion De Niro (the monster) turned out to be more pathetic and ridiculous than the poor thing he played. Still, I believe his problem was mainly due to the length of his lines, in fact the more he had to say the worse he played. He didn’t convince me as a cursed, lonely, angry creature, he just played a crescendo of shameful poses, reaching the climax when (at his longest speech!) the creature faces his creator, he turned the dialogue into a discussion about “family” business:
Creature: “do you think I’m evil?” (nodding his head like someone who knows what it is like to have problems with the “family” members) “do you think the dying cries of your brother were music in my ears?” (It wouldn’t have surprised me if he spoke those words with a Sicilian accent!)
But it’s not over yet (why do I regret the silent movies’ screenplays when he says these lines?):
Don “creature” Corleone: “did you ever consider the consequences of your actions? You gave me life, and left me to die. Who am I?”
At this point the words of the blind man and the reply of the creature seem to have a double meaning:
Blind man: “it can’t be as bad as that”
Creature: “worse”.
Though, apart from some bad (birth-)marks, the direction of the movie really portrays the very essence of the romantic feeling. The overwhelimng discovery that swallows up the young doctor’s (and his family’s) life like a storming whirl is perfectly recreated through the use of the camera that rotates and floats around the characters, as if to wrap and carry them away with its raging hand.
The meat patchwork was put together by Daniel Parker with skill and care for the details, no scar is out of place; to me his sutures had to win an Oscar...