Frankenstein Goes To Hollywood Essay Research Paper

Frankenstein Goes To Hollywood Essay, Research Paper

In 1818 a novel was written that tingled people’s minds and thrilled literary critics alike. Frankenstein was an instant success and sold more copies than any book had before. The immediate success of the book can be attributed to the spine-tingling horror of the plot, and the strong embedded ethical message. Although her name did not come originally attached to the text, Mary Shelley had written a masterpiece that would live on for centuries.

Nearly 200 movies have been adapted from the text since the birth of Hollywood. Most recently though (1994), is Kenneth Brannaugh’s rendition entitled “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Although Brannaugh makes a spectacular attempt to emulate Shelley’s masterpiece, the film does not accurately capture the presence of the original text, and nor could it be expected to. Although Frankenstein was considered a horror in the 1800’s, audiences today are much more desensitized to violence and scariness, thus Brannaugh had to manipulate the original text in order to shock the modern-day viewer. If Brannaugh had produced a movie that followed the original 1818 text, it would have been mind-numbingly static on screen. Also, the concept of Hollywood itself was a vice to Brannaugh’s reproduction. Today, the movie industry is about making as much money as you can, and this responsibility usually falls to the director and screenwriters of the film. It is believed that the more action packed and gory a film is, the greater the turnout at the box office will be, and hence the more money the movie will make. Although Kenneth Brannaugh’s movie offers the audience a greater thrill with the aid of gory cinematography, the book invokes the reader’s imagination and conveys better the original moral message and intentions of the author.

Movies are often forced to use an omniscient point of view rather than a narrative, and “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” is no exception. The book is written as a frame narrative, but this sort of presentation is almost impossible to reproduce on screen. Robert Walton’s letters to his sister, and the monster’s long autobiographical narratives were both omitted from the film for this reason. A big asset to narrative voice is the reader acquires a more thorough impression of the charter’s thoughts and feelings. Without the use of this literary tool, Brannaugh had to rearrange scenes, add dialect where there was none before, and depend on the superb theatrical ability of the actors.

The movie starts off very true to the text with Walton’s ship becoming logged in the ice in the arctic. Despite some minor changes, the film follows the book pretty closely until the death of Frankenstein’s mother is described. In the novel, she contracts scarlet fever after caring for Elizabeth, and “died calmly…her countenance express[ing] affection even in death” (Shelley, 72). In the movie, she collapses while dancing with Victor, and soon after dies while giving birth to his brother William. This scene is filled with screaming, blood and gruesome images as the mother dies in a fit of pain and agony. Victor runs into his mother’s room and is met by the site of her covered in blood and lain strewn on a broken chair. He then proceeds to throw himself on top of her and cry “bring her back, oh please bring her back.” This scene is very theatrical and perhaps a bit overacted as the actors try to transmit Frankenstein’s future motive for his actions. The book conveys the same motives but does so in a much subtler way.

Shelley has been long critiqued for her portrayal of women in her novel. Both Elizabeth and Caroline are obedient subservient women who do not question the men of the household. However, in the movie there are instances where these characters show their stubborn natures and defiant personalities. When Caroline is dancing with Victor she refuses to stop because of her condition, and when she is dying giving birth to her child she screams at her husband to save the baby and not her. Elizabeth shows the same stubborn streak when she refuses to wait for Victor to come to her, and instead travels to Ingolstadt in order to bring him back with her. When he refuses to leave his work, she stays in a city rampant with cholera until he changes his mind. Brannaugh was able to make his female characters strong where Shelley’s could not because it is acceptable for women of today to act like that, whereas in the 1800’s it would be considered a terrible act of disobedience.

In the movie Victor arrives in Ingolstadt with the intention of becoming a doctor. He meets professor Waldman who becomes his mentor and provides him with the starting knowledge he needs to perform his experiments. While giving vaccinations to the townspeople Waldman is killed by a man who pulls out a knife and stabs him in the belly. Frankenstein does everything he can to bring his mentor back, but his efforts are in vain. In the text, Waldman does indeed become Victor’s mentor but he is not killed. Brannaugh used the death of Waldman to stir Frankenstein’s drive to reanimate the dead. Also, this provided him with another opportunity to add blood and gore to a scene with the intention of showing Victor’s relentless hatred of death.

After the death of Waldman, Victor begins to collect body parts to construct his being. When he has finished his creation, he places the body on a rack and be