My main critiques of this film lie in the character portrayals. I'll make a second part to this post eventually talking about the incest/birthing fetish aspects of this movie.
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Victor Frankenstein
Branagh casts himself as the lead in this movie, to my extreme disappointment. Now, this is half because I don’t like Kenneth Branagh, as I’ll get into later, and half because his portrayal of Victor is wildly different from the Victor I know from Shelley’s novel. Not much is described about Victor’s physical appearance in the book, aside from him growing “pale and emaciated” during his time studying at Ingolstadt. We hear mention of Victor’s father greying a few times in the novel, which leads me to believe that Victor, along with his father of course, have black or dark brown hair. However, when Film Frankenstein steps onto Walton’s ship, he appears well fed and strong. With the amount of times Walton describes his “attractive and amiable” visitor *wink* as emaciated and weak, to the point where Victor faints upon exertion at one point, it is nonsensical that he’d be this strong and hearty after months of traveling in the Arctic. But, Kenneth Branagh is frequently described as egotistical by people who have worked alongside him, so his portrayal of a “buff & blond Victor Frankenstein” doesn’t surprise me.
The Creature
Now, I’ll be less harsh in my criticism of the creature’s casting, because I’ve only seen one other adaptation that portrays him in a close-to-book-accurate manner, which is the 2004 Hallmark Frankenstein miniseries. However, this movie is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, so I’m going to hold it to a book-standard if it’s going to brand itself with Shelley’s good name. Thankfully, we do have a more detailed description of the creature’s form in the novel. To quote, “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips”. Robert De Niro’s monster fulfills none of these specifications EXCEPT for one white watery eye, although I do love the way the stitching special effects and scarring were done. Overall, De Niro’s performance as the creature was stellar in my opinion, and his only fault was his unfortunate baldness.
Elizabeth Lavenza & Justine Moritz
I disagree with Helena Bonham Carter’s casting as Elizabeth on a visceral level. This casting completely undermines Mary Shelley’s social commentary on race and the Frankenstein family, and erases context for Justine’s accusation and hanging. In the 1831 version of the novel, Elizabeth was adopted from Italy by Caroline Frankenstein, Victor’s mother, and chosen specifically because of her blonde hair and blue eyes, contrasting the other darker-haired children at the same rustic orphanage. This highlights Caroline’s obsession with eurocentric features, and provides context for her treatment of Justine. While Justine’s ethnicity isn’t stated in the novel, the fact that Caroline doesn’t adopt her, a girl living with an abusive mother, and rather hires her as a servant, juxtaposed with her immediate adoption of Elizabeth for her fair hair and skin, provides a shocking contrast between the two girls that is saturated with racial undertones. Casting Justine as the blonde-haired-blue-eyed child, rather than Elizabeth, erases Frankenstein’s racial context and Shelley’s commentary on European society.
Tom Hulce’s portrayal of Henry Clerval is unremarkable, yet a breath of fresh air in my endless meandering through dozens of Frankenstein adaptations. The inclusion of Clerval is a rare thing, as he is found (and listed by name, in contrast to the dozens of “Igor”s or assistants to Victor that serve a similar role) in only 5 adaptations of Frankenstein, 6 if you count the 1910 Frankenstein silent film that is so dear to me, among the 187 (Wikipedia estimate) films featuring some form of Frankenstein’s creature. Henry Clerval serves as a classic example of a literary foil to Victor. He is narratively important because of the way he balances Victor’s melancholy and restless desire for knowledge. Clerval “called forth the better feelings of Victor’s heart”, and served as a positive force in Victor’s life. The main reason Victor was able to recover from his episodes of depression in the novel was because of Clerval’s tender care toward him, as evidenced by the infamous occasion where he nursed Victor back to health for… [checks timeline] 23 months. Yeah, something was going on. But we all know that! I was disappointed by the film’s decision to have Henry and Victor meet in college, rather than grow up together as friends, which served in the novel to set Clerval on a more “equal” status to Elizabeth in terms of the both of their relationships to Victor, and also made Clerval’s death all the more devastating to both Victor and the reader. But! That does not matter, as Clerval does not die in this movie! In fact, the last time we see him is in that infamous nursing scene. So, while this abhorrence of a movie does include one of my favorite characters, it dumps him after 15 minutes and erases his importance to the story.
Robert Walton
Now, last but not least, we discuss this movie’s portrayal of the oft-forgotten people’s princess, our sexy sailor Robert Walton. Walton, included in only 2 of the aforementioned 178 Frankenfilms, sets the structure of the entire novel as an epistolary work, or one that is written in a series of letters. Walton transcribes Victor’s spoken tale into a letter that he mails to his sister back home. Aidan Quinn’s portrayal of Walton is somewhat more aggressive than Shelley’s Walton, who gushes to his sister about Frankenstein’s attractiveness and allure on multiple occasions. I think a majority of the inaccuracies presented in the Walton scenes sprouted from Kenneth Branagh’s buff, hearty Frankenstein, as Frankenstein during these scenes in the novel was stated to be fragile, emaciated, and on the point of death. Which is my type, so I’m a bit angry it was never fully realized in this film!
anyway, that's it :)
sorry for the change in writing style/capitalization, LOL! i want to make this a video essay at some point :P
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