Monday, September 23, 2013

Frankenstein (1931)

Today's film is Frankenstein.  I have previously seen Young Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein, but I thought I would review Frankenstein since it is such a horror classic.  I found out that James Whale directed both Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein.

In the scenery, I saw many aspects of German Expressionism, which to me, the darkness of it isn't a scary dark, it's a shadowy dark.  It had the same kind of vibe to it that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Dracula had.  Also, early Expressionist films dealt with themes of madness and intellectualism, and doesn't a mad scientist cover both of them?  

I read the book in school, but I don't remember much of it.  Actually, we have Universal to thank for how we see Frankenstein, his lab, and his monster, not the book.  Frankenstein's lab has a lot of fancy electrical equipment with voltage zapping everywhere and does not look at all OSHA approved.



In the American version of the film, the scene with Maria and the monster stops right before she drowns, because the critics objected to her violent end.  Well of course they would object to a child's death; anyone would.  But they missed the point.  It was to show that the monster was not a malevolent creature; it simply had a childlike way of thinking.  If my three year old daughter was throwing things into a pond and ran out, she would look around and throw in the biggest thing.  This is exactly what the monster did.  I think that maybe the monster didn't have a criminal brain, but maybe one of a mentally challenged individual, maybe someone who didn't know how to make the right choices.
 
This brings me to my next point.  If Dr. Frankenstein is such a great scientist that he can bring life to dead tissue, why couldn't he see that the brain was no good?  The professor kept them in jars marked "abnormal" and "normal".  He explained to the class how to visually tell the differences between them.  Frankenstein told the professor that his monster's brain was "perfectly good".  Why couldn't he tell?  Is he not as smart as he thinks he is?  Or is he so arrogant that he was careless in examining it?
 
After Frankenstein succeeds in bringing his creature to life, he exclaims, "I know what it's like to be God!"  Later this was removed from the film as the censors thought it was blasphemous.  What is this, Iran?  We have freedom of speech here, or at least we were told we did.  The novel was written in Victorian times, when technology and medical science were progressing at a rapid pace.  People had no idea what we could eventually accomplish.  Would we use our knowledge for good or evil?  How far can we go?  Frankenstein's monster is like a straw-man argument about the worst possible situation for medical science - a giant man made of stitched up dead flesh powered by a criminal brain.  The thought that something this horrible might be possible is really scary.  That's why this made such a great horror film, and why it's still a classic.  I will give this film a 6/10.

5 comments:

  1. Lindsay, I agree with your assessment that FRANKENSTEIN is a classic, but not a great horror film (the "6" rating is on the mark). I think the next two films in the series, BRIDE and SON, are both superior. The abnormal brain plot device always bugged me, too.

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    1. Thanks for your comment. I haven't seen Son yet, but I will soon.

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  2. Truly one of the most interesting novels i have ever read. I was planning on collecting this books as reference for our future plays. Can you help me?

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  3. Excellent point about the abnormal brain. If I remember right it even says on the jar. Besides you are right on another point. This is not criminal behaviour but childlike behaviour. Well, a child in a giant body is pretty scary.
    I love the gothic feel of this film. In that sense it is superior to the other Frankenstein films and it is its greatest asset.

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    1. Thanks, I love the feel of it too. I thought it was a good classic movie.

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