The Kenneth Branagh / Robert De Niro version was reasonably close to the book.
Reasonably close – it had Captain Walton and the Arctic expedition, and the meeting on the glacier. And the family the Creature eavesdrops on, tries to help, and is rejected. And it’s got Henry Clerval (played by Mozart)!
But it deliberately changes other things. The Creature is supposed to start out a Tabula Rosa and shaped by his experiences and reading (!) But the de Niro character knows how to play a flute without learning how – evidently something that the former owner of his brain knew. (Note: In Mary Wollstonecraft’s novel, it’s never stated that the Creature was made by stitching together cadavers. Frankenstein got his raw materials from slaughterhouses and the like, but I take that to mean that he rendered that stuff down o its basic biological components, rather like Clark Ashton Smith had the Giant made in his story The Colossus of Ylorgne. In other words, there never was a previously existing brain to have retained any memories. Mary clearly indicates that some parts were obtained from animals, not people.)
Also the whole thing with Frankenstein making a “bride’ for his Creature from the body of his own deceased Elizabeth – DEFINITELY not in the novel.
This was worth watching - del Toro’s version is very thoughtful, but not without flaws. It was a bit long, and I thought Oscar Isaac’s acting was overwrought.
But my main problem was I kept making myself laugh by thinking, “The guy playing the creature is excellent. But will he be able to pull off the “Puttin’ on the Ritz” scene?”
Went to see this today, left the theater < 2 hours in. Visually interesting and I’m sure I under-appreciated it, but most of the dialogue was just sooooo cringe.
And why do people even bother making historical movies if they won’t get basic details right? You put a bunch of background characters in early Victorian costumes for street scenes, and then you show main characters eating with their gloves on or doing medical demonstrations in their shirtsleeves before formally dressed audiences or wearing lowcut dresses for day wear. It’s just so fucking incoherent, and looks like you simply have no idea what the world you’re portraying was actually like.
Why not just go ahead and re-set the thing in some period/culture that you do know something about, or a straight-up fantasy setting so you can make it look like whatever you want?
For what it’s worth, here is some info on costuming choices:
I have not seen it and am not necessarily defending anachronistic choices, but they could be done on purpose and not out of ignorance or laziness. If they bother you that is your right.
Brian
I see that there’s a fair bit of criticism here. I’ve only seen about the first 45 minutes of it but look forward to watching the rest tonight. Whatever has bothered other folks about it isn’t bothering me, at least so far, and the sets and cinematography are beautiful. As one reviewer said, “What a stunning piece of art! This film is like an operatic symphony.”
It looks like it was expensive to make, and at an estimated budget of $120M, I guess it was. It has a rating of 7.7 on IMDb, and on RT it’s 85% from critics and 95% from the general audience, which puts it in the category of “excellent” according to most reviewers.
There are some electrical effects, but I didn’t find it distracting.
I saw this last night. Very well made, and with great special effects. As with many other versions, they were clearly going for impressive set pieces and shots.
To say that this is not faithful to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley’s novel is putting it mildly.
There are incidents from the novel that are presented on the screen here, but in wildly different appearances and contexts. It’s kind of like the way Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns had all the elements of “classic” Batman – the Batmobile, the Batarangs, Robin – but completely re-imagined them. So here you start out with the arctic voyage and the ship trapped in the ice, only iut’s a Scandinavian captain, bot the British Captain Wallace. Victor Frankenstein has a younger brother William who is ultimately killed by the Monster, but not until he’s a young adult. You’ve got Elizabeth, but she’s not Victor’s fiancee, she’s his brother’s, and she doesn’t much care for Victor. The Creature learns his language from spying on a family, only they[re not at all as described in the novel, and the Old Blind Guy gets a much bigger part – he’s the one who teaches the creature to speak and to read. And so forth.
Victor, as in the movies since 1931, gets a huge stone tower for his experiment, because – let’s face it – it’s expected by now. And he gets showy gear to capture the lightning, just like in the movies, and an ornate table to hold the creature – although now it looks more like a crucifix.
We’re ages away from the novel by this point. It’s not actually in the novel, by Mary Sjelley later said that her vision was of the undergraduate stuent Frankenstei constructing his Creture on the floor in his garrett apartment. And no mention of electrical devices. But that would hhardly have been photgenic, would it? One thing I will concede – that 1977 faithful version was awfully dull.
I can’t fault the film for diverging from the novel, because most versions of the story, on stage or screen, did so. In fact, the recent tendency is to make huge departures from the orginal story. Recent made-for-YV versions of Dracula, for instance, have Arthur Holmwood (that neglected husband of Lucy Westenra) as the prime mover and chief villain, or have Dracula spend a century on the ocean floor after the Demeter sinks. So what’s a virtually completely rewritten story by comparison?
In a way, this reminds me of Hammer Films’ Horror of Frankenstein, with Peter Cushing as the Doctor and CHristopher Lee as the CReature. Hammar “remade” many of the Universal Creatures, but were pretty much told to change the stories and the appearances of the Creatures. So their Creature didn’t have a flat top and neck bolts, and their Doctor was somewhat sadistic and mistreated his creaton, just as in this version.
One interpretation of the novel was that Mary Godwin Shelley was saying “THis is what would happen if men gave birth” She had good reason to be apprehensive about creating new life. Her own mother died 11 days after she was born. In the novel, Frankenstein is frightened by his own creation and has a breakdown, leaving the Creature to fend for itself, but not really through his own fault. In the del Toro film, Frankenstein clearly has no idea how to deal with his apparently idiotic creation and mistreats it – chaining it, beating it, yelling at it. He is undoubtedly following in the footstyeps of his overbearing father, who beat him when he could not learn his lessons. This sows the seeds of the Creature’s development.
Many treatments make a point of the duality between Frankenstein and his creation, making the3m somehow mirror images of each other. The 1931 film does this with some shots. The stage version from several years back did it by having the two leads switch parts frequently. The TNT TV version with Quaid did it by having the monster’s creation involving nput from Frankenstein. In this version, the closest it seems to come is with this similar early childhood treatment.
Having the Creature quote “Ozymanias” was cute. Nit only does it show his love of literature, but the poem was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary’s husband.
Overall interesting film, but don’t mistake it for a faithful adaptation of Shelley’s novel. But, on the other hand, I’m not sure the world would be well-served with a faithful adaptation.
Oh, one other thing – apparently you’re Nobody in fantastic cinema these days unless you’re living in an attic or a tower with a huge round glass window. What’s up with that? Not only do we get it in Frankenstein, but it’s also in Wicked and Wednesday.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DP6UkrXjmM4/
Also – Never Construct your Artificial Human in a room that has a giant Medusa Head Sculpture in it. It’s only asking for trouble.
https://www.livedesignonline.com/news/frankenstein-crafting-tale-eternal-exhibition
I guess it’s unusual and eye-catching.
Funny thing is I was watching this movie for a while and it didn’t click that the Elizabeth character was Mia Goth, who I should have recognized from her performance in Pearl.
Interesting interview with Goth here about her performance in Frankenstein:
It was Paradise Lost, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Plutarch’s Lives. He finds them in an abandoned satchel in the woods. From our universe’s perspective, these are not just random books. Paradise Lost teaches the creature about the creation of man, Sorrows about human emotion, and Lives about the grand expanse of the world, of human society, and of the creature’s place (or lack thereof) in that society. It’s an important distinction which books they are.
I don’t know what post gave you that impression, but it’s far, far from faithful to the book. There are very few similarities, in fact.
I mean, she is not very impactful in Frankenstein. Her character could have been played by anyone. She is much more noticeable in the horror-trilogy “X” and in Infinity Pool.
The creature tracks him there. It’s in Chapter 10. He’s hiking up Montanvert and the creature follows him up there.
“I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood beside the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier, that with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills to barricade the valley. The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me …These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me from all littleness of feeling, and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillised it. … I resolved to ascend to the summit of Montanvert. I remembered the effect that the view of the tremendous and ever-moving glacier had produced upon my mind when I first saw it. It had then filled me with a sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the soul and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy. The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget the passing cares of life. I determined to go without a guide, for I was well acquainted with the path, and the presence of another would destroy the solitary grandeur of the scene.”
“My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy;…
As I said this I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man. …I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch”
They have a short battle of wits. Viktor’s like “you kill and you’re ugly.” The wretch is like “you made me ugly. Also, aren’t you trying to kill me? Who’s the bad guy here?” And then…
Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form.”
“Thus I relieve thee, my creator,” he said, and placed his hated hands before my eyes, which I flung from me with violence; “thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor. Still thou canst listen to me and grant me thy compassion. By the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this from you. …On you it rests, whether I quit for ever the neighbourhood of man and lead a harmless life, or become the scourge of your fellow creatures and the author of your own speedy ruin.”
As he said this he led the way across the ice; I followed. … I had hitherto supposed him to be the murderer of my brother, and I eagerly sought a confirmation or denial of this opinion. For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness. These motives urged me to comply with his demand.”
And why does the creature follow him all the way up there just to argue? He’s got an ultimatum. Either Viktor will do it or the creature will just go on a killing spree forever. So he spends six chapters relaying how he learned about humans, how to read, and how he killed William. Then, finally, gets to the point of the whole show:
The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the expectation of a reply. But I was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the full extent of his proposition. He continued,
“You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede.”
And so there it is. The offer: make Adam an Eve or else it’s war against the whole human race. It’s certainly no coincidence. It’s a well-orchestrated plot by the creature.
Ruined by the Parody-I’ve been debating suggesting that one over at TV Tropes since I don’t think it exists there yet. The best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) would definitely have to be The Shining.
Are you alluding to the Simpsons Tree House Of Horror parody of The Shining?
After I finish the movie tonight, I think Young Frankenstein would be an appropriate followup! 
Yep, there’s even a phrase in the historical costuming community for glaring anachronisms: “it was a design choice”.
it doesn’t mean that movies made with such glaring anachronisms are intrinsically bad, although it probably means that I shouldn’t try to watch those movies.
I most certainly am, which now just makes me guffaw at Jack Nicholson as he chews the scenery. I forgot that there’s Parody Displacement.
Thanks for the correction, and yes, it’s important, for the story and the creature’s personality. It’s been at least a decade since I last read the book, so I misremembered.
I keep getting Guillermo del Toro confused with Benicio del Toro, which is unsurprising as both are towering figures in the film industry, the former as director and producer and the latter as an amazing actor. Regarding Benicio, I’ll always associate him with the movie Traffic, for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and Steven Soderbergh for Best Director. The film itself was nominated for Best Picture but was beaten for the win that year by Gladiator.