Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (film)

''Mary Shelley's Frankenstein'' is a 1994 science fiction horror film directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars as Victor Frankenstein, with Robert De Niro portraying Frankenstein's monster (called The Creation in the film), and co-stars Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham Carter, Ian Holm, John Cleese, Richard Briers and Aidan Quinn. In some aspects, considered to be the most faithful film adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'', despite several differences and additions, the film follows a medical student named Victor Frankenstein who creates new life in the form of a monster composed of various corpses' body parts.

''Mary Shelley's Frankenstein'' premiered at the London Film Festival and was released theatrically on November 4, 1994, by TriStar Pictures through Sony Pictures Releasing. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $112 million worldwide on a budget of $45 million, making it less successful than the previous Francis Ford Coppola-produced horror adaptation '' Bram Stoker's Dracula'' (1992).

Plot

In 1794, Captain Walton leads an expedition to the North Pole. While their ship is trapped in ice, a frightening noise is heard and a cloaked man emerges from the mist, telling the crew to follow him with their weapons. The dogs run toward the noise but are killed by its source. Walton is determined to continue the expedition; the newcomer asks, "Do you share my madness?". He reveals that his name is Victor Frankenstein and tells his life story (in flashback).

Victor grows up with his adopted sister Elizabeth Lavenza. Victor's mother dies giving birth to his brother William, and Victor vows on her grave to find a way to conquer death. Victor and his friend Henry Clerval study medicine at the University of Ingolstadt under professor Shmael Augustus Waldman, whose notes contain information on creating life. Waldman warns Victor not to use them lest he create an abomination.

Waldman is murdered by a patient who is subsequently hanged. Using the killer's body and Waldman's brain, Victor builds a creature based on Waldman's notes. He is so obsessed with his work that he drives Elizabeth away when she comes to take him from Ingolstadt, which is being quarantined amid a cholera epidemic. Victor gives his creation life, but is horrified by the creature's hideous appearance and tries to kill him. The creature steals Victor's coat and flees, and is driven away by the townspeople when he tries to steal food.

The creature shelters for months in a family's barn without their knowledge, learning to read and speak by watching them. He attempts to earn their trust by anonymously bringing them food, and eventually converses with the elderly, blind patriarch after murdering an abusive debt collector. When the man's family returns, they are terrified and chase the creature away. The creature finds Victor's journal and learns the circumstances of his creation. After returning to the farmhouse, he discovers that the family has abandoned it. He burns down the farm and vows revenge on Victor for bringing him into a world that hates him.

Returning to Geneva to marry Elizabeth, Victor learns that his younger brother William has been murdered. The Frankensteins' servant Justine is blamed and hanged by a violent mob, but Victor knows that the creature is responsible. The creature abducts Victor and demands that he create a female companion for him, promising in return to leave Victor in peace. Victor gathers his tools, but when the creature insists that he use Justine's body, Victor breaks his promise. The creature exacts revenge on Victor's wedding night by breaking into Elizabeth's bridal suite and ripping out her heart.

Victor races to bring Elizabeth back to life. He stitches her head and hands onto Justine's body, and reanimates her as a disfigured, mindless shadow of her former self. The creature demands Elizabeth to be his bride. Victor and the creature fight, but Elizabeth, realizing what has been done to her, ends her existence by setting herself on fire. Victor and the creature escape as the mansion burns.

Back in the Arctic, Victor tells Walton that he has been pursuing his creation for months to kill him. Victor dies of pneumonia, and Walton discovers the creature weeping over Victor's body, having lost the only family that he has known. The crew prepares a funeral pyre, but this cremation ceremony is interrupted when the ice around the ship cracks. Walton invites the creature onto the ship, but the creature chooses to remain with the pyre. He takes the torch and burns himself alive with Victor's body. Walton orders the ship to return home.

Cast

* Robert De Niro as The Creation, a reanimated corpse who is rejected by humanity and swears revenge on the world as a result
** De Niro also portrays Professor Waldman's killer, whose corpse was used for the creature.
* Kenneth Branagh as Victor Frankenstein, a scientist obsessed with conquering death
** Rory Jennings as young Victor Frankenstein
* Tom Hulce as Henry Clerval, Frankenstein's friend and partner
* Helena Bonham Carter as Elizabeth Lavenza Frankenstein, Frankenstein's adoptive sister and fiancée
** Hannah Taylor-Gordon as young Elizabeth Lavenza
* Ian Holm as Baron Alphonse Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's father
* John Cleese as Professor Waldman, Frankenstein's tutor
* Aidan Quinn as ship's commander Captain Robert Walton
* Richard Briers as Grandfather
* Robert Hardy as Professor Krempe
* Trevyn McDowell as Justine Moritz, a nursemaid in the Frankenstein household
** Christina Cuttall as young Justine Moritz
* Celia Imrie as Mrs. Moritz
* Cherie Lunghi as Caroline Frankenstein, Victor's mother
* Ryan Smith as William Frankenstein, Victor's younger brother
** Charles Wyn-Davies as young William Frankenstein
* Hugh Bonneville as Schiller
* Jenny Galloway as Vendor's wife
* Alex Lowe as Crewman
* George Asprey as Policeman
* Patrick Doyle (uncredited) as Ballroom orchestra conductor
* Stuart Hazeldine (uncredited) as Man in crowd scene
* Fay Ripley (deleted scenes) as Whore

Production

Steph Lady wrote the original script to the film that was sold to Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope. Coppola originally intended to direct the film, having already directed '' Bram Stoker's Dracula'' (1992), but instead elected to serve as executive producer. Coppola wanted Robert De Niro cast as The Creature above all else, which resulted in his casting over considerations of casting Gérard Depardieu and Andy García.

De Niro chose Branagh to direct the film. Branagh brought in Frank Darabont to write a second draft of the screenplay, insisting on including elements from the novel that had not been present in the script, complete with having as many "explicitly sexual birth images" to go along with elements inspired from Mary Shelley's life in terms of her being "surrounded by images of death". As opposed to the novel, the film includes a re-created bride due to Branagh believing that it seemed to "make psychological sense" while reflecting on his difference from James Whale in his staging for both of his Frankenstein films that he stated as having "high camp".

Filming began on October 21, 1993, and wrapped on February 25, 1994. Branagh stated in an interview that the film was "a family tragedy, like Shakespeare. There are lots of echoes of 'Hamlet' in it, I think. Victor Frankenstein is the opposite side of the same coin as Hamlet. Instead of forming a philosophy of death and our journey toward it, he resists it. He says, 'Let's stop them dying and see if we can do it better.' He replaces Hamlet's intellectual pursuit with physical action. And still isn't happy." De Niro studied stroke victims in preparation for the voice of The Creature.

Release

The film had its world premiere on November 3, 1994, at the London Film Festival before opening in the United Kingdom and United States on November 4.

Reception

Frank Darabont

Original screenwriter Steph Lady, who sold the script to Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope, said, "The film was a shocking disappointment; a misshapen monster born of Kenneth Branagh's runaway ego. He took a poignant, thought-provoking tragedy and turned it into a heavy metal monster movie. The casting of Robert De Niro as the monster was beyond inexplicable." Frank Darabont, who did a second draft, called the film "the best script I ever wrote and the worst movie I've ever seen". He elaborated:

There's a weird doppelgänger effect when I watch the movie. It's kind of like the movie I wrote, but not at all like the movie I wrote. It has no patience for subtlety. It has no patience for quiet moments. It has no patience period. It's big and loud and blunt and rephrased by the director at every possible turn. Cumulatively, the effect was a totally different movie. I don't know why Branagh needed to make this big, loud film ... the material was subtle. Shelley's book was way out there in a lot of ways, but it's also very subtle. I don't know why it had to be this operatic attempt at filmmaking. Shelley's book is not operatic, it whispers at you a lot. The movie was a bad one. That was my Waterloo. That's where I really got my ass kicked most as a screenwriter ... ranaghreally took the brunt of the blame for that film, which was appropriate. That movie was his vision entirely. If you love that movie you can throw all your roses at Ken Branagh's feet. If you hated it, throw your spears there too, because that was his movie.

Critical response

Roger Ebert of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' gave the film 2½ stars out of 4, writing: "I admired the scenes with De Niro s the Creatureso much I'm tempted to give ''Mary Shelley's Frankenstein'' a favorable verdict. But it's a near miss. The Creature is on target, but the rest of the film is so frantic, so manic, it doesn't pause to be sure its effects are registered."

Janet Maslin of ''The New York Times'' wrote, "Branagh is in over his head. He displays neither the technical finesse to handle a big, visually ambitious film nor the insight to develop a stirring new version of this story. Instead, this is a bland, no-fault ''Frankenstein'' for the '90s, short on villainy but loaded with the tragically misunderstood. Even the Creature (Robert De Niro), an aesthetically challenged loner with a father who rejected him, would make a dandy guest on any daytime television talk show."

Conversely, James Berardinelli of Reelviews.net gave the film three stars out of four: "''Mary Shelley's Frankenstein'' may not be the definitive version of the 1818 novel, and the director likely attempted more than is practical for a two-hour film, but overambition is preferable to the alternative, especially if it results—as in this case—in something more substantial than Hollywood's typical, fitfully entertaining fluff."

James Lowder reviewed ''Mary Shelley's Frankenstein'' in '' White Wolf Inphobia'' #55 (May, 1995), rating it 3 out of 5, and stated that "the prolonged goop-wrestling that follows the Creature's birth and the uncomfortable dance scene with Victor and the reanimated Elizabeth tumble right past melodrama into the realm of outright weirdness."

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on a scale of A+ to F.

Box office

''Mary Shelley's Frankenstein'' collected $11,212,889 during its opening weekend, ranking in second place at the box office below ''Stargate''. In the US and Canada, the film grossed $22,006,296, with the opening weekend making up more than half of its total. The film opened the same day in the United Kingdom and Ireland and was the number one film with a gross of $2 million (£1.3 million) in its opening weekend from 320 screens. It remained at number one in the UK for a second week. Outside the U.S. and Canada, it grossed $90 million, bringing the worldwide gross to $112 million.

Year-end lists

* 3rd worst – Peter Travers, ''Rolling Stone''
* 9th worst – Janet Maslin, ''The New York Times''

Accolades

Video game

A video game adaptation based on the film was released on numerous home video game consoles in 1994. A themed pinball machine was released in early 1995 by Sega Pinball; it is one of the machines included in the video pinball simulator '' The Pinball Arcade''.

See also

* ''Frankenstein'' in popular culture
* List of films featuring Frankenstein's monster
* '' Bram Stoker's Dracula'' (1992), a similar adaptation from Coppola

References

External links

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{{Portal bar, United States, Japan, 1990s, Film, Novels, Literature, Speculative fiction, Science fiction, Horror

Frankenstein films
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Films directed by Kenneth Branagh
Films produced by Francis Ford Coppola
Films with screenplays by Frank Darabont
Films based on horror novels
Films scored by Patrick Doyle
Films set in country houses
Films set in Germany
Films set in Switzerland
Films set in 1794
Films set in the Arctic
Films shot in England
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Films adapted into comics
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Films about grave-robbing
Gothic horror films
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English-language science fiction horror films