The Past Digs Itself Up
Review of Gods and Monsters (1998)
Seen on 8 November 1998 with Tony at the Quad for $8.
"You must please excuse me. You see, I'm blind," says the old man to the monster--the noble, misunderstood, and murderous creature cobbled together by Dr. Frankenstein. And so a pure but brief friendship ensues in The Bride of Frankenstein.
Contrast this to the first meeting of Frankenstein's director James Whale (Sir Ian McKellen) and yardsman Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser), where first appearances prove deceptive. That friendship takes longer to blossom but finds a real depth.
The movie opens during the final year in the life of gay film director James Whale, best known as the director of Frankenstein and its first sequel, and less known for The Invisible Man and Showboat. He suffers a stroke, and while he remains as wily as ever in his 1950s-style queer-dirty-old-man way, the past he spent his life escaping now "floods all over" him. Not just moviemaking, but also the ghosts of a lost time and lost possibilities. The memories of a boy brought up by people who were "like a family of farmers given a giraffe and not knowing what to do with it."
Clayton Boone proves to be an exception for Whale. He's not the typical fawning acolyte, impressed by status and fame. In his own environment, the trailer-dwelling gardener is surrounded by more simplistic people, who say things like "Funny is funny. Scary is scary. You don't mix 'em." While Whale slowly reveals himself to Boone, making himself visible a bit at a time, his devoted yet somewhat disgusted housekeeper Hanna (Lynn Redgrave) spills all the beans eventually ("He's a buggerer!") to Boone. Despite having the gaps filled for him, he keeps coming back, posing for a painting and befriending the ill, older man, finding a real affection and respect for him. Remember, this is the mid-1950s. Such understanding between two men so clearly different is not expected.
The friendship has two culminations--a hilarious one at a party thrown by George Cukor (another gay director) for Princess Margaret, and a more pathos-filled one later that evening during a thunderstorm. While comparisons to Love and Death on Long Island have been made, Gods and Monsters succeeds in two ways the earlier film did not: There is a certain degree of fulfillment, and a greater sense of depth of the two protagonists.
McKellen's performance is outstanding, as he vascilates from witty (laughing off his "touch of stroke") to heartrending (as he remembers his personal losses during World War I) to salacious and lubricious (cajoling a reporter into stripping). (It almost makes up for the homophobic Apt Pupil). Fraser holds his own as typical working man with an atypical capacity for understanding.
Redgrave, as Hanna, brings a real Calvinism to her role as the near-spousal devotee of her boss in a Hollywood where the invisible are allowed to live out dissipated lifestyles as long as they keep it quiet. Her almost puritanical outlook brings a real hilarity to the "den of iniquity" she thinks she is tending.
Director Bill Condon brings a fullness to James Whale by mixing movies and memories, alternating black and white with color, and humor with sadness. This has brought Gods and Monsters to a higher level that has garnered him several awards already, was the toast of the New York Film Festival, and has a lot of people calling for Oscar nominations. Based on Christopher Bram's novel Father of Frankenstein (which received lukewarm reviews), Condon's adaptation is one of those instances of the movie bettering a book.
Also starring Lolita Davidovich, David Dukes, Jack Plotnick, and Rosalind Ayres as a dead ringer for actress Elsa Lanchester (who played "The Bride"). Original music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Stephen M. Katz.
More movie reviews by Seth Bookey, with graphics, can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2679/kino.html
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