MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Robert DeNiro, Kenneth Branagh, Helena Bonham Carter. Screenplay: Steph Lady and Frank Darabont. Director: Kenneth Branagh.
In the first place, this is *not* Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN. As iconic and thematically fascinating as Shelley's novel might be, it is unfilmable as written, a rambling piece more notable for long philosophical musings than for any action one would consider cinematically ideal. No, while this version may be more faithful than most, it is really Kenneth Branagh's FRANKENSTEIN, and therein lies its crucial failing. While ostensibly attempting to stay close to Shelley's often tedious narrative, Branagh is more frequently indulging his bombastic filmmaking style, giving us the gee-whiz camera work of DEAD AGAIN without any of that film's sense of fun.
Branagh also stars as Victor Frankenstein, the Swiss medical student haunted by the death of his mother. Determined to find a way to defeat death, he decides to pursue the experiments of his mentor Dr. Waldman (John Cleese) into the re-animation of dead tissue. Frankenstein's experiment is a success, but when he sees the creature (Robert DeNiro) that is his handiwork, he abandons it. However, the creature survives, escaping into the country to learn about its own nature. When it realizes who is responsible for its existence, the creature decides to seek vengeance, on Frankenstein and his beloved fiancee Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter).
There are a truckload of bad decisions involved in MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN, but the most glaring might be Branagh casting himself as the good mad doctor. As talented a Shakespearean stage actor as he is, he is also a Shakespearean stage actor on film. Victor Frankenstein is a character defined by torment, but Branagh's version of torment often consists of howling and tearing at his hair. The screenplay by Steph Lady and Frank Darabont does far too little to establish the Oedipal subtext which is the basis for Frankenstein's obsession, making Branagh's reaction to his mother's death look comically overboard. When nearly a full hour goes by before the creature plays a significant role, Frankenstein's characterization needs to be developed more consistently and subtly, and Branagh can't pull it off.
He also seems to direct that first hour without any thought of the audience. It's true that he's dealing with a script that leap-frogs over twenty years in the first ten minutes, but Branagh's editing choices are baffling. The opening sequence, which takes place on a ship in the Arctic, is so loud and fast that it borders on the incoherent; the next twenty minutes are a crashing bore. FRANKENSTEIN always looks impressive, particularly the mammoth stairway of the Frankenstein manor which seems to take on a life of its own, but until the creation sequence Branagh spends an awful lot of time doing precious little but creating atmosphere as precociously as possible.
The creation sequence does signal a significant improvement in FRANKENSTEIN, and that is largely due to the surprisingly expressive performance of Robert DeNiro as the creature. Even under mounds of gruesome latex, DeNiro gives the creature an interior life, and some of the scenes which focus on his interaction with a peasant family are extremely touching. But he is frequently failed by Branagh's direction, because Branagh doesn't want to concentrate on the story's philosophical underpinnings--he wants to film an opera. He directs the same way someone once described Whitney Houston's singing: he never walks when he can cartwheel.
There are moments of undeniable power in MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN, including a horrifying sequence involving the creation of a bride for the creature, and they are so strong that they almost make up for the flotsam between them. Unfortunately, for the most part FRANKENSTEIN the movie ends up a lot like the creature itself: alternately lumbering and chaotic, and a patchwork mess.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 creatures: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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