Dancing Frankenstein
(originally posted on IMDb 26 August 2018)

After re-reading Mary Shelley's story, I've sought out a bunch of Frankenstein films--something I previously did with Bram Stoker's book. Like its predecessor, "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), this film places the author of the original source in the film's title, and both films are highly stylized adaptations that diverge significantly from their novels, especially by adding romance. Producer of this film and director of the prior one, Francis Ford Coppola handed this project off to Kenneth Branagh and, based on the 1992 film, which I have mixed feelings for, I'm glad he did. As also demonstrated by his Shakespeare productions, Branagh shows an appreciation for the themes of his source material and in adapting them cinematically. Moreover, he manages to stitch it together with the (seemingly obligatory) movie romance, which is what killed Coppola's "Dracula."

Thematically, which I think is the important thing--as opposed to story particulars, Branagh's film is the more faithful to its source. For his romance, Coppola took the reincarnation romance device from prior Dracula movies--mainly the 1974 TV movie of the same name by Dan Curtis. This also led to the inflation of Dracula being the historical Vlad the Impaler, a connection that was only speculated by Van Helsing in a couple sentences in the long-winded novel. The reincarnation romance is entirely absent in Stoker's "Dracula," who was a decidedly non-romantic and villainous figure. Shelley's book and monster is comparatively more tender and passionately philosophical, which in that respect lends itself better to romance movie conflation, despite vampires being an easy allegory for sex.

For this, "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" expands the character of Elizabeth, as well as Professor Waldman earlier on, for a similar teacher-pupil relationship that's every bit as romantic in its passionate scientific dialogue despite its platonic nature. For a modern movie, I dare say this is an improvement on the source; ironically, despite being written by a woman, the female characters in "Frankenstein" are mostly passive, including Elizabeth and Justine, and with one mother being dead and the other a wretch. Dracula movies usually have the opposite problem: whereas Stoker features a heroine who becomes a leader and surrogate storyteller within the story, the film adaptations, including Coppola's, reduce her to a damsel in distress or a concubine of the Count. The only distasteful consequence of this film's approach in this regard is that the character of Henry Clerval is reduced here to the stupid friend type of comic relief that's more at home in bad rom-coms.

This film features and understands the doppelgänger theme, of man's drive and the risks of progress, between Frankenstein and Walton, a framing device usually absent in adaptations, without over-burdening the film with the epistolary plot of the novel, and the movie, as with the book, still contains narratives from the perspective of three different characters: Walton, Frankenstein and his creature. Frankenstein's journal here also compensates for the condensing. Also unlike most Frankenstein films, the creation scenes don't prominently feature lightning, but lightning does have a more playful part in an earlier scene here. In fact, there's quite a bit of play early on, especially between Victor and his mother and Elizabeth, which helps to establish women as active participants in this romantic adaptation. It also helps that the female lead is portrayed by a strong actress, Helena Bonham Carter, for once.

Much of the playing involves dancing. It's an odd addition to a Frankenstein adaptation, but it perfectly suits its operatically cinematic style, with camera movements that swoop through the action, as well as the brisk pacing and score, which some have derided as "loud," but I find entirely welcome. The sets, including the large ballroom and staircase, also fit into this design. The visual motif of dancing camerawork serves an interesting function when it returns in the creation scenes, as well as Victor's use of dance to jog the memory of his Bride, and even the film's mob scenes play out like grand operatic numbers. In the laboratory scenes, Frankenstein employs electric eels coming from a hanging balloon sack into a filled tub. A key ingredient for this Frankenstein, also, is embryonic fluid, which he steals along with the usual body parts. As Caroline Joan S. Picart ("The Cinematic Rebirth of Frankenstein") has also mentioned, Victor and the camera's dance-like movements during creation strongly imply sexual acts, which is further evidenced by the the sack and eels standing in for a scrotum and semen, as they provide a mother-less birth to the homunculi in the womb-like tub filled with embryonic fluid. The scenes are also much more akin to natural birth--physical and messy--than those in the 1931 iteration and its many imitators.

Robert De Niro's creature is also good. He's not as eloquent as Shelley's version, but he's more articulate than Boris Karloff's and his many imitators, while still retaining the misunderstood childlike nature of Karloff's monster. I also like the addition of the film tradition of "Bride of Frankenstein," which helps to expand woman's role in this creation myth. The 1935 sequel is the closest of the Universal classic horror films to depict a fleshed out female character, which couldn't be done by simply adapting the novel, and, instead, was only realized by inserting the source's author in the story and realizing the unfulfilled promise of Shelley's Frankenstein.

(Note: There's a mirror shot of Frankenstein after he becomes horrified at his creation.)

(Included on my list of 50--and counting--Frankenstein films.)