My AP students have finished reading Frankenstein and will soon start to write their papers on that novel. Often, at this point in the year, students ask me if I can recommend a good movie version. Perhaps someday a really skillful director will make a film version of Frankenstein that really captures the complexity of the novel, but so far, I haven't found one...Why is it so hard to make a good movie from this novel? Well, here's my answer to that question.
Shelley sets up a conflict between narrative and spectacle,
between hearing and seeing, between the Creature’s story, which is attractive,
and his body, which is repellent. Film
is an almost entirely visual medium and therefore cannot do justice to all of
Shelley’s creation.
Like Victor Frankenstein, filmmakers want to create life (or the image/illusion of it), and for them, as for him, movement is equated with life. Historically, film comes into being—comes to life, as it were—when artists/scientists animate photography, when they make still photographs into moving pictures. Victor likewise animates a (heavily edited) corpse. Filmmakers fall in love with Victor’s ambition because they share it.
Thus, the filmmakers turn the process
of creating and animating the Creature into a lavish spectacle and put all
their effort into exaggerating the Creature’s horrible visage and stilted
movements; in so doing, they see (the Creature) first and listen (to him)
later—if at all. They encourage viewers
to stare and be repulsed, rather than to listen and then understand.
The novel, on the other hand, lets us (along with Robert
Walton) see the Creature only after we have listened to him. As we read his narrative, we see the world
through his eyes; we don’t look into them.
Consequently, instead of staring at his body, our thoughts paralyzed by
his horrifying appearance, we see past his body and think along with him about what
it means to be human.
The mind’s eye is more sympathetic than the body’s eye. The mind’s eye can only see when it listens,
and it creates an image of the Creature based on his narrative, and so sees his
spirit, while the body’s eye, like the camera, often sees only the body and
fails to capture the spirit. And all the
body-language in the world, no matter how skillfully captured on film, cannot
convey the depths of misery and the pains of isolation that the Creature articulates so
eloquently in his narrative and which we can only perceive and understand when
we read it.
So, I'm still waiting...maybe someday...
It's difficult to imagine a version of the creature whose appearance wouldn't distract or alter how his internal dialogue (still, as you noted, retold by Victor) is interpreted/understood by the audience.
ReplyDeleteTrue, and that's why the narrative needs to be heard/read before it can be truly seen. Robert hears the story before he sees the Creature, and that's why Robert doesn't freak out when he sees him.
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