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I spent
the Saturday afternoons of my childhood hunkering down on
my living room couch to watch Creature Double Feature
on our small black-and-white TV. I loved Godzilla,
Gorgo, the giant ants of Them! , War of the
Worlds, and those delightful shock-fests from England's
Hammer Studios with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Those
movies were creepy because, unlike today's horror films, they
left almost everything to my imagination—and my imagination
can be a whole lot scarier than anything Hollywood can dish
out. It's no wonder audiences back then found those classic
monster movies shocking and truly scary.
But none
were better than Universal's classics: The Creature from
the Black Lagoon; Bela Lugosi as Dracula; Lon Chaney Jr.
as the Wolf Man; and of course, Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's
monster. Watching Colin Clive scream, "It's alive! It's alive!"
remains one of the most thrilling moments of movie magic ever
filmed.
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Boris
Karloff as the Creature in Frankenstein.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures. |
The beauty
of a story like Frankenstein is that it succeeds on
so many levels. The movie captured my imagination as a kid,
but as I grew older, I began to appreciate the subtleties
of Mary Shelley's novel. For one thing, her creature is an
eloquent, thoughtful being who's ugly but graceful. That's
a stark contrast to the lumbering Karloff, who had 48 pounds
of steel bars sewn into his costume to make him move stiffly.
Karloff's monster barely uttered anything beyond growls and
snarls, and when he does learn to speak in Bride of Frankenstein,
it's in short, choppy sentences.
More
importantly, the book asks big-picture questions that are
still highly relevant: Just because we have the technology
to do something, should we do it? What role do ethics play
in science? What is the cost of failure—and the price
of success? What makes a human human? Frankenstein
raises questions about parent/child relationships, class struggle,
commitment and responsibility. The text is rich with themes
worthy of exploration and reflection.
I've
also seen the text over-explored and overanalyzed. Frankenstein
has long been a favorite target of literary theorists who
have pumped the novel's textual depths for anything from metaphors
that support class warfare to proof that men make bad parents.
It hasn't mattered to these literati that Shelley may not
have intended any such things: To them, the text, like the
creature itself, is alive and out of its creator's control.
While
theorists have their small battles over meaning and metaphor,
the rest of the world has enjoyed Shelley's novel for nearly
200 years because of the power of its story. We sympathize
with the creature when the villagers chase it through the
forest with torches and pitchforks for no reason other than
they're scared of it. After all, the creature is different.
It's not inherently evil, even though the villagers insist
on casting it that way. As viewers or as readers, we feel
uncomfortable at the injustice of it. The poor creature, we
think, if only they would just leave it alone!
But what's
really sad—or perhaps really horrible—is that Frankenstein
happens around us every day. Angry villagers drive someone
out of town just for being different: for being black or Hispanic
or homosexual or foreign or poor. And when that happens, we
have a tougher time seeing the situation for what it is and
a tougher time feeling sympathy for "the creature"—especially
if we're the villagers.
But if
it sounds like too much work to engage Frankenstein
on those levels, there's nothing wrong with sitting back and
letting the story capture one's imagination the way it has
done since 1818.
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Robert
DeNero as the Creature in Frankenstein.
Photo courtesy of American Zoetrope. |
The book
has never been out of print. It's one of the most adapted
pieces of literature ever written. Movie versions include
seven Universal films, including the first three with Boris
Karloff. The shadow Karloff cast remains very long,
and arguably, he has become as synonymous with Frankenstein
as Mary Shelley herself. Almost everyone who hears the word
"Frankenstein" thinks of Karloff's flat-topped creature with
bolts in its neck. As a result, most versions try too hard
to go out of their way to not be like Karloff.
Other
notable adaptations include a series of films from Hammer
Studios, starting with Curse of Frankenstein spawning
as many sequels as Universal's series; a version directed
by and starring Kenneth Branaugh, with Robert DeNiro as the
Creature; and most recently a version from Hallmark Entertainment.
There's
Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein. There's Jesse James
Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, Frankenstein and the
Creature from Outer Space, and even Frankenhooker.
The first film version, though, came from the man who invented
motion pictures, Thomas Edison. One of his first movies was
a ten-minute production of Frankenstein.There are songs written
about and inspired by Frankenstein. And let's not forget
Herman Munster on TV—a role that made Fred Gwynn famous.
The first
stage version appeared in 1823, just seven years after Mary
Shelley published her book. She was excited at the chance
to see her story staged. It was such a success that it was
revived in 1826, the same year the first foreign-language
version of the play appeared. Today, no less than a dozen
stage versions exist.
If anything
can be said of Frankenstein, it's that after nearly
200 years, it has a life of its own. "It's alive! It's alive!"
indeed.
Some
purists who cling to Shelley's novel mock even the most compelling
adaptations—such as Karloff's—because they stray
from the text. But time itself has strayed from the original
text, too, making it less accessible than it once was. Perhaps
adaptations allow contemporary audiences access the story
in ways more relevant or entertaining to them. One size no
longer fits all—or has to. Most adaptations, to varying
degrees, hold to the spirit of Shelley's story.
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| The
inside cover of the 1831 edition of Frankenstein. |
But by
adapting the story, does the process of derivation rob it
of the very thing that makes it so powerful in the first place?
The question becomes the very question Shelley asks: What
is a soul, and can an artificial creation have one? Is the
soul of Shelley's story still present in these adaptations?
Doubtless,
Shelley's story sometimes does get sacrificed in the process
of adaptation. The emphasis gets shifted to the spectacle
and the horror—after all, those kinds of elements make
for good movies and plays because they're exciting to see.
But the
meat of Shelley's story remains in all the big-picture questions
any adaptation raises—and they are questions we must
continually ask ourselves and questions with which we continually
challenge ourselves. What role do ethics play in science?
What is the relationship between science and nature? What
is the nature and purpose of risk? What responsibilities do
parents have to their children? What responsibilities do people
who have, have toward those who have not? How does fear influence
reason? How does fear influence prejudice?
What
makes us us?
It only
stands to reason that we'll each have our own answer to that
question—perhaps the most important question the story
raises. "Who am I? What makes me me? Where do I come from?"
Frankenstein's
creation asks this of his maker. Mary Shelley's novel asks
this of its readers. However,
that's not to say the story is so heavy handed that it has
to be engaged so cerebrally. It is possible to watch the movies
or go to the plays or read the book for the simple pure joy
of it. After all, that's how I got hooked all those years
ago.
Nowadays,
I curl up on my living room couch watching those same old
monster movies with my eight-year-old son. It's like taking
a trip down memory lane while simultaneously opening the doors
of imagination. We watched Frankenstein together for
the first time not too long ago. My son got a little scared
by Karloff and hid under a blanket, trying to decide whether
it was safe to steal a peek. I chuckled. He eventually came
out.
He's
just one more victim of Frankenstein's 200-year old legacy--just
like me. Just like a lot of us.
(March,
2008)
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