Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Authors Avatar

English Coursework

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a film, which is based upon the Book by Mary Shelley. It shows an eager young Scientist who changes the views on human re-animation. At the same Dr Viktor Frankenstein must deal with the moral issues involved with his decision to play god.

The film moves from the start of the film with young Frankenstein and dreams of changing Scientific History to a man bent on revenge. When Frankenstein creates the Monster he finds out the mistake he has made and decides to leave the monster. The Monster is thought to be dead by Frankenstein and then leaves him alone. After the Monster is believed to be dead, it wakes up. Frankenstein then leaves the Monster alone. He seems to be an outsider to everyone.

The basic tale is of an outsider who tries to get by in the world.

Kenneth Branagh, who also played Victor Frankenstein, directed the Film. The film stars a number of different actors.

These include Kenneth Branagh, Robert De Niro,  and . With this list of stars the film shows a good range of different acting.

Of course the Film is adapted from Mary Shelley’s Gothic Horror Novel, Frankenstein. It is adapted very well from the original novel.

In the Film there is a specific class structure. The rich upper class shows Frankenstein’s Family and the kind of people who wouldn’t be killed by disease. The Towns people show the lower class world. These are the people who would riot, the peasants of the time.

In the film the monster doesn’t appear to belong to either class group. At the same time Frankenstein appears to belong to the upper class group but then believes he is better than upper class. He sees himself as a god like figure.

The Divide in the population is to show the pain and suffering during the time of the novel. It also shows the outside world compared to both Frankenstein and the Monster. Both the Monster and Frankenstein are portrayed as outsiders in the film. This is for a number of reasons. The main two are that Frankenstein’s intellect and views on human re-animation separates him from society and the monsters appearance. These two differences show the difference in society in the eighteenth century and the difference in society today as well.

The media is also presented rather strangely in this film version of the book. The film begins with a blurb read by a woman. It could be made to sound like Mary Shelley. The blurb reads a tale about the change of the scientific knowledge in the late 18th Century. In then goes on to question the moral issues involved with these new scientific breakthroughs.

The narrative is done by Frankenstein himself. As the film starts we see an icy landscape. A ship full of voyagers to the north pole are stuck due to a crash into an iceberg. The ships captain insists on continuing their mission towards the North Pole, where as his crew believe they should turn around and head home. After hearing screams from the icy darkness, Frankenstein comes out of the shadows. Frankenstein then tells them the story of his greatest abomination and the result would haunt the crew in the North Pole. Frankenstein then starts the story, and the films story begins.

Throughout the film, the story is updated by the main character, Frankenstein. At the end of the film the story returns to the icy landscape and Frankenstein’s story of his mistake. The crew believe that it is just a story but it is confirmed when the monster comes to the scene. Although the monster returns, Frankenstein has already passed on. The film effectively begins at the end and goes through to get back there.

The book is very effectively transferred into a film. This version of the film is not the first. There have been a number of adaptations of the book but none of them have been as real as this film. It is thought that the film was name ‘Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’ to portray this image of the best adaptation of the book. It is also thought to be named this so that it wasn’t thought to be Kenneth Branagh’s version of the book. Where as other versions have been made to be horror films this one is a Gothic Horror/Thriller, this was done to bring the book to life. It seems that Kenneth Branagh wanted to make the best that he could out of the book, it was much more like the book and it had none of the early films clichés. It bought a very old horror book to life and is very realistic.

Join now!

In this film language is very important. It helps the films integrity as gothic horror film, as apposed to horror. The language used at the beginning is telling a story, e.g. Frankenstein telling his past. During the film the language is very proper, it is very appropriate for the period it is set in. Of course it isn’t exactly perfect due to the marketing area of things. The film is set up so the language used is very horrific. It refers to different parts of the body and how they would put them together; this is all done very graphically. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay