The story of the creature people mislabel as “Frankenstein” has become a familiar tale. Even if you had no idea that the story comes from a book, that the whole title of that book was “Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus,” and that it was written by a woman named Mary Shelley, you know the name of the work and its basic premise. It’s become so well-known that it’s ubiquitous around Halloween.
What Shelley hit on, with her book, was the growing unease at science stepping into the shadow that only God dwelt in. Through science, people could be saved from certain death, could live longer than ever before, and would stop praying for miracles that were now a reality. It wasn’t that science was seen as bad, per se, but that it was seen as a tool humanity needed to wield carefully.
Let’s be honest, within a handful of years, we’ll have a reimagining of “Frankenstein” as the story of an AI that is out of control after its creation.
You may laugh, but can you say you don’t see that happening?
Like “Dracula” and a handful of other books, “Frankenstein” has become so much larger than the book and its author that the original work gets lost in the forest of all the adaptations. The idea of bringing life to the lifeless, to creating a sentient creature, those are tropes that spring from that tree. Think of the film RE-ANIMATOR, sure, it’s based on a Lovecraft story, but at its core, it’s a riff on the story of “Frankenstein.”
Sure, sure, sure, you can get into the weeds of the old chestnut of “there are no new stories,” and yeah, that’s true, mostly (a golem is really similar to the creature of “Frankenstein,” but they are not the same), but not completely. So, let’s skip that argument.
When you think of “Frankenstein” as a property, do you think of the original Universal films, or the Hammer films, or a contemporary version with Robert DeNiro? Or do you think of one of the movies where the creature is in it, somewhere? The creature appears in kids’ cartoons, in animated movies, in advertisements, in comics, in games, and on and on. Next to Dracula, the creature is something you know just by sight.
What’s been interesting is to see how the story can be adapted, and re-adapted, and through that alchemy changed to fit the tastes of the adaptation or the times. The most recent adaptation is Guillermo del Toro’s take on the story, a passion project he has wanted to bring to life for the better part of his career.
In watching del Toro’s adaptation, you can clearly see the influence of the director on the work, and its influence on him. He is a man who has always sided with the “monster,” as it represents society’s outcasts. The film has all of his hallmarks, with rich, gorgeous sets and costumes, strong acting from familiar actors, and a sense of wonder to even the most horrifying things. The story is close to the book it adapts, but not completely faithful.
It is an adaptation, not a reproduction.
And this is the strange land that the story of the creature lives in, as many great works do as well. The desire to tell the story, but to tell it in your way, through your eyes. Which means that you never quite get the whole story of the original work. Stephen King is one of the most popular writers of the modern age, yet his works change and evolve through adaptation. Some hew closer to the book than others, but none are exact replicas. In adapting a work, there has to be room, too, for the adaptor to imprint it with their own DNA as well. And honestly, some stories just aren’t easy to adapt, for various reasons.
So it is that this new FRANKENSTEIN deviates from the original work. It is faithful to the heart of the work, to its spirit, and to its intention, but it is still different.
And that’s fine.
The thing about “Frankenstein” is that there have been so many different versions, from the subtle to the grotesque, that you can choose whichever version you prefer. Or you can stick with the original book. There is a reason people still read books: it is a singular work of art that distills from one creator (or a small number of them at most) into the reader. They whisper into your mind and weave a spell of words that transports you to a new world, and sometimes changes how you see the world around you.
Works like “Frankenstein” are so rare because they do capture a grand idea in a relatable machine, and that ghost lives on well past the story being told. Some stories stick with us because of their mythic quality. The story of Man trying their hand at being God is an old tale, but through “Frankenstein,” we see how our modern world has opened a door that too many are eager to go through without questioning where it leads.
And which adaptation of the book of the great creature is best? It truly is up to what you want out of it. Del Toro’s adaptation is lush and gorgeous, but it feels as if so much is left off-screen that I found myself wishing it were a miniseries rather than just a movie. It is the work of a master, but I didn’t find myself within the magic it wove. I liked it quite a bit, but wasn’t charmed by it as much as I had hoped.
And therein lies the glory of the written word, the original book, because it lives on, like the creature within it, and is there waiting for us to discover it anew. One of the world’s most influential books, it has birthed countless adaptations, interpretations, and rip-offs. And yet it lives. The world is a better place for this new FRANKENSTEIN, a work that humanizes the creature more than I had ever seen before, but it is but an adaptation of the original work, beautiful and imperfect. For me, the more interesting aspect of the film is that, now that the creature has been birthed by del Toro, what comes next? So many of his films have been inspired by that work, and the flawed “monster” at the center of the story, that it will be fascinating to see what he does next.
Whatever comes next, for del Toro and the creature, we will see them again, lurking along the far horizon, watchful, waiting, and hoping to make a friend out of humanity, if we can but rise to meet them.
…c…
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 