I am a big Frankenstein fan. The novel foremost, but also its legacy. A few years back, I went to the Morgan Library here in NYC and got to see an exhibit there all about Frankenstein, marking its 200th-year anniversary.
I’m invested in its ideas, and where it came from, and how it ties into other legends and folklore, like the Golem of Prague or Talos of Greek mythology. And ultimately, these stories tie back into what makes us human, and what mysteries drive us. So I care about how the concept of the created man plays out in each new incarnation.
Like Guillermo del Toro’s new Frankenstein. I admit, I’m a bit surprised at how polarizing it seems to be. All the buzz, but especially all the criticism, has revealed how many book fans are out there, I guess, which is great. If there was no book at all, and this was just a film in isolation, it would be fantastic all by itself. But Mary Shelley did write an amazing novel, a richer story than this film gives us, and it’s impossible not to consider the source.
This isn’t Boris Karloff’s monster. Or Robert DeNiro’s or Bela Lugosi’s or Christopher Lee’s. When it comes to the monster, visually, this film is probably closer to “accurate” than we’ve ever seen before. But the more I think about the film, and all the other characters we’ve been given, the more I think about the book.
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Foreshadowed and Foresung 