Shakespeare < Branagh , Text < Film , Reading < Watching

Kenneth Branagh’s film Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is arguably the most accurate version of the novel. But at the same time there is one main difference that separates the two. All can agree that in Shelly’s novel, Victor creates life due to his obsession with knowledge and his desire to uncover “secrets of heaven and earth.” However, in the film, Victor’s motive is due to create life is his fear of and his desire to prevent death. Branagh uses the visual aspect of the medium of film to highlight this new theme. In doing so he  incorporates a visual perspective to the story in a way  that a written novel cannot.

In Shelly’s novel Frankenstein, death seems irrelevant before Victor creates his monster. In chapter five Victor briefly mentions his mother’s death.  Shelly makes it clear that there is more important material to focus on other than Caroline’s death. However, Branagh’s film makes it clear that Caroline’s death plays an important role in Victor’s motive to create life. Branagh not only changes Caroline’s death to a more violent and gory one but also includes an entire scene for it.  The scene begins with the Frankenstein family dancing in the ball room, when suddenly Caroline faints to the floor.  The scene then shifts to Caroline covered in blood moaning, “Just save the baby!”  Victor hears the cries of his blood-soaked father and races past him to find Caroline’s dead body. The scene ends with Victor sobbing over his mother’s bloody body repeating, “bring her back!” Victor is introduced to the pain and suffering caused by death for the first time, and therefore begins to fear it. The film flashes forward three years later with Victor standing over his mother’s grave. Victor whispers in despair, “Oh mother you should of never died. No one need ever die. I will stop this, I will stop this, I promise.” Victor feels that no one should ever go through the pain of losing someone close, and promises to put and end to death. It is obvious that Victor fears death, and it is safe to say that those who have suffered the pain of losing someone close would do anything possible to prevent it from happing again.

Branagh reinforces his theme by creating a death as well as adding important dialogue in the Professor’s death scene . The scene opens with Victor, Henry Clerval, and Professor Waldmen at the dinner table. Victor explains to the two, ” The best way to cheat death is to create life.” Victor voices to the audience that it is possible to prevent death, and that the best way possible is by creating life. Branagh creates the death of Professor Waldmen, who never died at any point during the novel. In this scene Professor Waldmen is stabbed in the chest by a homeless man. The scene then jumps to Victor covered in blood violently pounding his professor’s chest trying bring him back to life.  Victor finds himself once again in the presence of death, helpless in saving his professor. Soon after Waldmen’s death, Victor takes action and begins his experiment to create life.  Waldmen’s death was the final . In other words, Waldmen’s death was, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Branagh uses the medium of film to direct the viewer’s attention to why victor fears death.  Unlike  a novel, a film provides the audience with a visual perspective of the story. This visual perspective allows the audience to experience  the story as if it was taking place right in front of their eyes.  Branagh takes full advantage of this aspect, and applies it to its fullest in both Caroline’s and Professor Waldman’s deaths. In Caroline’s death scene the viewer is transported right into the Frankenstein mansion, becoming an eyewitness to  Caroline’s agonizing death. Branagh uses the camera angle to create the illusion that the viewer is standing right behind Dr. Frankenstein watching helplessly, as Caroline breathes her very last breath. This same illusion reoccurs once again in Professor Waldmen’s death scene. As Professor Waldmen lies dying on the table, the camera is at level with Victor and Henry.  The view violently shifts back and forth from Victor’s face to Henry’s face, again giving the viewers the sense that they are directly across from the students while they franticly try to bring their professor back to life. Due to this visual perspective, the viewers are able to relate to Victor; for Victor is powerless to save his professor from death so are the viewers. The visual perspective generated in Branagh’s film is a unique characteristic that cannot be matched from a written novel, or any form of written text in that matter.

Branagh film Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is a remediation of Shelly’s Novel. He take Shelly’s story and puts his own little twist on it by adding graphic scenes and dialog that can’t be found in the novel.  These scenes reshape Victor into the most tragic of the tragic heros.  Further more,  defining Victor as the man who paid a far worse price than death  for his attempt to save all humankind from death. Any author could rewrite the novel changing Victor more into a tragic hero, but it would lack the dramatic affect that Branagh’s film creates. The affect brought out by watching poor Victor suffer through out the film is on a completely different level, than that of just reading it.

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