Each type medium has its own unique characteristics that separate itself from another. The medium of film allows the reader to experience the story in front of the very eyes, while the medium of books allow the reader to envision the story through their own imagination. These two mediums can take one similar idea and change it by using the characteristics that sets itself alone from the other. 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 important 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 to create life is his fear of, and his desire to, prevent death. Branagh uses the visual characteristic of the film medium to highlight this new theme. In doing so, he incorporates a visual and audio dynamic 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 key role in Victor’s motive to create life. Branagh not only changes Caroline’s death to a more violent and gory one, but also dedicates an entire scene to 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 dead on the floor. 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 an end to death. It is obvious that Victor fears death, and it is apparent that he would do anything possible to prevent it from happening 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. 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 before 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.
Branagh uses the dynamics of sound to intensify the emotions evoked in both Caroline’s and Professor Waldmen’s death scenes. Caroline’s death scene open first with joyful music playing while the Frankenstein family dance, laugh, and socialize. The music suddenly cuts short ending in an unpleasant sound, baiting the audience into thinking something has gone wrong. But, in fact, Justine, who was playing the piano, just missed a key. This sudden stop tricks the audience into thinking something bad is going to happen. But it isn’t until the audience thinks all is well again that Caroline unexpectedly faints to the floor and the scene shifts to her gruesome death. The mood of the scene changes from joyful to stressful, as does the mood of the music. With a brief moment of silence in between, the once happy melody made by the piano is transformed into a stressful melody of a symphony. Branagh uses the background music to create a enormous build up, and sending the audience on an emotional roller-coaster. The audience is also bombarded with the moans of Caroline, the weeping of her husband, the crying of her baby, the screaming of her son, all traumatic emotions to hear. Branagh reuses the same audio aspects in Caroline’s death scene to intensify the emotion of Waldmen’s death scene. The moment Waldmen is stabbed a blast of music rushes to the audiences ears. The style and pace of the background music is once again filled with intensity and stress. The scene carries over to Victor violently pounding his professor’s dead body. The audience hears the panic in Victor’s voice as he screams and also hears the pounding of his fist on his professor’s chest. In both these scenes the emotion is intensified though what the audience hears. They experience the horrors faced by Victor through hearing the traumatic events that drove him to create life.
If we look at film closely, it is typically more emotion-generating than written work. Both the visual and audio aspects of film intensify the emotion the story draws from its audience. By taking away one of those characteristics, the story can lose much of its emotion. For example, if you have ever watched horror film, you’ll know that if you mute the sound it become far less scary. This also applies to the visual aspect: If you close your eyes, the horror film can be less scary. I do not think you’ll ever see a person jump out of their seat while reading a scary book, but it is safe to say that if you go to your local theater you can find people screaming and covering their eyes while watching the latest horror film. Branagh takes Shelly’s story and puts his own little twist on it by adding graphic scenes and dialogue that can’t be found in the novel. These scenes reshape Victor into the most tragic of heroes. Furthermore, they define Victor as a man who paid a far higher price than death for his attempt to save all humankind from death. An accomplished 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 impact of watching poor Victor suffer throughout the film, and witnessing the dramatic deaths he witnesses, is far more intense and dramatic than that in the written version.
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