Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Encyclopedia
Frankenstein is a 1994 American horror film directed by Kenneth Branagh
. The film starred Branagh, Robert De Niro
, Tom Hulce
, Helena Bonham Carter
. It was produced on a budget of $45 million. It is an adaptation of Mary Shelley
's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
.
:
The film begins in the year 1794. Captain Robert Walton leads a daring expedition to reach the North Pole
. While their ship is trapped in the ice of the Arctic Sea, Walton and his men discover a man traveling across the Arctic on his own. In the distance, a loud moaning can be heard. When the man sees how obsessed Walton is with reaching the North Pole he asks, "Do you share my madness?" The man then reveals that his name is Victor Frankenstein and begins his tale.
The film flashes back to Victor's childhood in Geneva
as the son of the wealthy Baron and Caroline Frankenstein. At one point in his childhood Victor's parents adopted Elizabeth, who would become the love of Victor's life.
Years later Victor's mother dies giving birth to his brother William. Sometime before going off to the university at Ingolstadt
, a grief-stricken Victor vows on his mother's grave that he will find a way to conquer death. On the night of his graduation Victor and Elizabeth promised to wed when Victor returns from his studies.
At university, Victor's previous studies with the works of alchemists such as Paracelsus
, Albertus Magnus
, and Cornelius Agrippa make him unpopular with certain professors. However he finds a friend in Henry Clerval and a mentor in Professor Waldman. Victor comes to believe that the only way to cheat death is to create life. At this point Professor Waldman tells Victor not to follow through with his theory; he tested it once, but he ended his experiments because they resulted in an "abomination."
While performing vaccinations, Professor Waldman is murdered by a patient who thinks the doctors are trying to poison him. After Waldman was buried, Victor breaks into Waldman's laboratory, takes Waldman's notes on the experiments, and starts using them to work on his own creation.
Victor spends months in his apartment working on creating a living, breathing creature. Using dead body parts from various sources, including Waldman's own brain & the body of the murderer, he begins piecing a creature together. Victor is so obsessed with his work that not even a cholera
outbreak tears him from it. Late one night Victor finally gives his creation life, but he recoils from it in horror and renounces his experiments.
That night the creature escapes Victor's apartment, running off to the wilderness. He spends months hiding in the woods, living in an unwitting family's barn. As time progresses the creature learns to read and speak. Eventually the creature tries to win the family's love, but his efforts are in vain. Through the journal the creature finds in the coat that he took from Victor's apartment he learns of the circumstances of his creation and that Frankenstein is responsible. He then burns down the family's abandoned cottage and heads to Geneva, vowing revenge on his creator.
Victor, who believes his creation destroyed, returns to Geneva with the intent of marrying Elizabeth. He finds there that his little brother William has been murdered. Justine Moritz, a servant of the Frankenstein household, is framed for the crime and hanged. That night Victor is approached by his creation, who tells him to meet him on the mountain. Realizing that the creature murdered his brother, Victor goes with the intent on destroying his creation, but is no match for his enhanced speed and strength.
Rather than killing his creator, the creature insists instead that Victor make him a bride. If he does this, then he promises to quit humanity forever with Victor never having to see him ever again. To ensure the safety of the rest of his family, Victor begins gathering the tools he used to create life, but when the creature insists he use Justine's body to make the bride, Victor breaks his promise. Enraged, the creature once more vows revenge, saying, "If you deny me my wedding night, I will be with you on yours!"
Victor and Elizabeth are married. En route to their honeymoon, Victor and Elizabeth are flanked by body guards. Meanwhile Victor's father dies while the creature watches over him. That night Victor takes every precaution to defend his new family, but the creature finds them anyway and gains access to Elizabeth's room. He uses his hand to prevent her crying out, then despite her pleas he kills her by ripping out her heart as Victor searches the house, just before Victor comes back to find the monster holding Elizabeth's heart, saying, "I keep my promises!". He tosses Elizabeth's body off the bed, her head slams into a nearby table, and her hair is set aflame by the candles there. The creature flees out the window amidst gunfire. Victor frantically extinguishes the fire.
Victor races home to bring Elizabeth back to life. Repulsed by what he intends to do, Henry tries to stop him. Victor argues that his father would have done the same for his mother. After Henry tells him that Baron Frankenstein is dead, Victor believes there is nothing left to lose. "Nothing but your soul," Henry replies.
After a gruesome operation that involved stitching Elizabeth's head back together and to Justine's body, Victor succeeds in giving, "Elizabeth" life. At this point the creature enters the room, thinking that this bride is for him. The two begin fighting over her, when "Elizabeth," horrified by her hideous appearance, burns herself alive, setting fire to the whole mansion.
The story returns to the Arctic Circle. Victor tells Walton that he has been pursuing his creation for months with the intent of killing him. Soon after relating his story, Victor succumbs to pneumonia and dies. After a word with his crew, Walton hears a noise coming from the room he left Frankenstein's body in. There they find the creature, weeping over his creator's dead body. They take Frankenstein's body and prepare a funeral pyre for him. The ceremony is interrupted when the ice around the ship begins to crack. The creature takes the torch and finishes the ceremony, burning himself alive with his creator's body. Walton, having seen the result of Frankenstein's obsession, puts his own aside and orders the ship to return home.
Critical reviews were mixed. Roger Ebert
gave the film two and a half stars out of four, writing: "I admired the scenes with De Niro [as the Creature] so much I'm tempted to give Mary Shelley's Frankenstein a favorable verdict. But it's a near miss. The Creature is on target, but the rest of the film is so frantic, so manic, it doesn't pause to be sure its effects are registered." Janet Maslin
wrote, "Branagh is in over his head. He displays neither the technical finesse to handle a big, visually ambitious film nor the insight to develop a stirring new version of this story. Instead, this is a bland, no-fault Frankenstein for the '90s, short on villainy but loaded with the tragically misunderstood. Even the Creature (Robert De Niro), an esthetically challenged loner with a father who rejected him, would make a dandy guest on any daytime television talk show."
Conversely, James Berardinelli
of Reelviews.net gave the film three out of four stars, writing: "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein may not be the definitive version of the 1818 novel
, and the director likely attempted more than is practical for a two-hour film, but overambition is preferable to the alternative, especially if it results — as in this case — in something more substantial than Hollywood's typical, fitfully entertaining fluff." with the film currently earning a rating of 44% on Rotten Tomatoes
.
It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Makeup.
table made based on it, as well as a Super Nintendo
and Sega Genesis game (the latter of which was by Sony Imagesoft
), following a platform
-style format. A Sega CD game was also produced by the same company that had a more adventure
-based format that would sometimes switch to a fighting game
.
Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...
. The film starred Branagh, Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
, Tom Hulce
Tom Hulce
Thomas Edward "Tom" Hulce is an American actor and theater producer. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Mozart in the movie Amadeus and his role as "Pinto" in National Lampoon's Animal House. Additional acting awards included a total of four Golden Globe...
, Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
. It was produced on a budget of $45 million. It is an adaptation of Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
.
Plot
The film opens with a few words by Mary ShelleyMary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
:
- I busied myself to think of a story, which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror. One to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.
The film begins in the year 1794. Captain Robert Walton leads a daring expedition to reach the North Pole
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
. While their ship is trapped in the ice of the Arctic Sea, Walton and his men discover a man traveling across the Arctic on his own. In the distance, a loud moaning can be heard. When the man sees how obsessed Walton is with reaching the North Pole he asks, "Do you share my madness?" The man then reveals that his name is Victor Frankenstein and begins his tale.
The film flashes back to Victor's childhood in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
as the son of the wealthy Baron and Caroline Frankenstein. At one point in his childhood Victor's parents adopted Elizabeth, who would become the love of Victor's life.
Years later Victor's mother dies giving birth to his brother William. Sometime before going off to the university at Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt is a city in the Free State of Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is located along the banks of the Danube River, in the center of Bavaria. As at 31 March 2011, Ingolstadt had 125.407 residents...
, a grief-stricken Victor vows on his mother's grave that he will find a way to conquer death. On the night of his graduation Victor and Elizabeth promised to wed when Victor returns from his studies.
At university, Victor's previous studies with the works of alchemists such as Paracelsus
Paracelsus
Paracelsus was a German-Swiss Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist....
, Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus, O.P. , also known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, is a Catholic saint. He was a German Dominican friar and a bishop, who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Those such as James A. Weisheipl...
, and Cornelius Agrippa make him unpopular with certain professors. However he finds a friend in Henry Clerval and a mentor in Professor Waldman. Victor comes to believe that the only way to cheat death is to create life. At this point Professor Waldman tells Victor not to follow through with his theory; he tested it once, but he ended his experiments because they resulted in an "abomination."
While performing vaccinations, Professor Waldman is murdered by a patient who thinks the doctors are trying to poison him. After Waldman was buried, Victor breaks into Waldman's laboratory, takes Waldman's notes on the experiments, and starts using them to work on his own creation.
Victor spends months in his apartment working on creating a living, breathing creature. Using dead body parts from various sources, including Waldman's own brain & the body of the murderer, he begins piecing a creature together. Victor is so obsessed with his work that not even a cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
outbreak tears him from it. Late one night Victor finally gives his creation life, but he recoils from it in horror and renounces his experiments.
That night the creature escapes Victor's apartment, running off to the wilderness. He spends months hiding in the woods, living in an unwitting family's barn. As time progresses the creature learns to read and speak. Eventually the creature tries to win the family's love, but his efforts are in vain. Through the journal the creature finds in the coat that he took from Victor's apartment he learns of the circumstances of his creation and that Frankenstein is responsible. He then burns down the family's abandoned cottage and heads to Geneva, vowing revenge on his creator.
Victor, who believes his creation destroyed, returns to Geneva with the intent of marrying Elizabeth. He finds there that his little brother William has been murdered. Justine Moritz, a servant of the Frankenstein household, is framed for the crime and hanged. That night Victor is approached by his creation, who tells him to meet him on the mountain. Realizing that the creature murdered his brother, Victor goes with the intent on destroying his creation, but is no match for his enhanced speed and strength.
Rather than killing his creator, the creature insists instead that Victor make him a bride. If he does this, then he promises to quit humanity forever with Victor never having to see him ever again. To ensure the safety of the rest of his family, Victor begins gathering the tools he used to create life, but when the creature insists he use Justine's body to make the bride, Victor breaks his promise. Enraged, the creature once more vows revenge, saying, "If you deny me my wedding night, I will be with you on yours!"
Victor and Elizabeth are married. En route to their honeymoon, Victor and Elizabeth are flanked by body guards. Meanwhile Victor's father dies while the creature watches over him. That night Victor takes every precaution to defend his new family, but the creature finds them anyway and gains access to Elizabeth's room. He uses his hand to prevent her crying out, then despite her pleas he kills her by ripping out her heart as Victor searches the house, just before Victor comes back to find the monster holding Elizabeth's heart, saying, "I keep my promises!". He tosses Elizabeth's body off the bed, her head slams into a nearby table, and her hair is set aflame by the candles there. The creature flees out the window amidst gunfire. Victor frantically extinguishes the fire.
Victor races home to bring Elizabeth back to life. Repulsed by what he intends to do, Henry tries to stop him. Victor argues that his father would have done the same for his mother. After Henry tells him that Baron Frankenstein is dead, Victor believes there is nothing left to lose. "Nothing but your soul," Henry replies.
After a gruesome operation that involved stitching Elizabeth's head back together and to Justine's body, Victor succeeds in giving, "Elizabeth" life. At this point the creature enters the room, thinking that this bride is for him. The two begin fighting over her, when "Elizabeth," horrified by her hideous appearance, burns herself alive, setting fire to the whole mansion.
The story returns to the Arctic Circle. Victor tells Walton that he has been pursuing his creation for months with the intent of killing him. Soon after relating his story, Victor succumbs to pneumonia and dies. After a word with his crew, Walton hears a noise coming from the room he left Frankenstein's body in. There they find the creature, weeping over his creator's dead body. They take Frankenstein's body and prepare a funeral pyre for him. The ceremony is interrupted when the ice around the ship begins to crack. The creature takes the torch and finishes the ceremony, burning himself alive with his creator's body. Walton, having seen the result of Frankenstein's obsession, puts his own aside and orders the ship to return home.
Characters
The main characters include:- The CreatureFrankenstein's monsterFrankenstein's monster is a fictional character that first appeared in Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. The creature is often erroneously referred to as "Frankenstein", but in the novel the creature has no name...
(Robert De NiroRobert De NiroRobert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
) - The product of an experiment with corpses and electricity. - Victor FrankensteinVictor FrankensteinVictor Frankenstein was born in Napoli, is a Swiss fictional character and the protagonist of the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley...
(Kenneth BranaghKenneth BranaghKenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...
) - The Creature's creator, a scientist obsessed with conquering death. - Henry Clerval (Tom HulceTom HulceThomas Edward "Tom" Hulce is an American actor and theater producer. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Mozart in the movie Amadeus and his role as "Pinto" in National Lampoon's Animal House. Additional acting awards included a total of four Golden Globe...
) - Dr. Frankenstein's best friend from medical school. - Elizabeth (Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
) - Frankenstein's fiancee and adoptive sister. - Baron Frankenstein (Ian HolmIan HolmSir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear...
) - Victor Frankenstein's father. - Professor Waldman (John CleeseJohn CleeseJohn Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
) - Frankenstein's tutor and colleague who shares his interest in creating life. His brain is later used for the creature. - Captain Robert Walton (Aidan QuinnAidan Quinn-Early life:Quinn was born in Chicago, Illinois to Irish parents. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic and raised in Chicago and Rockford, Illinois, as well as in Dublin and Birr, County Offaly in Ireland. His mother, Teresa, was a homemaker, and his father, Michael Quinn, was a professor of...
) - The commander of the ship which picks up Frankenstein in the Arctic Circle. - Justine Moritz (Trevyn McDowellTrevyn McDowellSouth African born Trevyn McDowell is a former actress and property developer, who has starred in films, television programmes, theatre and radio, predominantly in her adopted homeland of England....
) - A worker in the Frankenstein household who is close friends with Elizabeth. - Mrs. Moritz (Celia ImrieCelia ImrieCelia Diana Savile Imrie is an English actress. In a career starting in the early 1970s, Imrie has played Marianne Bellshade in Bergerac, Philippa Moorcroft in Dinnerladies, Miss Babs in Acorn Antiques, Diana Neal in After You've Gone and Gloria Millington in Kingdom...
) - The head servant in the household who often fights with Justine. - Caroline Frankenstein (Cherie LunghiCherie LunghiCherie M. Lunghi is an English film, television and theatre actress. She is probably best known for her role as Guinevere in the 1981 film Excalibur, as football manageress Gabriella Benson in the 1990s television series The Manageress and for starring in a series of adverts for Kenco coffee. She...
) - Victor's mother who dies during birth of his younger brother, William. - William Frankenstein (Ryan Smith) - Victor's younger brother.
Reception
The film did disappointing business upon its U.S. theatrical release, grossing only $22 million, but did well in global markets where it grossed $90 million.Critical reviews were mixed. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film two and a half stars out of four, writing: "I admired the scenes with De Niro [as the Creature] so much I'm tempted to give Mary Shelley's Frankenstein a favorable verdict. But it's a near miss. The Creature is on target, but the rest of the film is so frantic, so manic, it doesn't pause to be sure its effects are registered." Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
wrote, "Branagh is in over his head. He displays neither the technical finesse to handle a big, visually ambitious film nor the insight to develop a stirring new version of this story. Instead, this is a bland, no-fault Frankenstein for the '90s, short on villainy but loaded with the tragically misunderstood. Even the Creature (Robert De Niro), an esthetically challenged loner with a father who rejected him, would make a dandy guest on any daytime television talk show."
Conversely, James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
of Reelviews.net gave the film three out of four stars, writing: "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein may not be the definitive version of the 1818 novel
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
, and the director likely attempted more than is practical for a two-hour film, but overambition is preferable to the alternative, especially if it results — as in this case — in something more substantial than Hollywood's typical, fitfully entertaining fluff." with the film currently earning a rating of 44% on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Makeup.
Other media
The movie also had a pinballPinball
Pinball is a type of arcade game, usually coin-operated, where a player attempts to score points by manipulating one or more metal balls on a playfield inside a glass-covered case called a pinball machine. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible...
table made based on it, as well as a Super Nintendo
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
and Sega Genesis game (the latter of which was by Sony Imagesoft
Sony Imagesoft
Sony Imagesoft was a video game publisher that operated from 1989 to 1995 and was located in California. It was established in January 1989 in Los Angeles, California, as a subsidiary of the Japan-based CBS/Sony Group and initially named CSG Imagesoft Inc. Focus at the beginning was on marketing...
), following a platform
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
-style format. A Sega CD game was also produced by the same company that had a more adventure
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
-based format that would sometimes switch to a fighting game
Fighting game
Fighting game is a video game genre where the player controls an on-screen character and engages in close combat with an opponent. These characters tend to be of equal power and fight matches consisting of several rounds, which take place in an arena. Players must master techniques such as...
.