Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Short description
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein, a young doctor whose grief over his mother's death drives him to study medicine at Ingolstadt. There he meets the secretive Professor Waldman and becomes fixated on the idea of creating life. Working with the remains of corpses, Victor succeeds in building and animating a human being, but is horrified by what he has made and abandons it. The creature, rejected by its maker and by everyone it encounters, turns against Victor. The story is framed by an encounter in the Arctic, where Captain Robert Walton finds Victor and hears his account.
Kenneth Branagh directed the film, the sixth of the eighteen features he has directed in chronological order, following Much Ado About Nothing and preceding Hamlet. He also plays Victor. Robert De Niro appears as the Creature, with Tom Hulce as Henry Clerval, Helena Bonham Carter as Elizabeth, Aidan Quinn as Captain Walton and Ian Holm as Baron Frankenstein. Frank Darabont and Steph Lady wrote the screenplay, and Francis Ford Coppola was among the producers of the adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel.
The film cost about 45 million USD and took 112 million USD worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.1/10, and on TMDB 6.4/10 across more than a thousand votes. A critics' rating of 5.5/10 from 53 reviews places it below the audience scores on both sites.
What's left behind the scenes
- Bubbling gelatin was used instead of the liquid in which the Creature comes to life. During filming, Robert De Niro and Kenneth Branagh slipped and fell into the vat of gelatin, causing a seam in De Niro's costume to rip. A hole formed, which the cinematographer carefully avoided to ensure it didn't accidentally end up in the shot.
- Christopher Lambert was considered for one of the supporting roles, but was replaced by another actor shortly before filming began.
- While preparing for the role, Robert De Niro specifically studied the speech of stroke victims to better portray it on screen.
- “Frankenstein” is a film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.” Despite some deviations from the original literary work, it is the closest film version to Shelley’s “Frankenstein”.
- The filmmakers were reluctant to cast John Cleese because he was seen as a comedy actor, and his appearance matched his usual comedic roles. To remedy this, Cleese was given a prosthetic chin and dentures, which completely transformed the actor's face.
- In one scene, Robert De Niro was supposed to bite an extra played by Fay Ripley. The scene was filmed, but it did not make the final cut.
- Robert De Niro specifically communicated with people who had experienced severe physical trauma in order to learn how to speak like someone in a similar condition.
- Filming period: October 1993 – February 1994.
- Gérard Depardieu turned down the role of the monster.
- Kenneth Branagh (director) insisted that the word "monster" not be used in the film's credits.
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