8 thoughts on “Frankenstein, 1931. Dir. James Whale”
There are plenty of differences between Shelley’s text and the film adaptions, one difference that stood out the most is the amount of people who know about the “the creature;” in the book there is only the protagonist, Victor, who is in the room creating the creature whereas in the film adaption multiple people are shown to be spectating. This is a major difference because if there were spectators in the room then the story is turned upside down as people would know whom to blame for the horrible creation. Aside from this one major difference, the film and the text are fairly the same with little bits of tweaks. Whether it is the text or the film adaption, Victor is shown to be ecstatic for his creation to come alive calling the creature beautiful (Shelley 55) and in the film adaption he even says, “He knows what it feels like to be god.”
Though there seems to be no noticeable differences between the two, each work is composed differently. When reading the text without visuals, we are given the chance to create our own image and scene based on descriptive words. While when watching the film, a set is shown with all of the gadgets on how the creature was created giving us the visuals that we would not be able to put together just through text. Each work is able to give us a different feeling and interpretation based on one story.
The clip, 3 minutes 20 seconds, It’s Alive-Frankenstein-1931 and the book Frankenstein carry some similarities and some major differences. The book give the reader a vivid understanding of who Victor was and how he became fascinated of bringing a creature to life; he stated I apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology and became acquainted with the science of anatomy (Shelley,31). However, the clip, which only showed Victor in his workshop along with spectators to see his creation, did not give any clue of Victor profession.
In the book, we were able to visualize how the creature’s body was form “I collected bones from the charnel houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame” and how gigantic this creature was going to be “to make the being of a gigantic stature; that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large”(Shelley, 33) but in the clip we don’t know how creature was form; moreover, the creature looks the same size of a regular human being. Shelley painted a picture for us in the book of how the atmosphere was before the creature came to live; she emphasized that it was one in the morning, it was raining and Frankenstein’s candle was nearly burnt out when the creature came to live. On the other hand, the clip present a stage to us with no candles burning, no clock to tell us what time it was and no rain patter dismally against any panes.
Subsequently, there are some similarities between the novel and the clip. In the clip, the creature came to live in a power house as mention in the book and when the creature was alive Frankenstein was overwhelmed with excitement in both the book and the clip. The two story show how excited he was to be a creator of a creature.
In addition, the book allows the reader to create their own image of how the creature look like; but unfortunately, the 1931 clip of Frankenstein provided the opposite. However, these two storylines give us a clear understanding of Victor’s achievement.
All the versions of Frankinstein I have watched are similar but have their minute differences. All the movies have some kind lightening or electricity to create the monster. A movie I watched, called I, Frankinstein, showed the creation of the monster in complete detail from the gathering of the body parts to him running away once he finds out his purpose. The clips posted on the blog resemble the movie in the creation processes and use a time of electrical charge. But if you compare the book to the movies, the book is very dull in many ways. First off, there is no mystery. Both the clips show the scientist preparing the procedure and then the wait of seeing if the monster is going to live or not. In the book all he sets up the experiment and wakes up to the monster looming over him. This reduces the excitement of the book. In my opinion, this book well written in terms of the plot but talking about the lightening hitting the stitched corpse and the suspense of the body coming to life. Second, the scientists in the clips were going crazy as the procedure commenced. They express their excitement to see their creation come to life but Victor in the book, just looks at it in disappointment. He looks at his monster and thinks it is ugly and doesn’t look like he expected it.
The differences between the scene in the movie and the actual happenings in the book are so glaring that without prior knowledge, one might believe that they are from two entirely different stories. The events described by Shelly in the book are that of a man who was dedicated to his studies to the point of depleting his own emotions. Compared to the mad evil scientist Victor Frankenstein, that of Shelly’s seems like an entirely different character in the story. Another glaring difference is that of the actual creation of the creature. In the film they portray several people along with an assistant in the room while Victor reanimates the body. In Shelly’s original description the way in which Frankenstein completes his experiment is by himself, alone for some time in his home. The type of crazy that Victor takes on in each is vastly different as well. While Shelly does an excellent job in creating a much more subtle and hidden fragile mental state where as within 10 seconds of viewing the film you can pick up on the outright insane, mad scientist crazy characteristics in the movie Frankenstein. The way Shelly describes Victor Frankenstein creates a mysterious feeling while reading the book, because knowing Frankenstein has a darker side than when he is with his family certainly brings out the sublime aspect in her novel.
The film depicts much of what almost all films of Frankenstein depicts: the lightening, the rushing, the “its alive factor,” etc. This version of Frankenstein, like many versions, is not exactly how it is pictured in the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This film version builds up the sublime suspense in an obvious manner, whereas the book builds up the same suspense in a subtle way. In the film lightening is an essential part of the process to create the creature. Once the lightening strikes the lifeless creature, the powerful electricity from it gives the creature life. Not so much in the book. Although it was a rainy day it didn’t seem explicitly say lightening brought the creature to life. Instead Shelley said this, “With anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.” I feel that this is where the directors got the inspiration to use lightening. The film also shows Frankenstein in rush to complete this creature when in the book, he was in a rush, but it took 2 years to achieve success. Lastly, I find Frankenstein’s reaction to be different in the film. The film depicts him as very excited and astonished that the creature lived but in the book he looked at his creation with disgust. The “materials” were beautiful but when put together, the creature was “horrid.” Needless to say, the book was not what I expected it to be.
The 1931 Frankenstein movie has similarities and differences compared to the Frankenstein book by Mary Shelley in 1822. One of the main difference is that in the movie, Frankenstein’s room of creation of the creature is filled with other people. In the book, no one seems to know of Frankenstein’s involvement with the monster at this stage. He planned, produced, and created the Creature in secret. Since no one blamed Frankenstein for the Creature, it’s obvious that no one should be in the room with him. Also, Frankenstein seems to be ecstatic when he saw the creature while the book stated that Frankenstein was horrified by his creation. He was depicted screaming “It is alive, it is alive” in the film. The similarity that we know of is that there’s lightning and thunder during the creation. Overall, Frankenstein is showing off his creation in the movie but remained hidden and horrified by it during the book.
In the movie clip of “Frankenstein” in 1931, I saw four people into Victor Frankenstein’s laboratory. Frankenstein wants to prove his masterpiece to everyone, and he want to prove that his mad idea is not crazy and it can be truth. No one believed him but he can prove it to people who don’t believe him. Frankenstein uplift the body which he created with his assistant, and the lifeless body was infused spark by natural shock. When they move the body down, Frankenstein discovers that body can move his hand. Frankenstein is so much exciting about the lifeless body has life. He creates a life, and he feels himself to be God.
It totally is different with the book. When Frankenstein infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing and the creature open the dull yellow eye, he is scared his creation because he creates a terrible ugly catastrophe into the world. In Frankenstein’s heart, he only has breathless horror and disgust. He even cannot endure this creature’s aspect. In the book, Frankenstein doesn’t have any exciting for his creation and only nightmare and horror is in his heart.
In addition, the background also has difference when Frankenstein transfused life into creature. In the movie, that day is a stormy day. In the book, that day is a dreary night of November.
For starters, I personally enjoyed the 1931 clip of “Frankenstein” than the 1994 clip and the text. I consider myself to be a visual learner, I enjoy and leaner faster by watching and observing something whether it is physically or through film. For example, the Harry Potter series, I have probably watched each movie about 10 times each but have never read any of the books, and I don’t intend to read them.
Many of us have grown up being taught that the actual story of Frankenstein is what is showed in the 1931 clip; there is this mad scientists that creates this hideous and evil monster. Although I find the text interesting because I’m being given another version of Frankenstein from a pretty different point of view. The film and the text aren’t two completely different stories, its basically the same plot but with some minor changes. Mary Shelley makes the book to be this mystical and gloomy story about this monster created by a man named Frankenstein that feels lonely and upset because all he wanted was for his creator to make him a companion. In contrary to the film where there’s surprisingly several people watching the creation of this horrendous monster put together by multiple body parts.
In my opinion the text by Mary Shelley is great because of its different point of telling the story of the creation of this monster whereas the 1931 film shows the creation of the monster as something outrageous and horrid.
There are plenty of differences between Shelley’s text and the film adaptions, one difference that stood out the most is the amount of people who know about the “the creature;” in the book there is only the protagonist, Victor, who is in the room creating the creature whereas in the film adaption multiple people are shown to be spectating. This is a major difference because if there were spectators in the room then the story is turned upside down as people would know whom to blame for the horrible creation. Aside from this one major difference, the film and the text are fairly the same with little bits of tweaks. Whether it is the text or the film adaption, Victor is shown to be ecstatic for his creation to come alive calling the creature beautiful (Shelley 55) and in the film adaption he even says, “He knows what it feels like to be god.”
Though there seems to be no noticeable differences between the two, each work is composed differently. When reading the text without visuals, we are given the chance to create our own image and scene based on descriptive words. While when watching the film, a set is shown with all of the gadgets on how the creature was created giving us the visuals that we would not be able to put together just through text. Each work is able to give us a different feeling and interpretation based on one story.
The clip, 3 minutes 20 seconds, It’s Alive-Frankenstein-1931 and the book Frankenstein carry some similarities and some major differences. The book give the reader a vivid understanding of who Victor was and how he became fascinated of bringing a creature to life; he stated I apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology and became acquainted with the science of anatomy (Shelley,31). However, the clip, which only showed Victor in his workshop along with spectators to see his creation, did not give any clue of Victor profession.
In the book, we were able to visualize how the creature’s body was form “I collected bones from the charnel houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame” and how gigantic this creature was going to be “to make the being of a gigantic stature; that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large”(Shelley, 33) but in the clip we don’t know how creature was form; moreover, the creature looks the same size of a regular human being. Shelley painted a picture for us in the book of how the atmosphere was before the creature came to live; she emphasized that it was one in the morning, it was raining and Frankenstein’s candle was nearly burnt out when the creature came to live. On the other hand, the clip present a stage to us with no candles burning, no clock to tell us what time it was and no rain patter dismally against any panes.
Subsequently, there are some similarities between the novel and the clip. In the clip, the creature came to live in a power house as mention in the book and when the creature was alive Frankenstein was overwhelmed with excitement in both the book and the clip. The two story show how excited he was to be a creator of a creature.
In addition, the book allows the reader to create their own image of how the creature look like; but unfortunately, the 1931 clip of Frankenstein provided the opposite. However, these two storylines give us a clear understanding of Victor’s achievement.
All the versions of Frankinstein I have watched are similar but have their minute differences. All the movies have some kind lightening or electricity to create the monster. A movie I watched, called I, Frankinstein, showed the creation of the monster in complete detail from the gathering of the body parts to him running away once he finds out his purpose. The clips posted on the blog resemble the movie in the creation processes and use a time of electrical charge. But if you compare the book to the movies, the book is very dull in many ways. First off, there is no mystery. Both the clips show the scientist preparing the procedure and then the wait of seeing if the monster is going to live or not. In the book all he sets up the experiment and wakes up to the monster looming over him. This reduces the excitement of the book. In my opinion, this book well written in terms of the plot but talking about the lightening hitting the stitched corpse and the suspense of the body coming to life. Second, the scientists in the clips were going crazy as the procedure commenced. They express their excitement to see their creation come to life but Victor in the book, just looks at it in disappointment. He looks at his monster and thinks it is ugly and doesn’t look like he expected it.
The differences between the scene in the movie and the actual happenings in the book are so glaring that without prior knowledge, one might believe that they are from two entirely different stories. The events described by Shelly in the book are that of a man who was dedicated to his studies to the point of depleting his own emotions. Compared to the mad evil scientist Victor Frankenstein, that of Shelly’s seems like an entirely different character in the story. Another glaring difference is that of the actual creation of the creature. In the film they portray several people along with an assistant in the room while Victor reanimates the body. In Shelly’s original description the way in which Frankenstein completes his experiment is by himself, alone for some time in his home. The type of crazy that Victor takes on in each is vastly different as well. While Shelly does an excellent job in creating a much more subtle and hidden fragile mental state where as within 10 seconds of viewing the film you can pick up on the outright insane, mad scientist crazy characteristics in the movie Frankenstein. The way Shelly describes Victor Frankenstein creates a mysterious feeling while reading the book, because knowing Frankenstein has a darker side than when he is with his family certainly brings out the sublime aspect in her novel.
The film depicts much of what almost all films of Frankenstein depicts: the lightening, the rushing, the “its alive factor,” etc. This version of Frankenstein, like many versions, is not exactly how it is pictured in the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This film version builds up the sublime suspense in an obvious manner, whereas the book builds up the same suspense in a subtle way. In the film lightening is an essential part of the process to create the creature. Once the lightening strikes the lifeless creature, the powerful electricity from it gives the creature life. Not so much in the book. Although it was a rainy day it didn’t seem explicitly say lightening brought the creature to life. Instead Shelley said this, “With anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.” I feel that this is where the directors got the inspiration to use lightening. The film also shows Frankenstein in rush to complete this creature when in the book, he was in a rush, but it took 2 years to achieve success. Lastly, I find Frankenstein’s reaction to be different in the film. The film depicts him as very excited and astonished that the creature lived but in the book he looked at his creation with disgust. The “materials” were beautiful but when put together, the creature was “horrid.” Needless to say, the book was not what I expected it to be.
The 1931 Frankenstein movie has similarities and differences compared to the Frankenstein book by Mary Shelley in 1822. One of the main difference is that in the movie, Frankenstein’s room of creation of the creature is filled with other people. In the book, no one seems to know of Frankenstein’s involvement with the monster at this stage. He planned, produced, and created the Creature in secret. Since no one blamed Frankenstein for the Creature, it’s obvious that no one should be in the room with him. Also, Frankenstein seems to be ecstatic when he saw the creature while the book stated that Frankenstein was horrified by his creation. He was depicted screaming “It is alive, it is alive” in the film. The similarity that we know of is that there’s lightning and thunder during the creation. Overall, Frankenstein is showing off his creation in the movie but remained hidden and horrified by it during the book.
In the movie clip of “Frankenstein” in 1931, I saw four people into Victor Frankenstein’s laboratory. Frankenstein wants to prove his masterpiece to everyone, and he want to prove that his mad idea is not crazy and it can be truth. No one believed him but he can prove it to people who don’t believe him. Frankenstein uplift the body which he created with his assistant, and the lifeless body was infused spark by natural shock. When they move the body down, Frankenstein discovers that body can move his hand. Frankenstein is so much exciting about the lifeless body has life. He creates a life, and he feels himself to be God.
It totally is different with the book. When Frankenstein infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing and the creature open the dull yellow eye, he is scared his creation because he creates a terrible ugly catastrophe into the world. In Frankenstein’s heart, he only has breathless horror and disgust. He even cannot endure this creature’s aspect. In the book, Frankenstein doesn’t have any exciting for his creation and only nightmare and horror is in his heart.
In addition, the background also has difference when Frankenstein transfused life into creature. In the movie, that day is a stormy day. In the book, that day is a dreary night of November.
For starters, I personally enjoyed the 1931 clip of “Frankenstein” than the 1994 clip and the text. I consider myself to be a visual learner, I enjoy and leaner faster by watching and observing something whether it is physically or through film. For example, the Harry Potter series, I have probably watched each movie about 10 times each but have never read any of the books, and I don’t intend to read them.
Many of us have grown up being taught that the actual story of Frankenstein is what is showed in the 1931 clip; there is this mad scientists that creates this hideous and evil monster. Although I find the text interesting because I’m being given another version of Frankenstein from a pretty different point of view. The film and the text aren’t two completely different stories, its basically the same plot but with some minor changes. Mary Shelley makes the book to be this mystical and gloomy story about this monster created by a man named Frankenstein that feels lonely and upset because all he wanted was for his creator to make him a companion. In contrary to the film where there’s surprisingly several people watching the creation of this horrendous monster put together by multiple body parts.
In my opinion the text by Mary Shelley is great because of its different point of telling the story of the creation of this monster whereas the 1931 film shows the creation of the monster as something outrageous and horrid.