Frankenstein
Because
I had never seen Frankenstein before, I had a lot of initial reactions to the
1931 version of this film. First of everything, I knew the premise of the
story; that a scientist cut up different body parts from dead people to create
a new body and used electricity from a storm to wake the “person” up. I had no
idea that the scientist’s name was Frankenstein. I thought that the movie named
the monster Frankenstein. The parallel that we made in class between the
monster and the scientist, obviously, made me understand that this was in fact
not the case, but also got me thinking about the way our class thought through
the relationship with Frankenstein and the monster.
It
was interesting to me that our class discussed the two as similar and always
came back to the topic of nature versus nurture. I think that this movie does a
good job of implying that the monster will become evil through the warnings of
Frankenstein’s mentor, Dr. Waldman and through the scene where Fritz steals the
murderer’s brain. I believe that people cannot be born evil. In my opinion,
society and the upbringing a person has molds them into either honest, ethical
people or complete psychopaths. The way
the monster is treated in the movie, being locked up and tortured with fire,
has a lot to do with how he acts and becomes towards the end of the movies. He
is angry and aggressive towards the people that treated him in such terrible
ways. You can see that the monster could become a loving person if treated the
way the little girl treated him. Through kind gestures and explanation, the
monster could potentially be a fully functioning person in society, and a kind
one at that. Nurture has a huge role in the way that people end up living the
rest of their lives and I feel that the monster was misunderstood.
I
also think this movie had some weird plot holes and inferences. For instance,
in the scene where the monster attacks Elizabeth and supposedly rapes her, I
believe is far fetched. For one, there is not enough time in that scene for a
rape to happen and for two; Frankenstein doesn’t even understand simple things
like sunshine. How is he supposed to use know how to even use that part of his
body? Also, if we talked about the parallels between Frankenstein, the monster
and the director all being gay and having gay tendencies, why would the monster
want to rape a woman? Far fetched.
This
movie was interesting and I could see how it would be really entertaining and
scary in 1931, but now, after so many people have taken it apart piece by piece
to analyze it, it just feels like another film to study and learn from. I never
thought of Frankenstein of a movie that had so many hidden themes and meanings,
but it was exciting to learn all of the perspectives that other student in the
class had.
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