Movie: Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935)
Oh no, Man has now control of the processes of nature! This notion is what's meant to frighten audiences here, much more than anything the monster (or his supposed Bride) does. The monster, played by Boris Karloff (already legendary enough to only be credited as 'Karloff') looks beastly and unnatural, but shouldn't cause any nightmares. And though he kills a significant number of people, none of the murders are presented in a grisly or suspenseful way. But beware of discussions about what happens when we create life out of death. Those are accompanied by dark shadows, canted angles and conspirational frowns. The question of whether humans are superceding God is not be taken lightlty, and though the film doesn't pretend there is potential for real-life Frankensteins to do harm, it is keenly aware of how amazing many recent scientific and technological developments are, and how unthinkable they were not that long ago. It's no coincidence that the mysterious scientists possess what they call an 'electronic device' that allows you to call up and speak with people in a faraway place, or that the creation sequence essentially consists of a series of quick cuts to electrical switchboards in various shapes and forms, bulbs lighting up. and electrical currents going in random directions, all in the service of the scientists' aim to use the energy of a thunderstorm for their own nefarious means.
The most spectactular scene in the film becomes even more interesting in the context of these thematic concerns. When Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) tells Frankenstein (Colin Clive) of his efforts to replicate his work, he brings out a set of glass jars, in which he has cultivated miniscule human beings, including a king, a queen, a bishop and a mermaid, all of them portrayed by real normal-sized people (one of them being Josephine McKim, an Olympic swimmer who won gold in 1928). Again, at no point does the film suggest that in the future we may have lab-grown human beings, but wbat it highlights about the present is enough to give you some uncomfortable goosebumps; we, humans, are now capable of manipulating reality to such an extent that we can show you minauture human beings that look just as realistic as Clive and Thesiger, and seamlessly embody the same space as them. It's worth reminding how astonishing that is/was, especially when you consider that some 1935 audiences could remember a time when it was inconceivable that they'd ever sit in a cinema watching man-made moving images.
While the glass jar scene is merely the most obvious example of human manipulation of reality, the whole film is a testament to that. Every single shadow, weather phenomenon, tree or barren landscaape is artificially developed in a studio to create the desired effect, not to mention that it explicitly sets itself up in a prologue as a tale concocted by Mary Shelley to amuse/frighten her husband Percy and Lord Byron. So, you may now ask, if the film itself is a manifestation of the horrors it evokes, does it give comfort to audiences in any other way? The answer is no. For all our progress, we still can't manipulate human feelings. And so Bride of Frankenstein tells an incredibly bleak story of a monster who knows he is a monster, wants to become good, or at least accepted by society, and fails, partly because despite his best efforts (he even learns a basic form of language!), he still can't control his murderous urges, and even if he were able to, there is nothing he can do to not be rejected by everyone who sees him, including his supposed Bride. The entire film is essentially about the effort to create a mate (in the process, the scientists commit many immoral acts, often presented with a macabre sense of humor) for the monster, only for the Bride to be repulsed by him at first sight.
No comments:
Post a Comment