Kenneth Branagh vs Mary Shelley

For anyone who reads this that isn't in my english class, this is a response to questions posed by my professor about Kenneth Branagh's version of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein. I understand the need to compress a lot of information into a small time frame, and that no movie can ever be an exact interpretation of the novel it is based upon. Having said that, I don't believe Branagh did his best to keep in the spirit of the novel as well as he could have. He added some elements to the movie that I felt did not really jive with the novel at all. I am not saying that his movie wasn't any good. It was actually a very good movie, exept for the ending. I thought the ending was a big let-down.

One thing that really bothered me was how Victor and Elisabeth would call eachother "brother" and "sister" when they became intimate. That was weird. I never got any weird impression like that from the novel. I also feel like Branagh manipulated scenes from the novel to get more of a shock value out of them than if he'd just stayed true to what was written. I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing for a horror movie. I am talking specifically about the scene in which Victor's mother dies giving birth to William. She really dies of (I think) Scarlet Fever. But that wouldn't be bloody enough for us to appreciate, would it.

The other scene I am thinking about is Elisabeth's death. Instead of strangling her like he does in the novel, Branagh has the monster rip a hole in her chest with his bare hands like some ancient Aztec high priest, and pull out her heart. The monster version of Elisabeth, or "The Bride of Frankenstein," was not a bad aspect of the movie, but hardly in keeping with the novel. It did make the story interesting, but I feel it made Victor seem more insane than he really was in the novel. I'm not saying he wasn't insane in the novel, but he wasn't that kind of insane.

Another thing that bothered me was the ending. For Walton to offer the monster his hand and ask him to board the ship and sail home with them was an insult to Shelley's vision. Although the monster refuses his invitation, he is still given a glimps of humanity's ultimate good will before he burns himself alive. In the novel he is never presented with such an offer. He is confronted by Walton while he cries over the death of his creator, then he jumps from the ship to complete his own destruction. I guess I feel that if Kenneth Branagh had kept more to the storyline of the novel he would've probably been fine in calling it Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. But as the movie is now it should be called Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein. I guess I can't be too hard on him though. He did stay with the theme of the novel in some ways. At least the main theme of the story is still the same- crazy scientist creates