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Kenneth Branagh struggles to bring Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to life |
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Robert De Niro (The Creature), Kenneth Branagh (Victor
Frankenstein), Tom Hulce (Henry Clerval), Helena Bonham Carter (Elizabeth), Ian
Holm (Baron Frankenstein), John Cleese (Professor Waldman), Aidan Quinn
(Captain Robert Walton), Richard Briers (Grandfather), Robert Hardy (Professor
Krempe), Trevyn McDowell (Justine Moritz), Celia Imrie (Mrs Mortiz), Cherie
Lunghi (Caroline Frankenstein)
In 1994 Kenneth Branagh was the heir of Laurence Olivier: a
man who could act, direct and produce, who never had a false step, whose every
film was a success. In other words he was ripe for a kicking, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was the
stick used to beat him. It was practically the founding text of “Branagh-bashing”,
for a time one of the favourite sports of the British press.
Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) grows up obsessed with
defeating death, traumatised by the death of his mother. Training as a doctor
in Vienna, after the murder of his mentor Professor Waldmann (an effectively
serious John Cleese), he uses the body of the murderer to create the Creature
(Robert De Niro) – but, horrified by what he has created, he flees home to
Geneva. While the Creature comes to terms with being an outcast, Victor marries
his sweetheart Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) – only for her to become a
target when the Creature vows revenge.
Okay the good stuff about this film: the production design
is terrific, the Frankenstein house in particular a marvellous set. It’s also a
very faithful adaptation, pretty much following the book (apart from a late,
horribly melodramatic “Bride of Frankenstein” sequence). Branagh gets some
affecting moments out of the film, particularly in the calmer moments – De Niro
gives an interesting performance and the retention of the Walton framing device
in the Arctic is well done. There is a good film in here. But it’s buried
completely under the overblown shouting, swooping cameras and booming music
that covers the rest of the film.
Contrary to his reputation as a purveyor of intricate
Shakespeare adaptations, Branagh has always been a lover of big movies, who
brings an operatic intensity to cinema. The problem is he goes too far here.
This is at times so ridiculously overblown and frenetic in its tempo, you start
to think Branagh is trying too hard, desperate to make a big budget smash. Wanting
to make a big, gory, gothic horror film, he dials everything up to eleven, and
the sturm und drang eventually
becomes a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Interestingly, this intensity is particularly overbearing in
the Frankenstein scenes, rather than those focusing on the Creature. Several
scenes are filmed with the camera swooping round in circles over long intense
takes, while the score thunders away. This principally happens in scenes of
high emotion – the deaths of Frankenstein’s mother and his mentor Waldmann are
both operatically overblown (in the latter Branagh literally cranes up and
screams “No!”). Eventually it all becomes too much. You are crying out for
everyone to take a breath and just deliver a line calmly.
Now I can see what Branagh is doing here. He’s looking to emulate
the high-Gothic semi-camp of 1930s horror films. That’s the charitable
explanation for why he spends the entire Creature-birthing scene running round
topless (he must have spent ages on that chest), with Patrick Doyle’s score
booming away, while the camera swoops and sweeps around him. Branagh is partly
channelling Colin Clive’s mad scientist from James Whale (he even bellows
“Live!” in pure Clive style twice in
the film), but by going for overwhelming bombast in his performance, he misses
out on making the character relatable. Now Victor is a selfish asshole of
course, but we should at least relate to him a little bit: I’m not sure many
people can in this film.
It’s a real shame because there is in fact, under the
frantic editing and dizzying camerawork, a quieter, more intelligent film
trying to get out. Branagh’s Frankenstein is a man deep in trauma about death,
unable to cope with losing people, whose fear becomes a dangerous obsession. The
romance between Victor and Helena Bonham Carter’s sweetly innocent Elizabeth
has a lot of warmth (the chemistry is also excellent: no surprise to hear that the
actors started a long term relationship on the set of this film). There are
moments here meditating on life and death, but they constantly get lost in the
next ridiculous bloody action scene, or explosion of overblown acting.
Similarly, De Niro mines a lot of confused sympathy from the
Creature – probably because he seems the quieter and more “normal” person, for
all his scars and acts of murder. The sequence with the Creature looking after the
family of a blind man (a decent Richard Briers) sees De Niro mine a great deal
of vulnerability and innocence from his situation. The contained camera work
and restrained acting make these the finest scenes in the film, more memorable
than any of the blood and guts that fill the final half hour.
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And those blood and guts are a problem, because this is not
a scary film. Not even one little bit. Instead it’s either ridiculous or
juvenile – in a sequence where a character literally has their heart ripped out
by the Creature, Branagh can’t resist not only having the Creature holding it
up to the camera, but for the camera to jump to a close up of the heart
literally beating in its hand. Not scary, not gross, just stupid and childish.
At any points of tension we get the pounding music and running around and
shouting like a Gothic Doctor Who. If
only Branagh had taken a breath and treated the material more calmly and
sensibly we could have ended up with something creepy and spooky, rather than garish.
It’s a real, real shame because honestly there are some good
things in this movie. I’ve mentioned De Niro, but Tom Hulce is also terrific as
Clerval and Bonham Carter very good as Elizabeth. There are moments of real
class in the design and production – I’ve lambasted Patrick Doyle’s score a
bit, but there are some very good tracks in here. The problem, much as it
massively pains me to say it because I love him, is Branagh. His performance
and direction is just too much: too giddy, too overblown, too frantic, too overwhelming.
The film comes across less as a tribute to old style melodramatic horror
movies, more a very intelligent gifted man talking down at fans of the genre,
giving them what it appears the genre is about on the surface, rather than the
depths that actually appeal to people. Despite its merits, the film is not
alive, but dead inside.
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