A ROMANTIC CIRCLES RESOURCE
This bibliography lists responses to and adaptations of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, including movie versions, stage plays, and books. The entries were generated by the NASSR-L Discussion List during September 1999. This bibliography is is part of an array of related bibliographies including "Fictional Representations of Romantics and Romanticism" and "Pop Culture Interpretations of Romantic Literature ".
James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein in some way started it all, especially because of the creation scene, the lightning bolt, and the cry "It's alive! Alive!" See Michael Grant, "James Whale's Frankenstein: The Horror Film and the Symbolic Biology of the Cinematic Monster," in Frankenstein: Creation and Monstrosity, ed. Stephen Bann (1994) 113-35.--Michael Eberle-Sinatra
I still think Young Frankenstein is the best of the Frankenstein films I've seen.--Atara Stein
"Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, a techno-thriller set in the permanent twilight of Los Angeles in 2019 ... brings Mary Shelley's story of the creation of an artificial human into the era of genetic engineering and new reproductive technologies. ... This updated story is a better replication of the original than any of the adaptations that gesture toward the period of the novel."--Jay Clayton. Link offsite to an excerpt from Clayton's article, "Concealed Circuits: Frankestein's Monster, the Medusa, and the Cyborg," Raritan 15 (1996): 53-69.
Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (maybe my favorite movie
of all time), in which Rutger Hauer, as the leader of four rebel cyborgs
("skin jobs"), sets out to "meet his maker" (his words) and then quotes
Blake at him (might be "America," but I can't remember clearly enough).--Meg
Russett.
I think it's something like "Fiery the angels fell, deep
thunder [did something], burning with the fires of Orc," that Roy (the
Rutger Hauer replicant) quotes in Bladerunner. The quotation is
from America, I believe Plate 20 (at least somewhere in the twenties).
Better than Kahn (Ricardo Montalban) quoting Moby Dick in The
Wrath of Kahn.--William Flesch.
Here is the Blake quote, as found in Erdman: "Fiery the
Angels rose, & as they rose deep thunder roll'd / Around their shores:
indignant burning with the fires of Orc." (plate 11, lines 1-2).--Melissa
Sites
With regards to Romero and the Living Dead trilogy,
a good book to look at is The Zombies That Ate Pittsburgh: The Films
of George Romero. Romero talks about his own works (including Pet
Sematary, a collaboration with Stephen King -- this book predates his
second collaboration with King, The Dark Half). The author of Zombies
also discusses the difficulties which Romero had with some of the creative
crew of the original Night of the Living Dead film; these difficulties
led, ultimately, to the filming of
Return of the Living Dead (parts
1, 2, and 3), which purport to be the "real" story of Night of the Living
Dead, but which really have nothing to do with those films.--Sonja
H. Streuber
Paul O'Flinn may have put it best when he wrote, "There
is no such thing as Frankenstein, there are only Frankensteins,
as the text is carelessly rewritten, reproduced, refilmed, and redesigned"
("Production and Reproduction: the Case of Frankenstein" 197). While
Branagh's film attempts to capture the "real" Mary Shelley text, I wonder
how the homoerotic birth/ wrestling scene between Branagh (Victor) and
DeNiro (The Creature) figures into MS's text. In my humble opinion, there
is no "good" (overall) filmic adaptation of the novel; there are, rather,
interesting moments, uses and purposes in adapting the novel.--Frankie
Allmon
Ah, [the homoerotic birth/ wrestling scene] was the only
scene I liked. I thought that the scene played up the narcissistic/homoerotic
desire of Victor Frankenstein. He is creating a glorified, inflated (8
ft tall!) mirror of himself, one who seems to inspire his "ardent" obsessiveness
much more than Elizabeth does. I thought that scene was an interesting
interpretation of the text. What truly offended me about Branagh's movie
was the resurrection of Elizabeth as the female creature. That struck me
as a major major misreading of the novel. IMHO, I agree totally [that there
is no "good" (overall) filmic adaptation].--Atara Stein
I agree on both points. The birth sequence was a lot more
provocative than the traditional Hollywood "dry" version, but Elizabeth's
resurrection totally destroys all the interesting interpretations about
fear of female independence and reproduction.--Rick Albright
Branagh may have been inspired by Aldiss's novel Frankenstein
Unbound (and the Corman film version), which has Victor doing exactly
the same thing. In an interesting twist, Aldiss has the Female creature
accept her mate and reject Victor (contrary to Whale's 1935 film and Branagh's).
I do think that Branagh's ending makes indirectly a good point about Victor's
failure at controlling Elizabeth, even after her death: she is still an
independent, strong woman who chooses to commit suicide, and thus holds
her destiny in her own hands.--Michael Eberle-Sinatra
There follows an extended thread
focusing primarily on issues from the novel, with contributions from Kim
Wheatley, Jennifer Michael, Jeff Ritchie, Atara Stein, Darby Lewes, Michael
Eberle-Sinatra, Richard A. Nanian, Avery Gaskins, and Rob Anderson.
Patchwork Girl. Hypertext
by Shelley Jackson (Eastgate
Systems)
I think the recent movie Gods and Monsters is a
quite interesting reading of the novel and of earlier movie versions as
well.--Jill Heydt-Stevenson
I second or third the vote on Gods and Monsters--I
thought it was brilliant and thought the lyrical ending would have warmed
Mary Shelley's heart.--David Rollison
Another instance of the Frankenstein myth permeating our
culture, although this time with the usual, negative connotation: the villain
of the recently released film Mystery Men is called Casanova Frankenstein.--Michael
Eberle-Sinatra
Heffernan, James A. W. "Looking at the Monster: Frankenstein
and Film." Critical Inquiry 24.1 (1997) 133-58.
Jones, Stephen. The Frankenstein Scrapbook. "an
entertaining catalog of Frankenstein films and related films. I pass it
around to my students when I teach the novel, and they get a chance to
see the huge variety of Frankenstein adaptations."--Atara Stein
Margolis, Harriet E. "Lost Baggage: Or, the Hollywood
Sidetrack" in Approaches to Teaching Shelley's Frankenstein, ed.
Stephen C. Behrendt.
Tropp, Martin. Mary Shelley's Monster: The Story of
Frankenstein (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976). "a great book about
the development of Frankenstein in film through the 70's."--Sonja
H. Streuber.
Terminator (1984)
Frankenweenie (1984)
Tim Burton's contribution to the genre.--Frankie Allmon
The Bride (1985)
Directed by Franc Roddam and written by Lloyd Fonvielle.
Starring Sting as Charles Frankenstein, Jennifer Beals as Eva (the Bride),
Anthony Higgins as Clerval, Clancy Brown as Viktor (the Creature), and
David Rappaport as Rinaldo. The film is sympathetic toward Viktor, who
is given the name by a dwarf who befriends him. The movie makes an excellent
contrast to the book in several respects. First, Charles claims that he
will educate Eva to be his equal in good Wollstonecraft fashion, but then
he can't stand it when she has her own will and her own opinions. It provides
good contrast with the women in the novel and exemplifies Wollstonecraft's
critique of Rousseau. There is a great moment when Charles refers to Keats's
Prometheus
Unbound, and Eva corrects him, "Shelley's." And he throws the book
in the fire and says "Whose Prometheus is it now!" Very illustrative of
canonical Victor's willingness to destroy both his male and female Prometheii.
Second, the education of Viktor (the creature) and Eva, their understanding
of themselves as artificial beings, their recognition of the validity of
their own souls, and their willingness to challenge Charles's dominion
over them, all seem to fulfill something the novel was too tragic to contemplate--the
idea that the limitations of the creator could ever be transcended. The
ultimate moral of the movie is that Friendship conquers all.--Melissa Sites
Day of the Dead (1985)
In the realm of perverse, lurid, indirect, recent Frankensteins,
check out George Romero's Day of the Dead (third of the trilogy
beginning with Night of the Living Dead. I found it interesting
the way the family politics of Shelley's novel get integrated into Romero's
apocalyptic version of the living dead.--John Rieder
Frankenstein Punk (1986)
Rowing with the Wind [Remando al viento] (1986)
The Creature is a character in this film, but it focuses more on Byron and the Shelleys. More
on our main page
Gothic (1986)
"....Russell managed to get so many small details right.
These include Percy's phobias about being buried alive and Mary's nearly
obsessive fears about the death of her infant William. Her account of having
dreamed that her dead daughter Clara was not dead but cold, and needed
only to be rubbed by the fire to make her live, is straight out of Mary's
journals. ..."--Rick Albright. More
from Albright on our main page
Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
Roger Corman's adaptation of Brian Aldiss's novel of the
same name; a scientist travels back in time and meets with Mary Shelley
and her circle, as well as the "real" Victor Frankenstein and his Creature,
on which Shelley bases her novel; obviously not as good as the novel, but
still provides an alternative take on the whole summer of 1816 episode.--Michael
Eberle-Sinatra
"Ship in a Bottle," Star Trek: The Next Generation,
ep. 138
The myth has also been explored in several episodes of Star
Trek: The Next Generation, especially in ep. 138 ("Ship in a Bottle")
where the holographic creature asks for a mate, is denied his request by
Picard, and challenges him to explain why he thinks he can make such a
decision.--Michael Eberle-Sinatra
Forests of the Night. Novel by S. Andrew Swann (Steven
Swiniarski) (1993).
Like Stapledon's Sirius and
Bakis's Lives of the Monster Dogs, this book
explores the Frankenstein idea of artificially created beings by
focusing on genetically manipulated animals. In this case, the genetically
engineered animals are called "moreaus" because of H. G. Wells's The
Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), in which animals were given intelligence
by a man they worshipped as a god. The hero, private investigator Nohar
Rajasthan, is a moreau (a tiger, which is why the Blake poem provides the
title) who is investigating a case involving "franks"--genetically engineered
humans. Set in the 21st century after the moreau rebellion (Nohar's parents
were warriors who were killed in the rebellion), the novel is a cyberpunkish
hard-boiled detective story and uses the tense relations between humans,
moreaus and franks (who are considered even more unsavory than the moreaus)
to create its noir background.--Melissa Sites
Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' (1994)
Kenneth Branagh's "modern" take on the novel, with a stronger
Elizabeth; good rendition of the Creature by de Niro, including a proper
conversation on the sea of ice, and the presence of Walton; see my article
"Science, Gender and Otherness in Shelley's Frankenstein and Kenneth
Branagh's Film Adaptation," European Romantic Review 9.2 (1998)
253-70.--Michael Eberle-Sinatra
Frankenstein and Me (1996)
Robert Tinnell's fan film that re-interprets not only Shelley's
novel and its film adaptations, but also other 'horror' classics such as
The
Wolf Man and Night of the Living Dead).--Michael Eberle-Sinatra
Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl takes as its
premise that Mary Shelley's second monster, the female companion that Victor
Frankenstein began creating but then destroyed, was secretly finished by
Mary Shelley herself. The monster becomes MS's lover, then travels to America,
where it goes through interesting adventures until its final dispersal
into its component parts in the early 1990s.--Jay Clayton (see additional
comments)
Frankenstein (first performed at the Questors Theatre,
Ealing, London, 15 February 1997)
I saw an adaptation of Frankenstein in Spring of 1997
in London that was verbally faithful to Mary Shelley's novel to the extent
that I only caught one line that was not a direct quotation. It was basically
a staged reading of the novel where body gestures, costumes, sets, etc.,
became the interpretive commentary on the selections the actors were reading.
According to the playbill, this version of Frankenstein was adapted
from Mary Shelley's novel by Julia Bardsley; directed and designed by Tanya
Leigh. It starred Kate Davie as Mary Shelley and David Palmer, Andy McCall
and David Hovater as "Mary's Creatures."--John Rieder
Lives of the Monster Dogs. Novel by Kirsten Bakis
(1997)
I am teaching a course that was inspired by the thread of
a few years ago on 20th c representations of romantic texts/figures (which
has been archived on Romantic Circles). We just had our first full discussion
of one of the twoFrankenstein novels, Lives of the Monster Dogs
by Kirsten Bakis (a mad German scientist wishes to create a race of military
slave dogs by fitting them with prosthetic hands and voice boxes. When
the dogs figure this out, they rise up and kill their masters and flee
to New York, where they become celebrities. One of the high points in the
novel is the Opera one of the dogs wrote about the revolution). The novel
is quite interesting but not entirely successful. When I asked the students
for their responses to the novel, many of them found it juvenile and unsophisticated.
When I got over my embarassment at having underestimated their tastes,
we talked about why they were disappointed. It eventually emerged that
many of them thought they would have liked it better had they not just
read Frankenstein. Shelley's novel had opened their eyes to the
kinds of things fiction can do, and they were disappointed when a novel
didn't live up to that standard. After I explained that it hasn't been
that long since Frankenstein was seen as juvenile and unsophisticated,
I was gratified to see that the novel had had such an effect on them. Especially
given our recent discussion about the place of Frankenstein in the
canon, and its relative merit as literature, I thought this was a strong
note in its favor.--Rob Anderson
Gods and Monsters (1998)
If we can interpret "adaptation, interpretation, or response"
very broadly, then I would recommend Gods and Monsters, the recent
very powerful film directed by Bill Condon with Ian McKellan portraying
the last days of James Whale, director of the Karloff Frankenstein.
(This beautiful movie is an interesting example of a mediocre novel blossoming
into something much finer.) It seems to me, however, a mistake to dismiss
the Karloff film unless fidelity to the plot line of the novel is a prerequisite
to "worth looking at"--it is an odd fact that even the adaptations that
claim such fidelity seem always to do so with their fingers crossed. Branagh's
sticks to the story to a point, then succumbs to the lure of special effects
and other tempting variances. There was one version with Aidan Quinn that
had substantial segments of faithful reproduction, then went off track.
It seems to me that deviations from the novel are not, however, inherently
wrong so long as they area consistent with the aesthetic goals of the film
version--it is the deviations that feel tacked on for no good reason that
ruin the effects of many adaptations.--Tom Dillingham
Mystery Men
(1999)
Supplementary Criticism
Dixon, Wheeler Winston. "The Films of Frankenstein"
in in Approaches to Teaching Shelley's Frankenstein, ed. Stephen
C. Behrendt.
Syllabus Centering around Frankenstein
I use Frankenstein as the basis for my Science Fiction
course. The syllabus
is at http://hss.fullerton.edu/english/astein/373syll.htm.--Atara Stein.
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Scholarly Resources / Fictional
Representations of Romantics and Romanticism / Responses to and Adaptations
of Frankenstein