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Great Books is an hour-long documentary and biography program that aired on The Learning Channel. The series was a project co-created by Walter Cronkite and television producer Jonathan Ward under a deal they had with their company Cronkite Ward, The Discovery Channel, and The Learning Channel. Premiering on September 8, 1993, to coincide with International Literacy Day, the series took in-depth looks at some of literature's greatest fiction and nonfiction books, along with the authors who created them. Most of the narration was provided by Donald Sutherland.
Episodes feature insights from historians, scholars, novelists, artists, writers, and filmmakers who were directly influenced by the books showcased and discussed.
How Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein reflects concerns about the consequences of scientific experimentation.
Episodes feature insights from historians, scholars, novelists, artists, writers, and filmmakers who were directly influenced by the books showcased and discussed.
How Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein reflects concerns about the consequences of scientific experimentation.
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00:34It is human nature to test the bounds of science, to be tempted by its power, and the chance
00:43to play God.
00:50In careless hands, that power can be menacing.
00:55We are capable of making monsters.
01:00We are capable of making monsters.
01:26A scientist who creates a horribly ugly monster with electrodes in his neck and a stolen brain.
01:33A mute, tormented creature, driven to violence, who finally dies in a fire set by angry villagers.
01:41Not exactly.
01:46This is the real story of Frankenstein.
01:49It was inspired by the waking dream of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley in 1816.
01:56Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour had gone by before we retired to rest.
02:02When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think.
02:17With shut eyes but a cute mental vision, I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing
02:25he had put together.
02:34I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show
02:41signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.
03:12I saw the dark side of my pillow, and I saw the dark side of my pillow, and I saw
03:13the dark side of my pillow.
03:16Our attitudes toward God totally, that it would have to.
03:18The scientific invention would have to start causing us to be frightened of our own brain capacity and what we
03:26could do.
03:27This is the beginning of a genetically engineered, brave new world.
03:34Nuclear weapons are obscene, and they are against every human principle.
03:39They can only destroy.
03:41What initially starts out to be a blessing could turn into a Frankenstein.
04:02I think the reason that we're so concerned, for instance, about nuclear war, about biochemical engineering,
04:09about genetic engineering, about DNA manipulation, comes from the tradition of Frankenstein, the novel,
04:17the recognition that scientists, as they begin to manipulate changed nature, may do more damage than good.
04:27The heart is beating more regularly now.
04:32Yes, it's been beating for nine hours.
04:37Not yet.
04:38But soon.
04:39And the brain, perfect.
04:42And already in position.
04:44Then we are almost ready.
04:46Almost.
04:47Almost.
04:52Science has given us increasingly powerful tools to control life.
04:56We can fight disease, manipulate our very nature, and wage war on each other more efficiently than ever before.
05:05Such knowledge can betray us.
05:07The term Frankenstein has come to mean anything that we set in motion that we can't control.
05:12And when you look around you at the numbers of things in our world that have been set in motion
05:18and are anything but under control from ecology to, you know, to weaponry to everything, anything.
05:26But the central theme in Frankenstein, the idea of actually producing artificial life,
05:33may be the most intoxicating challenge of all.
05:37That reality may be closer than we think.
05:40Whether born in a test tube or a computer,
05:43our creations already seem to be very much alive.
05:53Look, it's moving.
05:57It's alive.
05:59It's alive.
06:01It's alive.
06:03It's moving.
06:04It's alive.
06:05Oh, it's alive.
06:07It's alive.
06:08It's alive.
06:09It's alive.
06:10It's alive.
06:16Before the birth of Frankenstein's monster, history was more concerned with battles and borders than technology.
06:24The French Revolution dominated European politics of the late 18th century.
06:29But in 1769, the invention of the steam engine ignited the Industrial Revolution, and the rhythm of daily life was
06:38changed forever.
06:40Science had become the new frontier.
06:44Public experiments were staged to spark interest in chemistry.
06:49Electricity was the rage.
06:52Luigi Galvani attached electrodes to a dead frog.
06:56A current stimulated the creature, causing its legs to twitch and quiver.
07:05Surgeons went one step further with the corpses of criminals.
07:08The results made it seem plausible that electricity could actually raise the dead.
07:16Percy Bysshe Shelley, the Romantic poet, was an unlikely observer of all this progress.
07:22His fascination with chemistry was to echo in the life of Frankenstein.
07:28Percy Shelley met Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin when she was 15.
07:32Her father, William Godwin, was a radical theorist.
07:37Mary's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was one of the first feminists.
07:41She died just 10 days after giving birth to Mary.
07:45She read obsessively, read her mother's books, read all her works over and over again,
07:50because, of course, it was a way of replacing the dead mother by trying to come to terms with her
07:54through her works.
07:55Mary Shelley had a very interesting childhood because she was the child of two of the most famous intellectuals of
08:02the age.
08:02And her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a sensational woman, enormously admired in her own circle and by other intellectuals.
08:13So I think she always wanted to be like her mother.
08:15She wanted to be a great person like her mother.
08:18And meanwhile, she was devoted to her father, who was another leading philosopher.
08:23And he was a sort of theoretician of the French Revolution for the English.
08:27And so I think she always grew up wanting to be a writer.
08:32Mary and Percy began stealing secret visits to her mother's grave.
08:36Mary became pregnant at 16.
08:39Although Percy was already married with two children, they decided to elope, and he and Mary ran away to France
08:45in 1814.
08:46It was filthy. It was rough. They didn't have a lot of money.
08:49Some of the traveling was on mules.
08:53All in all, it wasn't your ideal honeymoon kind of experience.
08:59They came back six weeks later to settle in England, and there they had their problems.
09:02They came back penniless, and really returned, because they were penniless, to a very inhospitable greeting.
09:12Godwin refused to see either one of them, and still pleaded with Mary Shelley to come home.
09:18And Shelley's father, Sir Timothy Shelley, would have nothing to do with them either.
09:26And so they sort of had to run from debt collectors, and they were just on the run, going from
09:33different addresses.
09:35And meanwhile, Mary Shelley being pregnant, and Shelley hiding out, and it was all very dramatic.
09:42Mary's first child, Clara, died at just two weeks of age.
09:46Her death left Mary inconsolable.
09:49She wrote in her journal,
09:51Dream that my little baby came to life again, that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it
09:56before the fire, and it lived.
09:59Awake and find no baby.
10:01I think about the little thing all day.
10:05And the interesting thing about that dream is the association of fire with life, that you can give birth to
10:13something that's been dead.
10:14You can bring it back to life.
10:16People many times say that in that era, because there was so much child death, that people were more casual
10:24about it.
10:25I haven't found that to be the case, and certainly not in the Shelley's case.
10:30Both parents were very upset about it.
10:34Mary and Percy's relationship was turbulent.
10:36Percy was having an affair with Mary's stepsister, Claire, who in turn was having an affair with another famous poet,
10:43Percy's great friend, Lord Byron.
10:45The summer of 1816 found the foursome in Switzerland, vacationing together on Lake Geneva.
10:54And this group would either go boating together or meet every evening and discuss all sorts of things, including the
11:02creation of life.
11:03The new evolution science was showing how life might have evolved from smaller and smaller units, so that in the
11:12end it was hard to see where God comes into it, and very hard to see how the soul could
11:17possibly get into the human body or where it would go to afterwards.
11:22It was the coldest summer in Europe in a century, so they're there freezing, and there's nothing they can do
11:30except stay indoors and try to stay warm.
11:32So they start telling each other ghost stories, and they decide, in fact, to have a competition as to who
11:37can write the best ghost story.
11:39The others all began a story, and eventually she woke up in the middle of the night, as she records
11:46it herself, and saw the scene of the laboratory when the scientist was creating the creature, and the creature rose
11:56from that laboratory table.
11:58And she jumped up herself, horrified by her own nightmare, and then recorded it, and she knew that she had
12:06her story.
12:08And so Frankenstein was born, conceived in the imagination of an 18-year-old girl.
12:19Frankenstein was published anonymously in London in 1818.
12:24I think most people, when they read Frankenstein, thought that it was a very powerful, strong, formidable subject, and really
12:33they did not think it was a woman's book.
12:36It was not suggested. People didn't guess that it was a woman's book.
12:40So I think the reason that it was anonymous may have been that she feared that having a woman's name
12:47on it would cause a lot of hostile comment.
12:49I mean, that quite often did happen with a woman's first book, if she was afraid that it was somehow
12:56unfeminine.
12:58Mary Shelley is writing a gothic horror story, and I think there's a way in which she really feels embarrassed,
13:05almost, that she's sending out into the world this very frightening story.
13:11She calls it, finally, my hideous progeny, says that she feels affection for it, but still recognizes that it's something
13:19that could really terrify.
13:22It was received well. It got mixed reviews. Some people loved it. Some people hated it. Sir Walter Scott loved
13:28it. It sold well.
13:30It was one of the successful books, one of the literary books of 1818.
13:33I don't think it gave the kind of hint that it was going to be the kind of classic that
13:39it has become.
13:41Frankenstein was not the first in literary history to challenge the forces of good and evil.
13:50Dr. Faustus sold his soul to the devil in exchange for forbidden knowledge.
14:07Nor was the monster's creation the first man-made man.
14:11According to Jewish folklore, the golem was a creature made of clay, brought to life by a charm.
14:20He was a noble character who played the role of protector.
14:24Unfortunately, the removal of his charm de-animated the creature.
14:34Prometheus was one of the grand figures to the Romantics.
14:38This idea of the god who stole fire or created man, depending on which version of the myth you have.
14:45There's also the way of looking at Prometheus as the overreacher.
14:50The creature who pushes beyond the limits, the boundaries, allowed man, and is punished for it.
14:57In Prometheus' case, he's strapped to a rock where a girl picks up his liver every night.
15:02The Prometheus story is a very important influence in Frankenstein because of the concept of finding knowledge and what you
15:13do with the knowledge you find, the responsibility for the knowledge you acquire.
15:35I think in a way, Walton is there to be a link between the reader and the story so that
15:40they understand that this is a story about scientific enterprise.
15:45But the other way of looking at Walton is that he's a more innocent Frankenstein.
15:50The rescued man's name is Victor Frankenstein.
15:54He is broken in body and spirit, but he claims he has a story to tell.
16:00The Frankenstein family gave their son a happy childhood in Switzerland.
16:05Victor was in love with his cousin, Elizabeth.
16:09There are definite parallels between Victor Frankenstein and Percy Shelley.
16:13Percy Shelley published his first volume of poetry under the pen name Victor.
16:17He had exactly the same family that Victor Frankenstein did.
16:20He had a sister named Elizabeth.
16:23Victor was ambitious.
16:25He went to the University of Ingolstadt to study natural philosophy.
16:29As a boy, he had been inspired by his reading of alchemists and their quest to discover the elixir of
16:37life.
16:38And he's fascinated by this, most of all by this vision they have, this notion that they can, that science
16:44can, not science, magic can control the world, can control nature and so on.
16:48When Benjamin Franklin started experimenting with electricity, Victor's imagination caught fire.
16:57There are images of electricity all the way through Frankenstein.
17:00And electricity was seen by many as the source of life, a source of life.
17:05The idea that even something that might even be able to reanimate the dead or give life to something that
17:11was not living.
17:14Victor Frankenstein became intoxicated with his experiments.
17:18He was convinced that he could cross the boundary of life and death.
17:25He learned some chemistry, he learned some anatomy, and that enables him in two years to discover the secret of
17:30life,
17:30which of course all men have been searching for since the beginning of time.
17:33He's a very quick study, this Victor Frankenstein is.
17:37And of course he's unhappy with the university because, well, they don't have a course in creating life.
17:43So he goes off on his own and begins his experiments.
17:51Victor Frankenstein's dream of creating life became his obsession.
18:04I pursued nature to her hiding places.
18:07Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave
18:13or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?
18:35The hour of awakening had arrived.
18:39It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils.
18:45With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me
18:51that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.
19:03By the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.
19:09It breathed hard and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
19:18Frankenstein's monster was hideous, and Victor fled in terror.
19:26Oh, no mortal could support the horror of that countenance.
19:30A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.
19:35I had gazed on him while unfinished.
19:38He was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion,
19:43it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.
19:51You could say that the disaster is entirely Frankenstein's fault because he rejects his own creature.
19:58Or you could say more broadly that humanity finds it very difficult to relate to what is different.
20:05And so it may be that all our civilization is simply too narrow in its sympathies and understanding
20:11of what it is to be human or natural.
20:13What if I gave birth to a freak, to a monster?
20:17Could I love it in any way, in any case?
20:20Is it possible to give birth to a child that would be so horrendous that you would want it to
20:25die,
20:25that you would want to kill it?
20:27And then finally, thinking back to her own mother, what if this child kills me?
20:33And of course, that's exactly what Victor Frankenstein is going through as that creature comes to life,
20:38the feeling that he's given birth to something so horrendous that he can't face it,
20:42runs away, abandons it immediately.
20:49The monster was left as helpless as a child.
20:53He spent years living in the woods, observing people secretly.
20:59Over time, he learned to read and speak, with a language both poetic and passionate.
21:08My travels were long, and the sufferings I endured intense.
21:16Nature decayed around me, and the sun became heatless.
21:21Rain and snow poured around me, mighty rivers were frozen.
21:26The surface of the earth was hard and chill and bare, and I found no shelter.
21:35Oh, earth, curses on the cause of my being.
21:41I found the whole part of the book very touching, where the monster tells his own side of it.
21:45We feel compassion for him, we feel understanding.
21:47He's an outcast, he's a monster, yet we can see he's doomed.
21:50It's about us, really.
21:52The creature's own story, when he's telling his life story,
21:55is in some ways the most profound and the most accomplished,
21:59because it actually shows you a human being, effectively,
22:03growing up all alone, growing up with no relatives.
22:06It's a very poignant story, like Robinson Crusoe's.
22:10The monster goes in search of Victor,
22:13seeking vengeance for his miserable existence.
22:16But along the way, he encounters Victor's little brother, William.
22:20William threatens him, and he uses the name Frankenstein.
22:26What happens is, the creature becomes violent, and he murders the child.
22:32That is the moment of turning in the book,
22:36because he then becomes the same as those around him.
22:42And that's how he falls prey to the system.
22:46It's a system that turns the good bad.
22:49Victor Frankenstein has created a creature that he's failed to love.
22:53He's turned it into the monster.
22:55He's been the originating monster, the one who failed to love.
22:58And the monster, in a sense, imitates his own creator,
23:02but masters him at the same time.
23:04The monster confronts Victor in the mountains.
23:07Frankenstein!
23:09I was benevolent once.
23:11My soul glowed with love and humanity.
23:16Now I am miserably alone.
23:19These bleak skies are kinder to me than your fellow beings.
23:24Why should I pity man more than he pities me?
23:33What do you want of me?
23:37You must create a companion for me.
23:42A creature of another sex, as hideous as myself.
23:47My evil passion will leave me, for I will meet with love.
23:54And in my dying moments, I shall not curse my creator.
23:59The creature, in a healthy way, wants a family life.
24:05He wants a kind of Mrs. Monster, which always sounds slightly comic.
24:09And he wants to go away with her to South America to live on vegetables.
24:13That is always the second question asked by the monster in great horror stories,
24:17is, where is there another one like me, and can we make more?
24:21And that theme runs through everything.
24:23And, of course, in some ways, that theme allows us over and over again
24:28to reflect on our own fear of our own sexuality
24:31and the mystery and the magic and the terror of having a child
24:35and giving a hostage to fortune.
24:39So Victor starts work on his second monster.
24:42But midway through his hateful task, he changes his mind.
24:48Now, what Victor Frankenstein does at this point, of course,
24:50is to rip up the female creature.
24:53Rip it up, trembling with passion, as he says, mangling it.
24:57An image that I really think is almost a kind of rape.
24:59He literally pulls her apart and leaves the pieces on the floor.
25:05The monster is enraged by what he sees.
25:08Now consumed with hatred, he sets off on a mission of revenge.
25:13Victor's friends and family become his victims.
25:17It's that experience of being abandoned again and again and again
25:21that finally drives him into this rage, this violent, predatory rage,
25:26that leads him to start murdering, murdering friends of Victor Frankenstein's.
25:31It's his punishment to Victor, who has refused to give him a mate.
25:36Each desperate to destroy the other,
25:39Victor and the monster begin their chase to the death.
25:43The monster lures Victor into the depths of the Arctic wasteland.
25:48What his feelings were whom I pursued, I cannot know.
25:53Sometimes, indeed, he left marks in writing on the barks of trees
25:56or cut into stone that guided me and instigated my fury.
26:03When Frankenstein and the monster are chasing each other,
26:06or really, the monster's in front and Frankenstein is chasing him,
26:10trying to find him to kill him,
26:11when almost everybody else he cares about is dead.
26:14And I think that's very imaginatively described.
26:17It's a kind of wasteland, surreal, symbolic chase right up into the Arctic
26:23and strange little touches, such as the monster leaving food to keep Frankenstein alive.
26:29I mean, it's very creepy, and I think it's the best writing in the book.
26:36Victor has been stripped of everything
26:38and is as barren and is as isolated as is the creature.
26:45So it's appropriate that the Arctic be the final place
26:50where these two barren creatures, these two stripped creatures,
26:55exist on a landscape that is absolutely devoid of any kind of human life,
26:59any kind of society, any kind of community.
27:01Just these two souls, which are, in a sense, two sides of the same person.
27:06The story has come full circle.
27:09Victor lies ailing in his sickbed on Walton's ship
27:12and soon dies.
27:15The monster, overwhelmed with guilt and despair at Victor's death,
27:20gives his final soliloquy.
27:24Farewell, Frankenstein.
27:26Soon I shall die
27:27and what I now feel be no longer felt.
27:30Soon these burning miseries will be extinct.
27:33I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly
27:37and exult in the agony of the torturing flames.
27:42The tragedy of the novel is that all the human beings in the novel
27:47don't recognize the creature or monster as a full human being
27:52and so they reject him.
27:54And that's really like rejecting humanity or humanness.
27:58I mean, it is a great disaster and sort of, it's a very sad book.
28:03The final confrontation is, of course, the acknowledgement of each other,
28:07of Victor finally acknowledging and accepting the dark side of himself,
28:10accepting the creature, accepting this thing that he created and abandoned
28:14who has been seeking revenge on him all the way.
28:17And once that's done, of course, once that happens,
28:20Victor can die of exhaustion.
28:22The creature doesn't kill him, he dies of exhaustion
28:24and the creature knows that he has no future, nothing left
28:27and he, of course, drifts off into the mists as the novel ends.
28:33Almost as soon as Frankenstein was published,
28:35the acting community pounced on the story.
28:38A delighted Mary Shelley attended a performance of the first play in 1823.
28:45It was a time that demanded theatrical excess.
28:50Actors were melodramatic, full of grand gestures and exaggerated staging.
28:56In the 19th century, there was a tremendous emphasis on special effects.
29:01I mean, Spielberg and Lucas would have thrived in that.
29:04They loved avalanches, hurricanes, battles, sea battles on the stage.
29:10So you can see that Frankenstein was a natural for the 19th century theater.
29:14Enjoy a triumph never yet attained by mortal man!
29:19The Man and the Monster was one of the early theatrical versions,
29:26making its debut in 1826.
29:34The breath of life now swells in his bosom
29:37and as the cool night breeze plays upon its brow,
29:42it will awake to sense and motion!
30:07The modern conception of the monster
30:10was not the conception of the monster in the early part of the 1800s.
30:16It would have been a lot different,
30:17probably more like a gargoyle
30:19or some kind of a half-human creature of some sort.
30:26And of course, their technology is very limited
30:28in terms of special effects,
30:30and there was only so much they could do.
30:33Instead of the fresh color of humanity,
30:42it wears the livid hue of the damp grave.
30:48Horror! Horror! Horror! Horror!
30:57The press hated the play.
30:59Tabloids warned of the drama's ungodly overtones,
31:03proclaiming it to be a bad influence on the audience.
31:07But the public swarmed to the theater.
31:10Arrgh!
31:12Let me fly this dreadful monster!
31:18My own creation!
31:23Arrgh!
31:34In this play,
31:35Victor leaves behind a wife and child
31:37when he sets off to create his monster.
31:40Here we meet Emmeline and her father in the woods,
31:43searching for Victor.
31:45We shall find him soon.
31:47I'm sure we shall.
31:48And when he sees thy ruddy, smiling cheek
31:52and marks his Emmeline's wan and haggard features,
31:56his heart will turn to us
31:58and he will again be all our own.
32:00I don't believe a word of it.
32:02Talk of his heart indeed.
32:05He has no heart.
32:08If ever he had any,
32:10it has evaporated in the fumes of his diabolical preparation.
32:16He love and protect you?
32:18All his affections are in the bottom of a crucible
32:22and in the wild chimeras of his sign
32:26and the dreams of his mad ambitions.
32:29The acting style was really dictated in large part by the audience.
32:34Because the audience was there to have a good time,
32:37the actors had to draw attention to themselves to be heard.
32:42So they would have to have very large gestures
32:45so people in the back who wanted to hear
32:47would know who was talking
32:49because often there was so much noise and smoke as well in the theaters
32:53and that sort of thing that they couldn't tell.
32:55So the actors had to be physically as well as vocally
33:00almost gymnastic sometimes
33:02to simply be heard,
33:04to simply get their lines out.
33:06The wild nature gave me powers
33:08that could not sink beneath the grateful burthen.
33:11Oh, what if hell was there?
33:16Heaven itself joined in the persecution of the hapless Amaline.
33:22Oh, Father!
33:24Father, come to me!
33:26I sink!
33:28I die!
33:31Oh, Frankenstein!
33:34Frankenstein!
33:35Oh, Frankenstein!
33:36Oh, Frankenstein!
33:47Nearly two dozen versions of Frankenstein
33:49made it to the stage before the turn of the century.
33:53And with the arrival of motion pictures,
33:56Mary Shelley's story was an obvious choice.
34:02It seems appropriate that the inventor of the motion picture camera
34:05was the first to capture the monster on film.
34:08In 1910,
34:10Thomas Alva Edison produced a 16-minute movie
34:14called Frankenstein.
34:24Edison's monster was born of chemicals,
34:26not electricity.
34:29The monster's creation is an example of early special effects,
34:33which weren't much more than smoke and mirrors.
34:44In this sequence,
34:46Edison reversed the film,
34:47making the blazing monster appear to emerge from the ashes.
34:51The audience was captivated,
34:53and Edison had set a precedent.
34:56Creation scenes for all future Frankensteins
34:59became more and more dramatic.
35:07Here are the few of the girls
35:09of the 1931 follies.
35:14The Empire State Building
35:16was completed in 1931,
35:18stretching 132 stories.
35:261931 was also the year
35:28the monster made headlines.
35:30James Whale's production
35:32with Colin Clive as the doctor
35:34and Boris Karloff as the monster
35:35defined the face of Frankenstein
35:38forever.
35:40Oh!
35:42Why, what's the matter?
35:43Look!
35:46There's nothing to fear.
35:48Look.
35:50No blood,
35:52no decay,
35:54just a few stitches.
35:57And look.
35:59Here's the final touch.
36:04The brain you stole, Fritz.
36:07Yes.
36:07Think of it.
36:08The brain of a dead man
36:10waiting to live again
36:12in a body I made
36:13with my own hands.
36:15With my own hands.
36:20Ah, welcome to Castle Frankenstein West.
36:26The monster is in.
36:29Forrest Ackerman,
36:30science fiction collector
36:31and Frankenstein fan,
36:33went to the movie's premiere.
36:37Well, I got down to the theater
36:38and they were all out
36:40on their horror hype.
36:42They had an ambulance
36:43in front of the theater
36:44and as you walked in
36:46there were nurses
36:47in attendance
36:47and during the film
36:50there was one particular highlight
36:52and a lady in the audience
36:53screamed,
36:54jumped up,
36:55ran up the aisle.
36:57Well,
36:57at the age of 15
36:58I wasn't acquainted
36:59with Hollywood hype
37:01and I took that
37:02to be absolutely
37:03a serious reaction.
37:05But I was so fascinated
37:07by the film
37:08I stayed to see it
37:09two or three more times
37:10and I noticed
37:11each time
37:11the same sequence,
37:12the same lady
37:13in the same seat
37:14jumped up,
37:16went running up the aisle.
37:18You have created
37:19a monster
37:19and it will destroy you.
37:21I've got to experiment further.
37:23He's only a few days old,
37:25remember.
37:26So far he's been kept
37:28in complete darkness.
37:30Wait till I bring him
37:31into the light.
37:38Here he comes.
37:40Let's turn out the light.
37:43Here he comes.
38:12Universal's very first version
38:14Dr. Frankenstein's reaction to his monster coming to life
38:17was apparently too scandalous for the times.
38:20As for the famous line of Colin Clive
38:23and a paroxysm of creation,
38:25he just can't contain himself.
38:27He says, it's moving.
38:29It's alive.
38:31It's moving.
38:32It's alive.
38:33It's alive in the name of God.
38:35Now I know what it feels like to be God.
38:38I imagine that there was some religious objection
38:42to a man saying that he felt like God.
38:46And so after the first week, that was excised.
38:50It was a time in motion pictures
38:52when whenever you had a mad scientist,
38:55they would always wind up by saying,
38:56he tampered in God's domain.
38:59He meddled with things man was meant to leave alone.
39:04Frankenstein was a sensation.
39:07Variety saluted the film
39:08was the biggest money picture in the country
39:10and Boris Karloff was typecast for life.
39:15Boris Karloff, when you took off the mask of the monster,
39:18there was Santa Claus.
39:21I was the misshapen creature
39:23in those depression days of 1931
39:25that had to compete with Father Christmas
39:28to bring pleasure to people during Yuletide.
39:31But somehow it worked.
39:34People queued up at box offices all over the country,
39:38breaking records.
39:39And afterwards, it was evident
39:41that millions all over the world
39:43felt sympathy for the monster.
39:46It was clear from the letters they sent
39:48that while they were terrified by my characterization,
39:52at the same time,
39:54they pitied the monster that I portrayed.
39:57And that pleased me
39:58because it was exactly what I had hoped.
40:01So he always spoke of the monster
40:04in very friendly terms,
40:06that it was the best thing that ever happened to him.
40:08He didn't mind being typecast as a monster.
40:14In 1935,
40:16The Bride of Frankenstein premiered.
40:18It has been hailed by many
40:20as the finest horror film ever made,
40:23closer to the novel than the original film.
40:26It created even more sympathy
40:28for the unfortunate monster.
40:31Well, Bride of Frankenstein
40:32is my favorite of all the movies,
40:33my favorite horror movie of all time, forever.
40:37And my favorite part is the part
40:39where Frankenstein's monster
40:40goes to visit the blind man in the forest.
40:42The blind man is playing his violin
40:44and the monster,
40:45wounded, upset, disoriented, rejected,
40:49stumbles into the blind man's cottage
40:50and they become friends.
40:52Before you came,
40:53I was all alone.
40:55It is bad to be alone.
40:58Alone.
41:00Bad.
41:02Friends.
41:03Good.
41:05Friends.
41:06Good.
41:09I think all the great monster stories
41:11in a way have made the monster sympathetic.
41:14It's amazing how we've forgotten that
41:16in the late 20th century.
41:18A lot of our latest horror movies
41:20rely on pyrotechnics and special effects
41:23and they really have forgotten
41:24that very early on,
41:27Dracula was a charmer in the movies.
41:29Frankenstein reached for the light,
41:31wept when the old man befriended him
41:34and Bride of Frankenstein.
41:35And the wolfman was always begging
41:37for compassion and understanding.
41:40There is good
41:40and there is bad.
41:43Good.
41:44Bad.
41:48Good.
41:53Music.
42:08I think that image of Karloff
42:11conveys the pathos,
42:13the pain,
42:13the alienation,
42:15the confusion,
42:16the rage,
42:19a great deal
42:20of what the book does
42:22and film being what it is,
42:24you need to have to have
42:25a visual creature,
42:27an articulate,
42:29a talking creature.
42:30The book is about words
42:31and the film is about images.
42:37After the success
42:38of the first two films,
42:40the industry literally exploded
42:42with Frankensteins.
42:49I do know that vampires,
42:51werewolves,
42:52angels,
42:53Satan,
42:54the devil,
42:54these are figures
42:55that our imagination longs for.
42:57We want to see them
42:58and we want to see dramas
43:01or read dramas
43:02in which they talk about life.
43:03We tire of just talking
43:05about the manners and morals
43:05of the middle class in America.
43:07We wear out on that.
43:09On the heels of the first movies
43:11came the radio serials.
43:14It has life
43:15and my experiment
43:17has succeeded.
43:18I have created life,
43:20Victor.
43:21This is too horrible.
43:23Destroy it now.
43:24Destroy it now
43:25would be murder.
43:26Although this creature
43:27is terrible to look upon,
43:29it is a man.
43:30It has life.
43:31It has feelings
43:32just as you and I.
43:39When Frankenstein
43:40made the transition
43:41to television,
43:42his character was more
43:43bumbling and benevolent.
43:45and frightening.
43:49The monster's movie career
43:51continued.
43:52In the 1970s,
43:54Mel Brooks directed
43:55a loving homage
43:55to the original.
43:57We can see why
43:58the book can lend itself
44:00to melodrama
44:01and we can see why
44:02it can lend itself
44:03to comedy.
44:04After all,
44:05comedy very often deals
44:06with the most serious
44:07topics in life.
44:10And I think that's
44:11sort of amusing in a way
44:12because so often
44:14people who have done
44:15versions of Frankenstein
44:17have missed the point
44:18of its seriousness,
44:20whereas in a sort of
44:21backhanded way
44:22the comedies
44:23recognize it.
44:25this is a nice boy.
44:29This is a good boy.
44:32This is a mother's angel.
44:36And I want the world
44:38to know
44:38once and for all
44:41and without any shame
44:43that we love him.
44:52I'm going to teach you.
44:55I'm going to show you
44:56how to walk,
44:56how to speak,
44:57how to move,
44:58how to think.
45:00Together,
45:02you and I
45:03are going
45:05to make the greatest
45:07single contribution
45:09to science
45:10since the creation
45:12of fire.
45:14Dr. Frankenstein,
45:16are you all right?
45:18My name
45:22is Frankenstein.
45:27Frankenstein comedies
45:28also found a welcome home
45:29in comic books.
45:39But pop culture
45:40was not the only vehicle
45:41for the monster.
45:42his symbolic warning
45:44of man-made demagoguery
45:46began to appear
45:47in political cartoons.
46:04It originated a myth
46:06that has become
46:07one of the guiding tropes
46:09of our popular culture.
46:11I mean,
46:11every schoolboy knows,
46:13you know,
46:13if you say,
46:14watch out
46:15or you'll create
46:16a Frankenstein,
46:17everybody knows
46:17what that means,
46:18that you'll create
46:19a monster
46:19that can destroy you.
46:20It's the kind
46:21of metaphor
46:22that assumes
46:23the needs,
46:24the tastes,
46:25the desires,
46:26the nightmares as well
46:27of other cultures,
46:30those subsequent cultures.
46:31And that's,
46:31I think,
46:32one of the reasons
46:32why it can be
46:33retranslated
46:34into so many
46:36different forms.
46:36She just told
46:38a story
46:39that turned out
46:40to be
46:41of mythic power.
46:42And it's no surprise
46:43to me that
46:44there are hundreds
46:45and hundreds
46:45of Frankenstein films.
46:47I mean,
46:47other than Universal Studios,
46:48I mean,
46:48there are many,
46:49many, many twists
46:49and variations
46:50on Frankenstein
46:52and there always will be.
46:53The mournful eyes
46:54of Frankenstein's monster
46:56have touched
46:57the hearts
46:57of generations.
46:59He is a reminder
47:00of how cruel
47:01humanity can be
47:02when its conscience
47:04is abandoned.
47:08Mary Shelley's message
47:10reaches beyond
47:11private morality,
47:13making us aware
47:14of our accountability
47:15when we tamper
47:16with nature.
47:17The monster's
47:19very existence
47:20is a condemnation
47:22of science
47:22without soul.
47:24Frankenstein
47:25is even more
47:26compelling today
47:27than when it was
47:29first written
47:30because we are
47:32not only dealing
47:33with some
47:34of the issues
47:35that Mary Shelley
47:36Society was dealing
47:38with,
47:38we have intensified
47:40the problems,
47:41such problems
47:43as DNA
47:45on the science front,
47:47such problems
47:47as the forms
47:49of government
47:50on the political
47:52side,
47:52make the book
47:54so important
47:55because it raises
47:56the important
47:57questions,
47:58not only of
48:00the problem,
48:00but how are we
48:02going to resolve it
48:03and who is going
48:04to take responsibility
48:05for those resolutions.
48:07I don't think
48:08we'll ever stop
48:09telling the story
48:10in one form or another.
48:11In fact,
48:11the story is told
48:12over and over again
48:13without using
48:14the name Frankenstein.
48:15The person that
48:16tries to create
48:17artificial life,
48:18that tries to cheat
48:19death,
48:19that tries to reanimate,
48:21or tries to make
48:22the perfect
48:25soulless replica
48:26of a human being.
48:27I mean,
48:28it's an absolutely
48:28fascinating thing.
48:29Maybe because,
48:30maybe because in part
48:31we feel like monsters.
48:33cambiar the world
48:36at the war
48:36and down
48:47I'll go and
48:49Do it.
48:49Do it.
48:51Do it.
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