why the monster is among us, on Aconcagua Radio

One of the novelties (if this word can be used) on this week’s film billboard in Mendoza is the premiere of Frankenstein. The film arrives to be shown in only one of all the theaters in Mendoza, the university cinemaand this is because although it is a blockbuster, it bears the signature of Netflix and it will be available on platforms on November 7. That of the rooms will, then, be a fleeting step.

And, of course, the question may well be an excuse to think about some keys that make it relevant that today, 207 years after the publication of the original novel, Frankenstein and his monster continues to appear in our cultural life.

The British writer Mary Shelley was the author of Frankensteina novel that, not by chance, had the subtitle “ or the modern Prometheus Mary was the wife of the famous poet Percy B. Shelleyfrom whom he took his last name, and with this novel, published in 1818, he not only acquired fame and prestige, but also launched one of the most important literary and cinematographic genres of the modern era: science fiction.

Mary Shelley imagined the story at that time, told through letters (like Dracula), of a biology student who managed to revive a body made from pieces of various corpses, to discover the horror that this represented. It was important that there was nothing supernatural in the proposal, beyond the implausibility of the matter, since everything happened in a supposedly scientific environment in which, through electricity and biological knowledge, the protagonist — Victor Frankenstein— could give life to a creature that had no name and that we all still know as “Frankenstein’s monster”.

The fact that a man could give life to the dead was what took Mary Shelley of the myth of Prometheus, who had also stolen fire from the gods, which in his novel became another flame, the vital one: that is, this Prometheus who was Victor Frankenstein He robbed the gods of the ability to create life, but through their scientific knowledge.

This genre, the Science fictionand more specifically his basal novel, of course, was not going to be neglected by the cinema. Therefore in the early 1910s Frankenstein It had its first film adaptation, with a short film (silent, of course), which is currently a lost gem.

But it was in 1931 When the consecration arrived, the entry not only of Frankenstein in the big cinema, but also of Frankenstein in the mass popular imagination, in a more massive way than the novel by Mary Shelley.

In that year, the Universal studiosalready fully immersed in the new era of talkies, opted for two monsters to gain the public’s attention. On the one hand, he made one of the most famous adaptations of Draculaof Bram Stokerdirected by the great director Tod Browning and with the unforgettable Bela Lugosi in the lead role. Due to the success of that film, Universal decides to make it to the cinema Frankenstein. Of course, the first option was to repeat the successful formula and give the role of the monster to Lugosi. But the Hungarian actor, who was a superstar, decided to reject the role when he realized that he had to wear makeup so heavy that it covered his facial features. So the studios decided to commission the film from the also notable James Whale (at the time, the highest paid director in Hollywood) and hand the role to the British actor Boris Karloff.

Of course, the film was a success and the image of the monster played by Karloff It is the one that has remained one of the strongest icons of the culture of our time.

Between 1931 and the present, Frankenstein has been part of numerous versions and adaptations. Among them, the first and most important was Bride of Frankensteina kind of continuation of his film, which he made himself Whale that same year and which, for many, constitutes a masterpiece.

From there begins an almost innumerable string of appearances of Frankenstein in the cinema, not so faithful to the story he imagined Mary Shelley. In reality, what abounds are adaptations and mixtures that include the coexistence of the monster with others like the monster itself. Dracula, the Wolfman, Jekyll and Mister Hydein addition to appearing the children, boyfriends and ghosts of the original creature.

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young frankenstein 1974

Young Frankenstein (1974), by Mel Brooks, comedy version of the monster.

Among so many filmography frankesteiniana We can also rescue one of the great comedies of the 70s, Young Frankensteindirected by Mel Brooks in 1974, and the Frankestein de Mary Shelley, the film he directed in 1994 Kenneth Brannaghcon Robert De Niro in the role of the monster, and that he continued the path of what he had done the previous year Coppola con Dracula of Bram Stoker. That is, a film that, although it has original features, sought to return to the essence of the story written by its author, in this case by Mary Shelley.

Frankestein-de-Mary-Shelley

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a 1994 film directed by Kenneth Brannagh and starring Robert De Niro in the role of the monster.

Of course Frankenstein continued to feed the audiovisual industry until this year, when Guillermo del Toro faces his own adaptation. That this director does it is no coincidence, because it comes from giving proof that he is capable of taking the monstrous and giving it a poetic meaning, both from the plot point and from the visual point of view. A good example of this are his films such as Pan’s Labyrinth o The shape of water.

Del Toro, for this film, is not at all faithful. It changes characters, it puts the emphasis on what we could call the “monster humanity“and even makes him tell part of the story. Along with that, he bets a lot on dazzling visually and putting the emphasis on the performances of Oscar Isaac like Dr. Frankenstein, in Jacob Elord like the monster and in Mia Gothwho plays Victor’s fiancée.

Frankenstein

Frankenstein (2025), directed by Mexican Guillermo del Toro.

We said at the beginning that perhaps it would be good to ask ourselves what this story from 207 years ago wants to tell us in 2025. First, the truth is that it can tell us many things. It does not seem, however, entirely coincidental. that we are witnessing something similar to what happened in the 90s, that is, that both Dracula as Frankenstein come back with such force to the cinemas. Let us remember that this year a new version of Draculadirected by Luc Besson and very much in line with what he had done Coppola in 1993. At the same time, a new Nosferatuwhich is also a slightly unorthodox adaptation of Dracula. And now comes, as also happened in the 90s, this new version of Frankenstein.

The famous Spanish theorist Romanian Governor He told us in his fundamental book History of Cinema that this type of story, like that of Frankenstein, shows “the rampages of humanoid monsters and the final catastrophe that usually crowns the films, with the well-known punishment of the ambitious and sinful wise man” and that form a kind of reactionary vision towards the progress of humanity. There may be some of that, but not everything has to be a capricious and reactionary resistance. And the fact is that, in some way, films like this want to make us understand that many times It is not so easy to identify which monster isespecially in an era when We are serving our humanity, whether in daily life or in politics.both artificial intelligence and real disintelligence. And there are these monsters to remind us.

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