Obligatory Halloween Post: Frankenstein

Happy Halloween folks. To get into the Halloween spirit (which admittedly I completely avoided this year)  I decided to do a bit of film comparison. Frankenstein (1931 Universal) and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein (1994 Tristar). To keep this as brief as possible the classic Universal take on Frankenstein completely shits all over the source material. I honestly doubt if the producers and director (James Whale) even read Mary Shelly's novel Frankenstein. Nothing is right! Not to say that its a bad film, it is just a bad adaptation of the novel and its a rather shallow film. Well at least it got Karloff's film career off the ground, because if it wasn't for his performance as this lumbering doofus monster he wouldn't have been in such films like "The Man They Could Not Hang" or "The Body Snatcher". The 1994 Frankenstein film adaptation on the other hand mostly follows the source material, but falls flat in other areas. In the case of the 1931 version I didn't complain too much of the acting because it hasn't aged too well, and that would be like smacking a cripple in the face (and yes that was a reference to Romero's "Monkey Shines"), but this one has no excuse. While the acting wasn't bad in Branagh's 1994 film adaptation, the characters weren't to memorable or were just formulaic characters. Kenneth Branagh is probably the only memorable character because he is probably the best portrayal of Victor Frankenstein to ever grace the silver-screen. The man is ignorant to advice, completely self absorbed, and hypocritical much like the Victor Frankenstein from the novel. Robert De Niro as the monster was alright too, but nothing to write home about. He was goofy like the Karloff's interpretation, but was a lot more skillful in his killing, and practically omnipotent (just watch the film for yourself, its actually somewhat creepy). De Niro also brought some of his wise-guy charm to the role of the monster which was really cool. I'd like to see Al Pacino as Dracula and Joe Pesci as the Wolfman though, now wouldn't that be awesome? All of the other characters were completely underutilized, and type-casted. Helena Bonham Carter's Elizabeth was the typical love interest, Tom Hulce was the quirky friend, and John Cleese was the broken-down mentor.  I've seen these characters before, show me something new! In short the 1931 Universal film Frankenstein was stupid but forgivable (and a classic), and Branagh's 1994 adaptation could have been great but a few forgettable performances held it back from greatness.

Smoke and Mirrors... but Mostly the Mirrors

Ahh those mirrors. Much like what Kane did by walking past two parallel mirrors, I tried the same thing in my bathroom yesterday on a smaller scale. To say the least the effect was jarring. When I placed my hand between the mirrors it multiplied into an infinite number of hands on an infinite number of planes of existence. To say the least the visual effect was quite jarring, but of course I knew that this would happen because I've done this experiment before, and been in a house of mirrors before. In a way though when we saw Charles Foster Kane on screen for the final time, we saw Charles Foster Kane and his innumerable number of mirror duplicates too. This visual trickery made this moment resonate in my mind and raised questions of what this means. Does it mean that Kane is infinite and everlasting in his own right? Does it say that we have only seen one "reflection" of Kane's life and that there is an innumerable amounts of other facets to Kane? Can it mean that every aspect of Kane is not real, except the one true Kane that is indistinguishable from the rest? Honestly I can't say, but what I do know is that Orson Welles took this secret as well as many more to the grave with him, much like how the secret behind "Rosebud" will remain a secret to rest of the world in Citizen Kane.

The Appeal of Citizen Kane

Well, as directed by Mr. Bennett, I watched the news-reel scene again. This offered some more insight now that I was "formally" introduced to a few more of the characters. The truly amazing thing about this second viewing is how my brother caught a glimpse of the news reel, dropped everything that he was doing, watched it, and thought that it was non-fictional. In a way my brother was a monkey in an experiment to test the mass appeal of Citizen Kane. Here, someone who is your average teenage "dude" who's favorite movie is "Back to the Future" impulsively started watching Citizen Kane. He would have watched the whole thing too if it didn't stop at the end of the news reel. On top of that he thought that Charles Foster Kane was a real person, probably because the news reel was so real..... Seeing Charles Foster Kane with Theodore Roosevelt and Hitler probably sold it, but the fact that Xanadu looks like a location and not a set piece definitely helped uphold this facade. To say the least it was funny.

The American Kublai Khan.

So far, this film has moved at a breakneck pace in its opening "news reel" sequence of the rise and grandeur of Charles Foster Kane, which on its own is an amazing feat, simply because it works, and still holds up today. Something like this could have been easily botched in terms of transition with cheezy dissolve shots or a transition into an arbitrary scene. This didn't happen, and the film reel was being watched by main characters in the film, making it completely relevant. Another thing that I would like to touch upon is how people compared Kane to Kublai Khan, which I find interesting. Kublai, was the mongolian "khan" (king) that ruled over what is now modern day Mongolia and Eastern China, during the Yuan dynasty. What I found really interesting about this is that khan was generally despised by the Chinese, but exalted by fellow Mongolians and the foreigners, much like how Charles Foster Kane was despised by half of the nation, but revered by tho other half. Kublai Khan was an outsider in a foreign nation and was regarded by many as a menace to Chinese culture, yet his followers (mostly Mongolians and foreigners) considered Kublai Khan as a gracious host, and generous with his wealth. Similarly alienated from the masses, some people regarded Kane as a communist or fascist, yet he still connected with the common man, and prospered because of it.

Apocalypse Now.... Redux.

Not to long ago (roughly a year ago) I saw Apocalypse Now on HBO but for some funny reason it was called Apocalypse Now Redux. Upon doing further research its a re-edit of the original 1979 epic war film, and according to Coppola and the fans, its a "completely different movie." Now I don't know how much truth this statement holds, but if anyone has seen both Apocalypse Now and the re-edit it would be great if you can tell me the differences.

The Disappearance of the Pickelhaube.

Now I love it when the movies that I watch are historically accurate, because it shows that effort was put into the research behind the prop and set design. Now while the explosions and machine-gun fire are not accurate, the German's change in helmets some time into the movie is. The first helmet that we see is commonly referred to as the "picklehaube" which roughly translates to point bonnet in German. This one is the spiked one that we see in the first third of the film. Despite its apparent coverage and cool spike, this one was total garbage because it was made out of hardened leather, which stood no match against shrapnel. The only reason why they even wore these to begin with is that the picklehaube was of Prussian design, of sentiment to the German people and they didn't know how poor these would serve in modern war.  The one that is later introduced is called the "stahlhelm" or steel helmet in German. These helmets were excellent and can protect one's head from bits of shrapnel quite well. It definitely blew the Brodie helmet out of the water, and many nation's armies use helmets that decent from the stahlhelm today.

My boots will go on.

I find it funny that Kemmerich's boots are immortal while he and the boot's third owner's are pushing daisies (Muller is injured. ) Apparently some jerk decided to lift those boots off of Muller while he was injured. I assume that those boots saw dozen more owners before the war was over. A dozen more guys probably saw the owner of those boots as a "piece of meat with really nice kicks" and snatched them without a second thought. Its dog eat dog out there, and the dehumanization will probably only get worse.

Poor Behn.

I don't have much to say about this guy because he was killed off to early to really be developed. To clarify, Behn was more of a symbolic example than a character because he was was the only guy with insight to the horror to come yet he died after being blinded by shrapnel. This should have been somewhat powerful but Walter Rogers somehow weakens it through his overacting. Its still a thought evoking and symbolic death despite Walter Rogers, and it begs the question, is vision the first casualty of war? 

Bozza Blog created- 10/ 4/10

A great day in the history of mankind. Well sort of.