Men from all over the world have think about life, death and birth of human being since ever.
In 1818 Mary Shelley, an English writer, wrote about all this arguments in one of the best known novel in the world, Frankenstein.
“Young Frankenstein” and “Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein” is a perfect example of satire. To be more specific it is considered a parody, and probably one of the best parody’s ever created.
The book with its theme that study in deep the individuality and the reasons of being a human creature has been in the last sixty years readapted and reused by different directors in their movies, one of the most unorthodox but also well done is “Young Frankenstein” by the genial Mel Brooks.
Anne Tyler said “serious movies sometimes don’t recognize the seriousness of the issues in Frankenstein, while comedy, in a backhanded way, deals with it in a much more effective way.”
Such she said sometimes the irony and its power is truly perfect for tell and evidence something that serious movie can’t do.
Just think at the continuously internal fight with the scientist Victor and his believing about the human life, in the book is hard to really interpret but in the movie just saying “Once the nerve fiber is severed, no else is no way in heaven or on earth, to recreate it in my life. I am a scientist, not a philosopher! The work that my grandfather is only crap! Delirious nonsense of an individual who was crazy: what is dead is dead! ” the movie tell the audience in an hilarious way what was the point of the start in the believing of the scientist Victor Frankenstein.
Even the repetition of the scientist name spelled wrong tell the audience.
The books purpose was not only to bring horror to the pits of your soul, but for you to examine your thoughts and feelings, on the other hand all the movies based on Shelley’s novel seems to evidence just this, in young Frankenstein the audience can notice the real message of Shelley according to the irony used, the creature is lonely and I think one of the best scene that reveals the real purpose of Shelley is the one with the music played by the violin, when Frau Blucher says: “Yes. It’s in your blood – it’s in the blood of all Frankensteins. It reaches the soul when words are useless. Your grandfather used to play it to the creature he was making.”
The movie is also not very close in terms of story with Shelley’s novel, the scientist Victor Frankenstein in a ridiculous way try to fix the situation that he created playing to be God, he’s sad and tries to help the creature; different and absolutely far from what happen in the real story like brain exchanges, but in the words of Victor Frankenstein we can get the real message, maybe, what everybody thinks Victor should do, help the creature, his creature.
“Hello handsome. You’re a good looking fellow, do you know that? People laugh at you, people hate you, but why do they hate you? Because… they are jealous. Look at that boyish face. Look at that sweet smile. Do you wanna talk about physical strength? Do you want to talk about sheer muscle? Do you want to talk about the Olympian ideal? You are a God. And listen to me, you are not evil. You … are … good.” And “For as long as I can remember people have hated me. They looked at my face and my body and they ran away in horror. In my loneliness I decided that if I could not inspire love, which is my deepest hope, I would instead cause fear. I live because this poor half-crazed genius, has given me life. He alone held an image of me as something beautiful and then, when it would have been easy enough to stay out of danger, he used his own body as a guinea pig to give me a calmer brain and a somewhat more sophisticated way of expressing myself.” All these quotes are using the irony for explain how really the creature and Victor feel, they just confirm what Anne Tyler said about the irony, sometimes can really be used for touch other people with argument that in other cases could be misunderstood or not understand.
Edoardo Fiorilla (4C)