Frankenstein

Masculine Revisioning in Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelleys Frankenstein

by Joe Bakk

Mary Shelley’s tale of unnatural creation has generated and influenced texts ever since the 1818 publication of Frankenstein. Innumerable films present, in various fashions, the figure of Frankenstein’s reanimated Creature, which now resonates as an archetype of Western popular culture. One hundred seventy-six years following Frankenstein’s emergence, Kenneth Branagh presented his cinematic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s seminal work in 1994’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein stages a much different work than that which its title claims to represent. Although Branagh alleges his "intent was always to arrive at an interpretation that’s more faithful than earlier versions to the spirit of [Shelley’s] book" (Branagh 9), his remake digresses from the original Frankenstein in a number of significant respects. While Branagh’s adaptation affo...