Bobby's A6 at Last

So, yesterday was my birthday so I didn't get around to posting this then. Sorry for the delay. Anyways, on to the analysis.

I wrote, co-directed, edited and performed in Patchwork, a short film adaptation of a scene from Frankenstein. Given the nature of these roles, I have a lot to talk about. The roles in which I expressed the most creative vision were as actor and writer, so I'll discuss those First, the writing.

The initial challenge of adapting this scene from the novel (the scene in which Frankenstein's monster gets angry at him for destroying the monster's female companion) was deciding how much the adaptation should follow the book. I obviously didn't want a verbatim translation of page to screen, but I also didn't want to make the adaptation so loose that the dialogue sounded unfamiliar. The first thing I did to achieve a compromise between these two ideas was write the dialogue in a slightly formal style, while still modernizing it a little bit. I wanted the characters to speak in a semi-poetic manner, as if they were straight out of the novel. Some lines I took straight out of the novel for their poetic beauty (and to establish that it was a faithful adaptation in spirit) but I used them in different ways than in the novel. For instance, I used "beasts will mate, and men will marry" and "I followed you along the shores of the Rhine and the deserts of Scotland..." but I ended the lines differently, choosing to end them with "and I alone will live in wretched solitude?" and "and you're telling me that I came here for nothing?" respectively. I also took a line from a different part of the book, a line spoken by the monster ("...limb from limb, like a lion rends a lamb"), and instead had Frankenstein speak it, in order to establish Frankenstein's villainy in this scene.

Establishing Frankenstein as a villain was my second goal after attaining a style of dialogue. I drastically altered the scene in order to make Frankenstein more villainous. I tried to make him a character that believed he was being courageous in denying and tearing down the monster as viciously as he does in the film. He doesn't believe the monster is human and treats him as such. He's a man with a lust for power and control, and he exercises both of these over the monster. Instead of ending the scene with "Remember, I will be with you on your wedding night" as I did in the first draft (prior to establishing the goal of Frankenstein as villain), I chose to have the monster bid farewell to Victor in a hurt, sympathetic fashion. I used the word "fatherless" in his monologue to emphasize the pain that the monster feels over his relationship (or lack thereof) with his creator.

In performing the role of the monster, I had to understand how he was feeling beneath the lines. That was easy for me, because I wrote them. I wanted the monster to be wounded, vulnerable and angry. I wanted to make it clear that the monster would never kill Frankenstein (his threats seem more pained than passionate; more of a desperate plea). The monster attempts to intimidate him into reversing the damage he caused, but he never tries to hurt his creator. At the end, for instance, Frankenstein attacks the monster but the monster deflects the blow and merely pulls past Frankenstein. I liked this action because, during this scene in the novel, Frankenstein attacks the monster, and the monster simply eludes him, inwardly refusing to damage him. While this is in part because the monster wants Frankenstein live to see himself become a villain, I think that the monster could never kill his father figure. Deep down, he has a compassionate, sympathetic connection with Frankenstein that is clearly depicted in the last scene of the book, in which the monster laments over his creator's corpse. The role of the monster as a deeply sympathetic antagonist fascinated me, and I'm very happy with the movie we made and how it explores him as a character.