Frankenstein (ft. Guillermo del Toro)

21:20There's those guys.

21:22Chris Hewitt:Yeah. And they marry their mom. And you know them. And I find that tragic. I think it was important for Mia to understand that the feelings she has for the creature are complicated. There's a religious ecstasy. Because this is the Messiah she's been looking for in the convent. She says, I've looked all my life for something I cannot name. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So she has a longing that is spiritual. She identifies with the oddness of the creature. She talks about the butterfly like herself. Yeah. Quite a beautiful creature, odd, you know, three hearts, multiple eyes. You know, like she's not fitting.

22:11and then she also becomes delighted in recognizing that the creature is as out of place as she is. So she brings compassion.

22:26Chris Hewitt:And so Mia was going to play three roles. Initially, Justine was excised. Was that at the script stage? Did you realize? Because adapting it or a few characters didn't make it, a few characters who were Guillermo Corrientes. Well, I actually offered the role. I said it's too close, the mother and Justine. It may be confusing. So I had a great actress, Alexandra, Alexis Zoe, who was an American actress. And then I had to cut it. I had to cut it because I edit every day. And every day I'm timing the movie. And we were running long. And I said I have to compress the childhood. What other babies did you have to kill?

23:04A lot. I mean, the first cut of the movie was three hours 40. you know I could take that no you know and so we were very brutal and Jim Cameron and Alfonso Cuaron both did two of the most brutal cuts way late in the movie Alfonso took out eight minutes of the film and Jim said look you're gonna hate me but there's a whole sequence a great sequence that I loved and you're gonna see it's a good sequence but take it out and it was part of the childhood in which Victor poisons his father. Oh, wow. With a lichen that he harvests from the mother's grave. Okay. And he said, look, that closes the circuit.

23:51He's concluded. He has no more conflict. He killed a man that he believes killed his mother. Why should he create the creature? I said, point taken. You know, when people come to the editing room, I do the cuts. I don't argue. I say, let's do the cut. Let's see if it works. And that worked.

24:09Chris Hewitt:You see through their eyes? No, what you do is you are so much in the jungle, you cannot see the forest from the trees, right? Yeah. But we got there in the end. Well, I believe everybody that is thanked in the final credits, some people say, is this a goodbye to cinema? No, they happen to be my friends. I'm not saying farewell to cinema. It's like, these are my neighbors. unfortunately I have a life that is fun but everybody in that list gave me notes oh wow amazing Guillermo I could talk to you about this movie for a lot longer you have I have too long too long to think that's it it's called a day neither of us have died during the making of this interview but there's always time Guillermo del Toro always a pleasure man thank you man thank you man okay that was Guillermo del Toro talking about Frankenstein and we will get into the movie right now.

25:08Chris Hewitt:As I say, this is a movie he's been trying to make his entire life. He was about eight years old when he first read the Mary Shelley novel after seeing a film, one of the Frankenstein films, I think the Boris Karloff one. Then he read the book and since then it's kind of harbored this desire to make Frankenstein. You can see elements of Frankenstein in a lot of his work. This love for the beauty in the beast and the beauty in the beast all that sort of stuff. There's a lot of father-son thematics that crop up a lot in his work. But now he has finally made Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. Worth the wait?

25:45Well, I think it's beautiful. And I'm super duper glad that he made it because, like you say, it clearly is a passion project. It feels like a passion project throughout. I have quibbles, which I'm sure we'll get into. But generally speaking, I mean, it's so sumptuous to look at. It's one that I've gone back to a couple of times since it dropped on Netflix. Oh, good. Okay. And it's, you know...

26:05Chris Hewitt:Not much is a cake like everyone else. I mean, you know, it's tempting because, you know, he does basically construct this out of, you know, organic materials. It's a very similar show. We don't know. The creature could be cake. Could be cake. We don't know. Absolutely. But I think, let's assume the creature is not cake, just for our own sanity. Cake is a made-up drug. But no, you know, going back to just appreciating the detail, I went to the exhibition that they had in London. Do you want points or something? I'm just saying. No, but I just went to admire the detail of it and see it a bit more up close.

26:38And, you know, the detail that went into, for example, the costumes, you know, the sort of the organic patterns on Elizabeth's outfits. Elizabeth. Thank you. The, you know, the sort of homespun nature of the creature's look. I just thought it was wonderful. Absolutely amazing.

26:55Chris Hewitt:Yeah. A feast for the eyeballs, Ben. Yeah. Yeah, and for the mind and for the heart as well. You can tell how much Del Toro has thought about this story just across his lifetime. Not just, as you say, how it pops up in all of his other films thematically, but also what the resonances of this story are for him as a person, for him as a filmmaker, for what Frankenstein means in the kind of cultural consciousness. Consciousness. I was waiting for it. there's so much thought in it and there's so much emotion in it I think the last real image that you're left with in this film is so deeply emotional of I mean it's a spoiler special we're doing spoilers of the sun rising on the creature and he is sort of redeemed and he is free and he is for the first time you imagine going to enjoy this infinite life that has been bestowed on him yeah it's it's so Guillermo for him to revel in the craft and the monsters, but also to find an emotional heart in it all.

28:06Chris Hewitt:Yes. Bethany, of the two films this year that end with a shot of the hero of the film, who is an unkillable person with superpowers standing in the snow in the Arctic. He also has daddy issues, by the way, and the sun shines on his face. of the two films that end this year in the same way. What's your favorite? Is it Frankenstein or Superman? I'm going to scratch my head for a minute there. Because they end exactly the same way. I mean, it's definitely Frankenstein for me. Good old Frankie. Good old Frank. You say Passion Project. It is a passion project for one of the most giddily, enthusiastic filmmakers that we have the joy of kind of following, be that in his work or out of his work.

28:53I've never known a man personally throw his endorsement behind so many films. To the point now where if there's a trailer or a poster or anything now that says it's not been endorsed by Graham and the Torre.

29:06Chris Hewitt:You get suspicious. I'm like, oh, you're a pretty evil filmmaker. You've done something really wrong here. What's the deal with this film? Yeah, what's up with this? What's going on? Chris, you do the special thanks to Section in the magazine. Has anybody been thanked more than Guillermo? I feel like because I always stick around to the end of the credits these days and Guillermo is thanked in everything he really is there's him and David Lowry David Lowry is thanked a lot in movies and both of them are are absolutely lovely lovely gentlemen I remember once at Comic Con a few years ago I think this might have been for Hellboy possibly because it wasn't in Hall H this was back in the days like they were in Ballroom 20 so there was only like a thousand people in the room for whatever it was whatever and Guillermo finished his panel by sharing his email address with the entire room and saying, if you have anything you would like me to take a look at, if it's a script or a short film or a piece of music or something like that, I will take a look at it.

30:07Chris Hewitt:And I absolutely believe that he did that as well. I'm sure he has a time turner. I don't know anyone who has a schedule like he does and somehow seems to to navigate it with with grace he's extraordinary i think it's love of the game isn't it i mean i think he's seen that as well yeah yeah i'm sure he has that but i think his favorite sam raimi film in the same way you know i think there are certain filmmakers who thrive on talking to other filmmakers and and the creativity and the shared ideas yeah and that exchange of cultural consciousness consciousness um and one second and i think he is you know the epitome of that i think he's one of those guys he's one of the three amigos for a reason, you know.

30:49They, that specific group, you know, have always lent on each other and drawn from each other. But he clearly, like, has, tentacles is the wrong word, but he clearly has outreach that goes far from that.

31:01Chris Hewitt:A little crafty in tentacles. Yes. Again, then bringing it back to Frankenstein, being about this guy who is, like, driven to create. Yes. And then has to reckon with what he has created. Yes. like if Franken Del Toro is in his Frankentoro Frankentoro as he's now known he's in his like more contemplative era he's in like his big like dad wrestling era this and Pinocchio both being films about like absentee fathers yeah reckoning with the lives that they have created in these like unconventional children I think it's a really interesting time for him as a filmmaker yet doing the most deltoro-ist shit you've ever seen after his Oscar win but also moving into a slightly different part of his career It's wild to me how contemplative this movie is and how self-aware this movie is and actually in a way sometimes how self-lacerating this movie is as well and again this is coming from the interview you will have heard a little bit of it.

32:12Chris Hewitt:This is about many things. It's about fathers and sons. It's about creators and creations. It's about movie studios and directors. It's about rock stars and their output. It's about all sorts of things. But principally, I think it's about fathers and sons. I think it's him looking very objectively or as objectively as you can at his relationship with his father, his own father, who, as you, again, if you didn't already know, was kidnapped a number of years ago down in Mexico. And that was an incredibly difficult and uncertain time. And I think Guillermo's relationship with his father was one of those classic, strong, silent, we don't really talk to each other kind of relationships.

32:59Chris Hewitt:So it's a little bit about that. So it's a little bit about a son trying to reconcile with, as Adam and Joe might have it, a bad dad. But it's also about Guillermo casting himself as Victor and going, I wasn't, and he said this to me, you know, I wasn't really around a lot for my kids growing up. I was prioritizing being a film director. And that level of self-examination, I think, really hits home emotionally in this movie. I have seen so many versions of Frankenstein over the years. I think this is just sublime. And in a way that it applies emotion to a story that a lot of filmmakers tend to, including Terrence Fisher and Hammer, of course, because it was a kind of cheap ripoff.

33:50Chris Hewitt:they try and turn it into a horror tale and this is a much more beautiful elegaic allegorical tale where the horror isn't necessarily in body parts being you know cleaved off but in what it does to the heart in what relationships to the heart I think that's it I think the like the Kenneth Branagh version was probably more faithful to the novel and that does get into the Kenneth Branagh version yeah I don't remember it I don't know her she must have gone to a different she must have But that one does get into the creature's humanity quite a lot, and it does delve into that side. What I think this one does above all that the others maybe haven't, including that one, is talk about that relationship between the two to a much greater degree.

34:33It's not just the creature is a sort of a human being, essentially, and has the emotions of a human being and deserves to be, you know, those emotions to be considered as such. but also that relationship with victor is a is a relationship between human beings and therefore we need to examine that and and this one getting so much into the weeds of you have created this life hey now you're responsible for it is is something that hadn't really been brought out in any of those previous adaptations that i've seen certainly um because that is the that is the thing that is the spine of this film it's the thing that gives this film momentum and purpose and focus um and yes whether you see it as literally a father and something or whether you see it as a creator and his creation and you look at also you know what religious side as well but also like what you know as a creator and creation what responsibility do you have for a creation of any kind in this mixed up world are you responsible for the ways your art is used you have to have a you know serious thought about what your art says for the world and getting into those kind of questions you can unpack all of that if you want or you can just see it as a sort of mixed up father and son tale but either way i think there's there's so much material there to

35:47Chris Hewitt:work with i feel like a lot of frankenstein tellings in the creation of the creature the aftermath is like oh no i have made an abomination against science and god and what does this mean for the world and for humanity and this one as you say is very personal that victor's reaction is oh great I did it and then oh this is kind of annoying for me personally he's kind of a doofus and that is pissing me off and I thought he was going to be great and now I'm just kind of stuck with this goofy guy who just goes Victor let's just shove him in the basement and so even that relationship it's not the it's not playing with it on like a grand level of what it means for humanity it's specifically about the humanity or lack thereof in Victor Yeah.

36:35And he doesn't have a plan beyond, let's reanimate this flesh. He doesn't seem to have a step two, you know, the question mark and then profit. Like, he doesn't, it's just a big question mark for him. He's like, okay, well, I've done it. So now what? I still can't bring my mum back, which is, you know, presumably the sort of Oedipal Freudian force that had been driving all of this. So he doesn't really have a follow up. but then I think he was just expecting it to be the solution so he doesn't he hasn't planned beyond that which is the source of frustration when he doesn't when the creature doesn't prove to be a solution to his problems exactly he thinks that's it it's the it's a life well the not it's a life moment and then he expects it to be a blessing and a final act and then all he wants to do is play with Leeds and I'm seriously and I think that's the that also kind of maybe gets into the Arrested Development side of Victor in this film which again And this film brings out way more than any other previous version that I've seen, which is, you know, the idea that he really stopped developing anything but his mind on the day his mother died.

37:39Like, you know, all emotional development just stopped dead. You know, I mean, it's been commented on a lot, but the fact that he always drinks milk through the film, it's not subtle. He is a big baby. And he hasn't really had to grow up and he hasn't grown up. and therefore, you know, the creature, he's just like, it's a doll to him, really. Yeah. You know, he can't...

38:02Chris Hewitt:And the doll only says one word and he's like, oh, this is terrible. I don't have a receipt, so I can't take it back to the shop. So I'm going to burn it. I'm going to burn the doll. That's what I'm going to do. And then immediately regret that decision. Yes. I immediately regret this decision. What do we make of... So Del Toro has obviously incorporated an interesting structure here. It's half Victor's Tale and then half the Creature's Tale. Beth, were you surprised by that? Did you know that was going to happen? And what does it bring to the story? I mean, I can't fail to surprise here because my job is to know everything about everything all the time.

38:38But I remember messaging you afterwards. I saw it on a Friday night, the first night it came out on IMAX and saying just how incredibly moved I was by the second act over the first. I appreciated the first act for all that it was, but oh I'm just a sucker and I for a good love story and a sweet sweet man and I say sweet as in sweet natured he's an incredibly sweet natured and soulful man is our Jacob Elordi as the creature it's interesting to me I would have been very interested to see and contrast the two films if Andrew Garfield had been cast as the creature which was the original plan and then fell out because of schedule conflicts.

39:23And then we've got Jacob Elordi, who I've never seen do anything like this before. And I think, I mean, we can only speculate, but I think brings something completely different to this than what we might have seen with Andrew Garfield. Andrew Garfield grew up on the stage, very theatrical, whereas this feels more reserved and soulful and conveys so much with those massive eyes, even throughout those prosthetics, which I believe it was like eight hours a day. It was something like 11 at times. It was at 12 sometimes. Yeah, when it was the full body thing. Full body, yeah. He was basically sleeping in the chair as best he could while they...

39:59And then he was obviously going on set and working.

40:01Chris Hewitt:Oh, Frankenstein. Yeah. Sorry, Jacob. They had to sedate him. It's awake. By the time he was ready to go on set, genuinely the only thing he could say was, Victor. He ad-libbed Elizabeth. It was a huge shock. Mine? Victor? Oh, Elizabeth. I love that his dog recognized him though. I think that's very important. It's very sweet. Full credit to Jacob Lordy's dog. Weirdly enough, this movie, since it's come out, it's been, I think, very well reviewed, but perhaps not across the board raves. And I haven't seen it mentioned very much in the Oscar conversation. The Oscar Isaac conversation is a different thing, but the Oscar conversation.

40:43There's been some chats.

40:45Chris Hewitt:It's been mentioned. People have been talking about this is a good year for horror and this has been one of those those films that's mentioned as an Oscar contender in horror there's this in Final Destination Bloodlines please please please Bloodlines sweep Bloodlines sweep but I think if my prediction right now is I think Guillermo might get nominated for director but I'm not so sure it might get nominated for screenplay but I think Elordi will get nominated for best supporting actor me too I do too yeah I think if he can beat out the battles boys then maybe beat the battles boys he might be able to show up there.

41:18It's just one battle

41:19Chris Hewitt:after another with those guys, isn't it? Always. So you think Benicio and Sean split the vote for battle and Jacob already nips in. And then Jacob and Stella Skarsgård will be in there somewhere. Oh darn, yeah. That's a good year. It's a good year. Stacked. But I do think Hollywood likes to crown a new contender. Now they do this more with women because men have to wait until they're 40 usually to win an Oscar. I would point out he's way too young. I mean, he'd have to be Adrian Brody. He's as tall as a four-year-old. Maybe that will help. That's how age works. But genuinely, men tend never to win Oscars in their 20s.

41:52So that's the biggest thing against him, aside from the fact that he's in a horror. Or is he? Is it a horror, though? I don't know that it is.

42:00Chris Hewitt:It feels very similar to Crimson Peak in writing that line of gothic romance, but with more horror elements than you'd get in a traditional gothic romance because it's Guillermo. he's like leaning a little bit more into certain horror tropes but it's not like a it's not like a universal monster movie no I don't think it is I think Crimson Peak is way more traditional gothic horror than this I guess that's about spooky ghosts yeah this isn't spooky really I guess the horror comes in and you know you've got a casual scene of people being hung at one point you've got him like genuinely cheerfully sewing up dead bodies I saw this at a morning screening and there were two women on the front row who were like gipping their way through the limb chopping sequence because he's just gleefully like and the Alistair Alexandre Desplat scores going like and he's like blood sweeping all the blood and these two women in the front row were just going like oh staring away from the screen.

43:08But that's as much as it gets so you've got these little bits of gore And obviously, things like his broken leg up against the pillar,

43:16Chris Hewitt:that's really unpleasant. Her Harlander's terrible fate. Yes. Split, splat. But that's it. It's not building all this tension all the time. It's not people creeping down corridors worried that something is out to get him. It's not going to scare you, I think, in this movie. Except maybe on an existential level. Absolutely. At the scariest level of them all. So wise. So, so wise. Weirdly, the creepiest shot of it is that amazing shot towards the end of the Arctic landscape. And it's so flat, and you've got the sun either rising or setting, and you just see the silhouette of the creature stood in the middle of the ice.

43:56Chris Hewitt:And that's a really spooky, spine-tingling image. At the beginning or at the end? I think it's towards the end, right? It's when you loop back around to the Arctic. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that framing device isn't used an awful lot in Frankenstein, Frankenstein adaptations. and I'm really glad to see it used here. And I think that if you were to categorize this as horror, when we first see the creature arrive and just devastate those people in that ship, there's one where he punches a man, turns him inside out pretty much. He sort of breaks his back, snaps him backwards. He breaks his back and snaps him backwards.

44:31Chris Hewitt:That's unpleasant. Punches a man's face off. And there's an element as well that he is playing a little bit with superhero tropes. Also, this unkillable monster who has super strength who can free a ship from the Arctic ice. It's not something that's developed an awful lot in the film, but it's certainly something that, you know, when you see a man shot at Point Black Range and then just shrug it off, it's hard not to think about. But he also uses it in a, like a Hellboy-ish way of like, objectively, yes, you have superpowers, but also you're sort of dealing with that as like an outsider curse.

45:05Chris Hewitt:When he, after having a lovely time in the shack with the old man, and then the other guys come back and they shoot at him and he runs away but then gets shot in the head, is it? And he sort of passes out. And he does die for a short amount of time before he comes back to life. And you feel almost like the release and the relief of him being like, oh, okay, this is it. And then the wrenching of him being brought back to life. It doesn't feel like the eternal life thing is a superpower so much as... It's a curse. Yeah, absolutely. But at the end, there's a sense of hope that he's reconciled his feelings about Victor.

45:46Chris Hewitt:And, you know, there's a chance that maybe he will have some sort of life going forward. And the ship's captain has forgiven him for killing a bunch of his men because he at least freed the rest from the ice. And the captain's own hubris, which had brought them there in the first place. I love Lars Mikkelsen in this role. And I love that his last line is bygones. which it isn't but anyway it should be he's just look at the character the creature goes bygones the creature goes bygones we good aye we're good we're good lads so Jacob Lourley has a big old Yorkshire accent in this which I really like the idea that he he learns to speak he learns so much from the from the the old man the David Bradley character yes I just love that because you know it shows you that again maybe it's a found family thing his own father was rubbish no use didn't teach him to speak at all a bad dad did teach him a few things you know he reacted you know Victor had sort of trained him to respond to essentially pain stimuli and behave in certain ways but he hadn't taken the trouble to actually teach him how to be a human being so he learns that yes so he learns that from the old farmer and he picks up the accent with it because that was his his true formative I guess father figure I mean, we saw how good Jacob Elordi is with accents in Saltburn.

47:10Genuinely outstanding, posh boy, British accent in that film.

47:16Chris Hewitt:I've got to be honest, one of my big nitpicks with this film is some of the other accent stuff. Because I think the creature, Jacob Elordi picking a very specific accent and doing a good job with it, works extremely well. I think Elordi is unbelievably amazing in this. I was so fucking blown away by him. I just truly did not know he had this in him. Oscar Isaac, I think, is okay in the film. I don't think he's anything more than good. And I have to say, a big issue with me in his performance is his accent. I don't know if this is just as a British viewer, but seeing him do, I'm doing a generically British accent, and lots of my lines are shouting and being very rock star-y, but I am also sort of doing an accent.

48:09Chris Hewitt:A quite posh one. A bit posh, but then a bit cognizant. It's not an accent. It is like a generic sort of American-ish approximation of various British accents in a way that probably Americans see British people trying to do American accents and just see it as a hodgepodge of it's a little bit southern, it's a little bit New York, it's a little bit this. But for me, honestly, it detracted from his performance. Are you saying he can't tell the difference between Waking life and dreams? Of course, we've seen him do some crazy British accents before. Something about this was just like, I can't remember what it is.

48:48Chris Hewitt:There's something else I've seen recently where there's also somebody just doing a generic American-ish British accent. It's a very mannered accent. It's very mannered. And of course, he's not British. He's not British. Victor's not British. We just say that. Victor's not British. They kind of fudge a lot of that stuff. It's almost just like the Danish people are speaking English as Danish. I mean, that's true because Danish people 100 % speak English. As far as I can tell, they all seem to be better English than us. Yeah, 100%. But yeah, he seems to be maybe like, it looked to me Austrian or something.

49:22You've got those mountains in the background. I was getting slightly, but that might be because I'm getting slightly Amadeus' dad vibes from his dad. Another bad dad.

49:32Chris Hewitt:Bad dad. And I think, again, not a coincidence, but I think that's why maybe I'm just immediately going to Austria, but maybe like Germany as well, forefront of science in those days. And then you do come to Edinburgh because that was for a century, the center for Menton. So that made sense to me at least. He should have gone full Scottish. He should take on the accent of wherever he goes. So he should have been like Swiss or Austrian and then Scottish. Did you bump on Oscar Isaac's accent or just his performance in general? Because I don't think he is as good as Woody. I think it's the accent.

50:07I think the performance would be better without the accent. I'm not just really thinking about him doing a Scottish accent, if I'm honest. I mean, he's sort of doing a... I mean, there's so much connective tissue between this and the role he had in Ex Machina, right? And when you spoke to Guillermo for the news story we did, he does kind of draw, and I'm sure he has since, he sort of said, you know, I was really thinking about kind of contemporary tech grows and how they... And you can really see that in both of those roles, you know, just driven by this like maniacal desire to create. And I understand why he might not have quite as much to...

50:42It's interesting, isn't it, that he might not have quite as much to work with as Jacob Elordi is the creature, considering Jacob Elordi can say about three words. But like, I can see why the creature goes on a bigger trajectory with this. The accident I have to say had not bothered me until you started talking about it.

50:59Chris Hewitt:Until I started trying to do it. And now, especially knowing the detail and the craft and the thought process that's gone into absolutely everything in this film, for someone to show up and do something that's not weighted in any of that is pissing me off a bit. Thanks, Ben. Oh, bro. I will say that scene early on with Victor where he's doing the demonstration to all of the medical boffins. Including Galactus. Including Galactus before his purple days. With the, oh my God, the horrible half-corpse thing. I loved that. Amazing piece of design. Fascinating. So cool. And that whole sequence and him really intentionally aggravating everybody and being really bolshy and being very rockstar-ish.

51:48Chris Hewitt:I loved that scene. I thought that scene was amazing. what do we make of the creation scene? I mean, this is a scene in Frankenstein that is a tricky one, right? Because how do you do it without resorting to it's a live cliche and you have flashes of lightning coming down but at the same time, I thought Guillermo pulled it off. I thought it was really, really frenetic and bold and I hadn't really seen this take on it before. I have questions about the architecture of this building with a big mass of holes in the floor. I was just like, please, please put up a safety rail. That is really stressful.

52:27Someone's going to fall off.

52:28Chris Hewitt:Slippy tiles as well. Slippy tiles. How are they sloping downwards into the hole? Yeah, but otherwise, did you enjoy that sequence? Do you think it was a fine depiction of it? It was pretty cool. It had shades of, if anything, Doc Brown on the clock tower. Oh, Doc Brown on the clock tower. Trying to plug in the missing plug, you know, during Back to the Future. I think the presence of Harlander, I found a distraction initially, but I guess it gave it a bit more propulsiveness or like peril maybe. And yeah, just put the pressure on, I suppose, a bit more. Harlander's interesting because I don't, I think it's one of the least successful story strands of this movie.

53:13Chris Hewitt:I think this movie's terrific, but he is purely there to bankroll Victor. And then he dies and it doesn't bounce back and Victor in any way, shape or form. Like no one talks about Harlander in the second half of the movie. Yeah, his brother comes looking for Harlander. He comes looking for him, but that's all. It gives another thing where he like blames that death on the creature. He doesn't reckon with the fact that that is his error and also then gives something when Elizabeth and William come back and he has to be like, oh, oh, nobody's mentioned Harlander. it adds an extra level of cover up he's excited that the creature exists but also he's hidden him in the basement and also fuck Harlander died in the creation of the creature it adds I think a bit of an extra pressure maybe because it's never mentioned again we don't know what the world thinks happened to Harlander did he just was his body found in the ruins of the building doesn't seem to be I think it's just assumed he died in the fire but he says he wasn't there so he's not here so how could he die in the fire if he wasn't here?

54:21Chris Hewitt:So I don't know. I just wish the motives had been peppered in a little bit earlier. It was just like, oh, and this is why I'm here. Oh, I died. It's one and done. It's just very, yeah, I would have preferred to have had a little bit more character development with him throughout. I appreciate there's a lot else going on, but yeah, it was very hasty. I agree. I think that the idea that he was, I mean, it's particularly syphilis, right, that he was dying of and that is interesting because that was known to infect. I mean, the thing that killed you was it infected your heart, but it also infected your brain.

54:54It drove people mad. There's theories that that's the reason that George III was cuckoo. One of the theories. I think they've mostly disproven it. But I think that's interesting that Victor is immediately like, ew, no, you're not good enough for me to experiment on. Now, does that mean that he was testing all of the bodies that he sort of harvested from for similar diseases? I mean, how far did he go in ensuring that he had a good specimen? All we see him talking about is essentially size because a big body would be easier to work with for some reason.

55:25Chris Hewitt:Well, he does look at people's gums and teeth and stuff. I guess, okay, so maybe there's a bit of that. Maybe there's a bit of that. I think there's a bit on the battlefield as well where he's like, ah, not that one. Ooh, this one's like, yeah. Well, yeah, I just think that was the damage that they'd taken on the battlefield, you know. So maybe I'm, but maybe he was, to be fair, looking for more than that. But yeah, I thought it would have made maybe a bit more, Or it would have hit a bit harder if they had maybe had that, as you say, Beth, earlier in the film, and just sort of established that and really thought that through and talked about, well, would that work or not?

55:53Because he really dismisses it out of hand.

55:56Chris Hewitt:I think there was a much longer version of this movie. Maybe so. Maybe things like that. Guillermo, in the interview, was talking about how in an early version, a longer version of the movie, the Charles Downs character, Victor's dad, Victor killed him. Wow. I can believe that. and James Cameron said cut that out because once I'm just repeating what he said in the interview because once you do that once Victor kills his dad then all his dad issues essentially go away so then why would he then be driven to do what he does God, James Cameron's good isn't he he's a smart dude he knows what he's talking about he's a smart dude but so Victor has daddy issues but he also has mummy issues as well not the mummy that's a different universal monster Beth what did you make of Mia Goth in this movie because she pulls double duty she plays Victor's mum and the object of his affection symbolism symbolism talk about the milk fucking motif yes I thought she she was just made for a film like this right she was just made to I mean she's Goth right she's a she is literally a goth girl oh that's just landed yes it's nice to see her playing someone a little bit more grounded which is saying a lot considering she is quite still quite romantic in this she's sort of the idealist right she's the person who sees the creature for who he is really because she has these romantic motivations I think she's great in this I think she kind of outdoes her role as a love interest and mother God Ideally both Love interest Coming together at last, not like that, oh God And considering her doomed kind of trajectory.

58:10I think she brings a lot more weight to it and a lot more sweetness.

58:15Chris Hewitt:Was that aspect successful for you guys? The idea that Elizabeth and the creature have a bond. They only really have one scene together until the end. And of course, setting everything off in that tragic chain of offense with the death of Victor's brother, the death of Elizabeth, all happening on the one night and leading Victor's mind snaps. was the Elizabeth of it all a successful depiction of that relationship again Elizabeth's a character who in the Frankenstein adaptations by and large tends to be one dimensional at best very thankless role is this a more successful depiction of the character for you?

58:57I like that she had her own interests she had her own intellectual curiosity, she had her own studies you know Victor himself is inclined to dismiss her as oh she's a convent girl whatever and be slightly eyebrows eyebrows nudge nudge wink wink convent girl you know and and you know she is completely not I think what he expected and not what he assumed she'd be and very interested in the natural world very interested in the order of things fascinated by the creature I think you know they do get across in that one scene she is the first person to well since those first moments at least with victor when he was still enchanted with his creation she is the first person to you know approach him with open eyes and sort of an open heart and open mind to him as a being in the world and not just you know an inconvenience frankly which is how he's been treated for most of the previous period, however long he spent with Victor.

59:56And so it's a connection of curiosity. And I think it's interesting that Guillermo doesn't sort of, doesn't soft-peddle her. He doesn't make her completely guileless or edgeless. I mean, she is putting, you know, butterflies in jars with, I guess, chloroform to kill them, to pin them to boards. You know, she's not sort of afraid to get her hands dirty in that sense. And she's not worshipful of all life in the way that some Elizabeths, I think, kind of are inclined to be. She is a scientist as well, and she is kind of ruthless in that tiny sense. But she sees the creature in a way that Victor does not.

1:00:33That's the big difference between them and the gap that he can't bridge.

1:00:38Chris Hewitt:That feels like one of the most interesting interpretations for me, that she doesn't even really like Victor across basically the whole film. like when the first time they meet she gives him a dressing down tells him a bit about himself you're being a bit of a dick I'm not interested in any of this she's surrounded by all of these that was the scene I wasn't set for wealthy is it yeah she was brandy and cigars were on laundry boys yeah in the fancy boardroom where she she's surrounded by all of these rich ambitious men with pretty kind of selfish aims overall and that contrasts nicely with the creature who is this just pure, sweet, innocent, new life.

1:01:20Chris Hewitt:And she has, yeah, no time for Victor in the sense that, obviously, in the original story, she is intended for Victor, not for Victor's brother, right? So that's a whole new wrinkle on this, that when Victor says, I'm not going to make a bride of Frankenstein, he's like, well, I'm coming for your bride, mate. To then twist that so that Elizabeth is kind of one step further removed from Victor, has this connection with the creature and constantly sees Victor for who he is. Like the worst version of who he is. And in a kind of friendly way, warns him against that. You have that scene after the confession sequence and they go and have a bit of a chat together.

1:02:03Chris Hewitt:It's almost flirty, but she's still keeping him at a remove. There's not an intimacy between her and Victor. He assumes he misreads out that he's very toxic. His arrogance coming into it of like oh she fancies me and she's more like no I'm just also like curious and scientific and I like bugs and you like bodies and so we've got you know a bit of something in common but it doesn't feel like there's a romantic interest there. She definitely gets more character development than Harlander does. And indeed Victor's brother. Yeah. He's a bit wet. Yeah he's very wet. You could argue I think that the creature and Elizabeth maybe don't have as much screen time as they might need to make that bond, that connection really fly.

1:02:49Chris Hewitt:But it is interesting. I really love the moment when the creature down in the basement says her name for the first time. The look in his face, because he's basically, it's a challenge, isn't it, to Victor? He's like, Elizabeth. And he's like, oh, I know, oh, Tosie, what you can do. I know what you're up to. I know how much self-walking Elizabeth means to you. You know, and so it's very much, it's so loaded with meaning. Freighted with meaning. Freighted. It's alive with meaning, you could argue. It's such a really, really bold moment. I think it's in that moment that Victor's like, I'm burning this motherfucker.

1:03:28Oh, that is it.

1:03:30Chris Hewitt:You're annoying. You're being a dick now. Say a name. Say one word. Another word. Any word. Elizabeth. Any word. Anything but that. You might as well have gone. two fingers in the air sit in it and swivel alright a couple of last things before we move on so we talked about the creature's look when he says Elizabeth what about the creature's look oh my god the creature design is so fucking good I think I know where Ben's steady I liked it he's on the fence we have such an ingrained idea of what the Frankenstein creature can be it has been in various interpretations to have this that so inherently looks like a creature made of bits of people but that the bits are like very fine intricate bits it's not like hey here's one guy's arm and another guy's arm and somebody else's neck it's not like bits stitched together it's like strands stitched together so he looks like the Vitruvian man he looks like a work of art and that feels so true to the way that the creature is described as being almost beautiful, like terrifying and kind of gross and off colour, but also...

1:04:49Chris Hewitt:What do we even call that colour that he is? It's sort of a bluey, glowy white. Yeah, they could make like makeup shades of all the different bits. Yeah. You could get like a palette of Frankenstein bits. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Maybe he's born with it. The other thing I love is he's got just a streak in his hair of a different colour. And I think, you know, just wear a little bit he couldn't get one scalp of I guess all the same colour so he's just got a little blonde streak at the front and it's just that's one of those details I just find super super good in this film did you and Ben you said this one out this is one for the ladies ladies in the room did you find the creature sexy oh my god I mean I think I find anything sexy in this this small vacuum of time I found him so full I found him very how do I say this no he's a dashing gothic hero he's got the long flowing locks and the silhouette with the coat and the Yorkshire axe if you closed your eyes you didn't look at all the scarring you'd think oh young Sean Bean the scarring I mean the scarring isn't really the problem the slight blue tinge I would say is more of a problem you could get past a blue tinge it's just quite ethereal and I don't know I feel a need more to comfort him than do anything else yeah I think that's right I think he just seems he just seems childlike in a way that is not attractive you've made it weird now yeah I don't think that's how you see him but like you know he's a fine specimen of a you know I think Guillermo has designed him as a character that people are meant to find attractive dashing sexy maybe even I'm going to throw it out there ladies sit this one out Ben did you find he goes full like literature bro as well when he starts quoting ozymandias i think that's maybe probably a thumbs down yeah i love that chris you're a monster you are the monster can i just say there's so much about this film that i loved but there are moments in the script that are like i i appreciate so much the guillermo will layer this with like color-coded symbolism and he plays are very obvious in a way that actually I really applaud.

1:07:08Chris Hewitt:But that moment when William dies and he goes, you are the monster. I was like, yeah, we know. We get it. That was a little one of those. Yeah. I was kind of looking out from this one, you know, Guillermo-y themes. Like one of my favorites has always been clockwork. And he's used it in a lot of films, but it tends to be associated with bad guys more than good guys. And the closest I kind of felt like here was that half torso on a board. It wasn't technically clockwork, but it felt of a piece of that. You mean like a focus on clocks and watches and things like that? Yeah, I focus on those gears and clockwork.

1:07:45Chris Hewitt:Automatons and homunculus. Yeah, so if you think back, who had a clock in Pan's Labyrinth? It was the military man, the colonel. Yet Golden Army. Yet Golden Army. But then Kronos. Yeah, but the clock itself is not exactly benign in that, I would say. so it kind of feels it's always felt to me like it's it's not entirely a benign thing Clockworks and the closest you get here I guess is is the half bored person half bored that's wrong you know what I mean half body on a board I don't know I wasn't half bored I was fully engaged I loved it okay we only got a couple of minutes shall we talk about the end because the ending's really interesting so the creature comes back onto the ship promotes O2 for a little bit and then says, he reconciles, doesn't he?

1:08:35Chris Hewitt:And Victor shuffles off. And I talked about this a little bit with Guillermo in the interview, that it's really interesting to me that it's a movie about how short and horrible and brutish and nasty death is. And a lot of people get horrible deaths in this thing. Victor is not one of them. And I was really taken by that. He's talking about how it's a very Catholic version of this tale. And it feels to me like, and obviously I'm in my comfort zone here because I spent most of my life, you know, as the natural enemy of Catholics, as you all know. But it seems to me that Victor in that moment is given a moment of grace, of forgiveness, maybe even of absolution in that moment.

1:09:18So the idea, I mean, you know, the sort of, and forgive me if I get the theology wrong here. Typical Catholic. I mean, barely. The idea is that confession itself is sort of freeing you of your sins. Like you can be cleansed of your sins by just confessing them, by being forgiven by a sort of duly appointed authority, and that that clears your soul of that sin. Now, there's all sorts of problems with that. In the same way that there's all sorts of problems with every other system as well, because, you know, the Protestant belief that you're basically, your sins are okay as long as you believe, also not great.

1:09:54What? None of this works out well. But what I'm saying is, there is a scene in the confessional early in the movie and it's Victor taking the mickey, essentially, out of it and trying to use it to, again, get salacious convent girl details out of Elizabeth. I wish he used that accent when he was talking.

1:10:17Chris Hewitt:Victor vigorously rubs his thighs. He goes full Harold Steptoe. You dirty old man. But then you go to the end of the movie, and that is essentially a confessional. They are in a small wooden booth, or cabin in this case. They have a duly appointed authority. I mean, if a ship's captain can marry people, he is essentially in loco priesthood. So he's kind of the quasi-priest there. He's the one who can... Oh, right. Okay. Sorry. But it's the creature who gives, I guess, absolution for Victor's sins. And maybe to a degree, we can discuss the other way around as well. But there is an element of, it's kind of also therapy in a way that I don't love it.

1:11:01A lot of Hollywood films do therapy. But I think in this case, it does feel more confessional than therapeutic. But it is definitely the case that by airing one's failings, one can be understood and forgiven for those failings. And that's very much the end of the film for Victor.

1:11:19Chris Hewitt:Beth and Ben, did you think it was absolutely fabulous? Oh, my gosh. Hells yeah. I mean, the whole... No, heaven. Heavens yeah. Heavens yeah. The whole Arctic setting, the pure crisp white, has like an almost afterlife, like entrance to the pearly gates feel to it. And it's like in that moment, are you going to confess your wrongdoings? Are you going to relieve yourself of the... and reckon with the mistakes that you've made in life? and for everybody on that ship, are you going to relentlessly pursue this aim to get to the North Pole and die in the attempt? Or are you going to retreat and go back to life?

1:12:02Chris Hewitt:It feels like all of that is wrapped up in that location and what it means and the storytelling element of it being an unburdening in the face of death. I also just love the fact that through using that structure from the novel, I just love being told a story. I love films where I feel like somebody is telling me an epic grand story. I find that so satisfying in this, that the two parts of the tale and the narration, I know some people are slightly great at those kind of things in films, but I love that feeling of somebody sitting you down and telling you a big grand tale. I agree. Yes. I mean, it's interesting in a contemporary format as well, isn't it?

1:12:48because it is that idea of radical empathy, which is quite a buzzy psychological kind of terminology. But you can see why it's landing with people who don't necessarily know much about Frankenstein, aren't really familiar with the law. It's done really well, the film as well, from what I understand. I guess it's done incredibly well on Netflix. I think it's drawing in a broader crowd than people who really love horror or Frankenstein necessarily. But to end on that note, to end with that idea of you know forgiving somebody letting go of that anger that's and breaking that cycle I think is quite a universal and yeah quite a contemporary message to end on which I like I like it I like that creature I wanted the best for him and he got it

1:13:33Chris Hewitt:he's a good dude he's a good dude he's very sympathetic he is a good dude that was the original I think Mary Shelley was the original subtitle Frankenstein or the good dude he's just a good dude by the way every time I do like a chore around the house now when it's done I'm like I am the spirit of the forest thank you spirit

1:13:59Chris Hewitt:yeah I mean there's so many changes as well you know traditionally I think in Frankenstein adaptations or certainly things like you know it very rarely ends well for the blind hermit but quite often the little girl carks it as well I'm glad he didn't go down that there's a lovely humanist streak to this movie I think some people have seen that as kind of not defanging the monster but like pulling her punches a little bit making the monster a special and a good boy and I don't think that's fair because I think what we're willing as a society to forgive is also changing over the years I'm not saying they were super big on child murder in the 30s or anything or the 50s But I think if you're going to do what Guillermo clearly wanted to do here, which is give the monster a sense of a human soul, then you have to draw the line somewhere.

1:14:56And I think that would have been really hard to come back from.

1:14:59Chris Hewitt:One thing that's bothered me a bit in the reaction to this film has been some of the I know it's film Twitter nonsense but some of the film Twitter nonsense of people being like well it's not good because it does this or it takes this away from the creature or it gives this to Victor and there was one thing I saw that really annoyed me that was somebody said oh it's not really a proper adaptation it's an interpretation and I'm like all adaptation is interpretation this is a story that's been told so many times before and it does not make it a good or bad film because it is faithful or unfaithful in x way to the novel it is interpretation this is guillermo del toro's take on frankenstein and it has certain emphasis on some things and less emphasis on others and there can be things that you like or dislike about that but fundamentally saying that it doesn't work because it interprets things in the novel in different ways.

1:15:55Chris Hewitt:That is the very fundamental nature of adaptation, of taking a source text, turning it into another medium, but also that's through the vision of whatever particular filmmaker is doing it. Guillermo has a very particular style. This is Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. And I think people need to be more open to... We get it. You've read the book. Good for you. Great. That doesn't mean it has to do bang bang bang bang bang all these moments no true his entire life experience has been filtered into this movie if you wanted a straight adaptation then it's going to be three hours of Guillermo del Toro reading Frankenstein which I'd be absolutely bang on board with as well but perhaps wouldn't get a hundred million dollar budget from Netflix but I you know he was going to make this movie 20 years ago when he got the closest he got to making it was 20 years ago and he says that it's a good thing that it didn't happen then and I kind of agree with him because A, it allowed him to have a greater insight into the father-son, greater creation aspect of the movie, and B, it allowed him to become Guillermo del Toro.

1:17:04Chris Hewitt:It allowed him, so 20 years ago is what, 2005? Pre Pan's Labyrinth. Pre Pan's Labyrinth. Never mind pre Shape of Order. Yeah, never mind pre Pacific Rim. And, you know, he's become almost a unicorn, someone who's able to take genre material and elevated to a point where mass audiences will see it and won the fucking best picture a few years ago with The Shape of Water. And he's gone to the point now where Netflix will go, yeah, how much money do you want to do your Frankenstein? Sure. Here you go. And he has done bits of the book that haven't really been done before. That idea of Victor waking up and the creatures at the end of the bed isn't, I don't believe, often done.

1:17:46I haven't seen it again. I haven't seen every single one.

1:17:49Chris Hewitt:Not refined, but I've seen a lot. I know this is a superior, a superior Frankenstein adaptation. Also, though, you say this is a different Guillermo to 20 years ago, which is absolutely true. But one of my favorite things about this is that it feels like, to me, the perfect midpoint between Crimson Peak Guillermo and Hellboy Guillermo. We talked about the creation sequence. I love the creation sequence here. I loved how it played with the electricity and the coils and the iconography. and it embraced big parts of the cinematic legacy of what a Frankenstein's creation sequence is. The other Guillermo sequence it reminded me most of is the arrival of Hellboy in that first Hellboy film.

1:18:30It took me back to elements of Guillermo past

1:18:34Chris Hewitt:that I haven't felt for a little while because he's been more in... Nightmare Alley was kind of his own thing and he's been in a more fairy tale mode and this felt a bit Hellboy-ish. I loved that. It's a bit of that steampunk edge. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I love it. I think it's one of the things I spoke with him about for the magazine, actually. The idea that this is, when people hear the words Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, they have immediately an image in their mind. I think most people have an image in their mind of what that will look and feel like. And this is that movie. This is that movie, absolutely.

1:19:10Chris Hewitt:But for him, he was saying that for him, this is kind of like the apotheosis of his aesthetic. that there's nowhere else to go after this and he might have to take a step aside and step back for a few months or maybe a year or two or so, I don't know, and put a time frame into his mouth and kind of think about what's next. Recharge. Yeah, but creatively, how am I going to tell the stories next? Because this is everything I've done, including Nightmare Alley, has been building to this movie aesthetically. I mean, the design of it is absolutely beautiful, but it is, you know, it's one of those movies, if you took a still of Mitten and went, who directed this movie?

1:19:44Chris Hewitt:oh it's Guillermo del Toro so he's been building towards that and now where can he go so I'm really excited about he's now in his 60s he's been very candid about he doesn't feel like he's going to be directing too many more movies so he's really got to think about what those movies are going to look and feel like and they're going to look and feel different from this and that's exciting I think that's as a huge huge fan of his I find that exciting because I do feel like this is sort of the end of a road that he's been on for a long time and I'm kind of ready for something different from him. As much as I loved this and I've loved basically all of his work, I'm kind of ready for him to switch it up.

1:20:20Chris Hewitt:I don't want him to kind of get stuck in this style. With the best will in the world, I don't want him to become a bit of a Tim Burton and feel trapped within his own aesthetic. And he never has been before. I mean, there have been elements, of course, that feel very Guillermo-y, but the guy made Pacific Rim and I don't think we should lose sight of that. I fucking love Pacific Rim. Make Pacific Rim 3 and make up for uprising, please. No, but make up a different world of that kind of... Go sci-fi, maybe. Genuinely, go back to sci-fi, play with that maybe in a new way. That could be really cool and really fun.

1:20:57Chris Hewitt:All right. Anything else you want to say before we wrap this bad boy up in a big old blanket? The quote from Byron at the end has been controversial in literary circles because they're like, he was a fucking dick. why are we quoting him on a Shelley piece? But I think the quote itself works well and I think Mary Shelley would have laughed because one of the things that they had at the Frankenstein exhibition was the copy of Frankenstein that she gave to Byron. And it's literally inscribed to Byron from the author, which feels to me as someone who knows Mary Shelley only from essentially Frankenstein and the Midnight Society tweets and Blue Sky posts.

1:21:38Chris Hewitt:her tweets and blues she's imagined in Midnight Society as a shiv happy fiery terrifying presence and and so I read you know to Byron from the author as a bit of a fuck you you were so boring I had to invent horror and sci-fi that's an over that's an actual droid quote from Mary Schoenberg to be fair there was sci-fi before her but she did popularize it to a massive degree with Frankenstein which I don't want to lose sight of anyway so it feels to me like a fuck you so I think she would have just laughed at the quote being at the end of the film I just think he thinks it's a lovely quote yes I think but at the same time like there was a relationship there and it is important to you know acknowledge that that's all it's good to see that literary twitter is as obnoxious as film twitter that's good literary twitter is not a twitter I tend to wander into that often but okay I recommend The Midnight Society they're very funny okay good good good anyway on that note all this talk of Byron has made me hungry who wants a burger oh yeah yeah okay alright but I'd like to know where the meat came from afterwards alright on that note that is it for our Frankenstein Frankenstein spoiler special hope you guys enjoyed it goodbye to my three colleagues of such lethal cunning goodbye Helen O 'Hara toodaloo goodbye Benjamin Travis Victor

1:23:09Chris Hewitt:Goodbye, Bethany. Elizabethany. Fun fact, James actually thought my name was Elizabeth until like two years ago. Really? Yeah. What's your whole name? Like Beth Elizabeth? He called me Elizabeth Weib once, and I said, who the hell is Elizabeth Weib? Yeah. It reminds me of the time I introduced Ricky Gervais on the podcast, and I said, I'm going to give you a big build-up. And I gave him a big build-up, and I went, please welcome the other. as I went through all his credits, all this stuff. I went, please welcome to the podcast at the end of it. Richard Gervais. And he went, nope, it's Ricky. It's Ricky.

1:23:44Chris Hewitt:I've never been Richard. I'm just a Ricky. I was like, oh, for fuck's sake. Oh, no. How does Matt look at a baby and thinking Ricky? I don't know. It's mad, isn't it? Fair enough. Yeah. I just, people, I think people assume, like my young nephew is Tommy. He was never Thomas. I'm afraid he's Jenny. She was not Chris and Jennifer. just Jenny is she from the block yes as in we grew up on the same one Jenny there's no blocks in Northern Ireland there are no blocks in Northern Ireland anyway on that note that is definitely I've said goodbye to these people alright it's time to go for me as well there you go Elizabeth O2 see what you can do thanks for listening bye bye