Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:00:01,200 --> 00:00:04,860
- We're about to unfold
the story of Frankenstein,
2
00:00:04,860 --> 00:00:08,008
a man of science who sought to create
3
00:00:08,008 --> 00:00:13,008
a man after his own image
without reckoning upon god.
4
00:00:13,340 --> 00:00:16,550
He deals with the two great
mysteries of creation,
5
00:00:16,550 --> 00:00:18,563
life and death.
6
00:00:19,758 --> 00:00:22,080
I think it will thrill you,
7
00:00:22,080 --> 00:00:27,080
it may shock you, it
might even horrify you.
8
00:00:28,020 --> 00:00:29,740
So if any of you feel that you do not care
9
00:00:29,740 --> 00:00:32,550
to subject your nerves to such a strain,
10
00:00:32,550 --> 00:00:34,010
now is your chance to
11
00:00:35,236 --> 00:00:36,336
well we've warned you.
12
00:00:39,350 --> 00:00:42,540
(thunder crashes)
13
00:00:42,540 --> 00:00:44,310
- [Narrator] As our story begins,
14
00:00:44,310 --> 00:00:48,400
sunlight seems to have suddenly
vanished from our world.
15
00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:52,280
An unusual dark dust
cloud hovers over Earth.
16
00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:55,650
The year is 1816 and no one suspects
17
00:00:55,650 --> 00:00:58,220
that this colossal cloud is the result
18
00:00:58,220 --> 00:01:00,520
of a massive volcanic eruption
19
00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:02,410
that took place on the other side
20
00:01:02,410 --> 00:01:04,453
of the planet a year before.
21
00:01:05,830 --> 00:01:07,960
In Switzerland the end of the world
22
00:01:07,960 --> 00:01:11,030
seems to loom over the
region of Lake Geneva.
23
00:01:11,030 --> 00:01:13,400
It's snowing in the middle of June
24
00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:15,480
and night falls around noon.
25
00:01:18,642 --> 00:01:21,559
(melancholy music)
26
00:01:23,220 --> 00:01:26,053
(thunder crashes)
27
00:01:35,750 --> 00:01:38,390
In a villa on the banks of the lake,
28
00:01:38,390 --> 00:01:41,923
a young woman writes the story
that came to her in a vision.
29
00:01:43,230 --> 00:01:46,420
Mary Shelley, a young, quiet, and reserved
30
00:01:46,420 --> 00:01:48,750
English woman left her father's home
31
00:01:48,750 --> 00:01:52,290
at the age of 16 with her
lover and future husband,
32
00:01:52,290 --> 00:01:55,600
romantic poet, Percy Shelley.
33
00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:57,870
Together they spend most evenings behind
34
00:01:57,870 --> 00:02:00,510
closed doors in the
company of their friends.
35
00:02:00,510 --> 00:02:03,010
Among them is Lord Byron, one of the most
36
00:02:03,010 --> 00:02:06,110
outrageous and daring poets of the period.
37
00:02:06,110 --> 00:02:08,203
A rockstar of his times.
38
00:02:09,490 --> 00:02:13,870
United by their love for sublime
vertigo and gothic thrills
39
00:02:13,870 --> 00:02:15,780
these bright and decadent dandies
40
00:02:15,780 --> 00:02:18,610
drink opium wine, read ghost stories
41
00:02:18,610 --> 00:02:22,353
by the fire and take pleasure
in frightening each other.
42
00:02:23,490 --> 00:02:27,280
One drunken night Lord
Byron suggests a literary
43
00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:30,470
challenge, each person is to write
44
00:02:30,470 --> 00:02:31,693
a horror story.
45
00:02:32,550 --> 00:02:35,370
- Mary, when Byron suggested they
46
00:02:35,370 --> 00:02:38,190
should all write stories
couldn't think of one.
47
00:02:38,190 --> 00:02:40,240
She was distraught, every day
48
00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:41,880
she came down to breakfast and they said
49
00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:44,160
Mary Mary have you thought of a story yet?
50
00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:45,950
No, she hadn't she was mortified,
51
00:02:45,950 --> 00:02:47,320
she was embarrassed.
52
00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:48,860
- Shelley would keep
turning to her saying,
53
00:02:48,860 --> 00:02:50,460
we expect a lot from you, Mary.
54
00:02:50,460 --> 00:02:52,170
We expect you to be a great writer.
55
00:02:52,170 --> 00:02:54,050
When are you gonna come
up with this piece of...
56
00:02:54,050 --> 00:02:57,420
Huge pressure my goodness
on an 18 year old
57
00:02:57,420 --> 00:02:59,783
to come up with something
that's really special.
58
00:03:00,835 --> 00:03:03,418
(solemn music)
59
00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:06,120
- [Narrator] I busied myself to think
60
00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:07,920
of a story, Mary wrote.
61
00:03:07,920 --> 00:03:10,840
A story to rival those
which had excited us
62
00:03:10,840 --> 00:03:12,886
to this task, one which would speak
63
00:03:12,886 --> 00:03:15,880
to the mysterious fears of our nature
64
00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:18,010
and awaken thrilling horror.
65
00:03:18,010 --> 00:03:20,410
One to curdle the blood and quicken
66
00:03:20,410 --> 00:03:21,943
the beatings of the heart.
67
00:03:25,730 --> 00:03:28,750
I thought and pondered vainly,
68
00:03:28,750 --> 00:03:30,740
I felt the blank incapability
69
00:03:30,740 --> 00:03:34,533
of invention which is the
greatest misery of authorship.
70
00:03:39,410 --> 00:03:41,940
- She went back to bed,
she thought and thought
71
00:03:41,940 --> 00:03:46,910
and the story didn't
come until she fell into
72
00:03:46,910 --> 00:03:49,863
a reverie, not a dream, but a reverie.
73
00:03:50,860 --> 00:03:52,420
(mysterious piano music)
74
00:03:52,420 --> 00:03:54,420
- [Narrator] That night, overwhelmed
75
00:03:54,420 --> 00:03:58,470
by her own imagination her eyes wide shut
76
00:03:58,470 --> 00:04:00,480
the young woman dreams with acute
77
00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:02,650
precision of the pale figure
78
00:04:02,650 --> 00:04:05,470
of the artist of sacrilege kneeling
79
00:04:05,470 --> 00:04:08,433
before the hideous
creature he has created.
80
00:04:09,990 --> 00:04:12,000
Mary Shelley has just dreamed up
81
00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:15,060
the very first monster of science,
82
00:04:15,060 --> 00:04:17,920
Dr. Frankenstein's monster.
83
00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:20,550
A creature that would
mark centuries and minds
84
00:04:20,550 --> 00:04:23,010
all over the world, the seed from
85
00:04:23,010 --> 00:04:25,103
which modern science fiction would grow.
86
00:04:29,867 --> 00:04:32,784
(unsettling music)
87
00:04:38,100 --> 00:04:40,970
In the early 19th century, Mary Shelley's
88
00:04:40,970 --> 00:04:43,480
entire childhood is devoted to reading,
89
00:04:43,480 --> 00:04:46,390
dreams, and imagination,
in one of England's
90
00:04:46,390 --> 00:04:48,933
most eminent cultural circles.
91
00:04:50,410 --> 00:04:53,970
In the pre Victorian era
female writers are rare
92
00:04:53,970 --> 00:04:57,040
but Mary's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft
93
00:04:57,040 --> 00:04:59,310
is an educated writer, philosopher,
94
00:04:59,310 --> 00:05:02,400
and one of the first English feminists.
95
00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:05,380
She writes novels, essays, and a history
96
00:05:05,380 --> 00:05:07,460
of the French Revolution and becomes
97
00:05:07,460 --> 00:05:09,870
famous for her Vindication of the Rights
98
00:05:09,870 --> 00:05:12,470
of Woman, a critical piece denouncing
99
00:05:12,470 --> 00:05:15,083
the patriarchal society of her time.
100
00:05:16,370 --> 00:05:20,270
- Mary was still regarded as
101
00:05:20,270 --> 00:05:23,170
the extraordinary unique heir
102
00:05:23,170 --> 00:05:26,800
to Mary Wollstonecraft and she grew up
103
00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:30,760
with a sense of herself
as somebody special.
104
00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:35,090
People came to look at
her as Mary's child.
105
00:05:35,090 --> 00:05:37,460
Shelley himself, when he came to visit
106
00:05:37,460 --> 00:05:40,573
her father's house when Mary was 16
107
00:05:40,573 --> 00:05:45,253
viewed her as this extraordinary
creature, Mary's child.
108
00:05:46,305 --> 00:05:48,290
(clock ticking)
109
00:05:48,290 --> 00:05:50,530
Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother
110
00:05:50,530 --> 00:05:52,480
who died tragically giving birth
111
00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:55,233
to Mary after two suicide attempts.
112
00:05:58,452 --> 00:06:01,202
(birds chirping)
113
00:06:02,420 --> 00:06:05,710
It's clear that Mary
from her earliest years
114
00:06:05,710 --> 00:06:07,400
was visiting the graveyard,
115
00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:09,470
going to her mother's grave,
116
00:06:09,470 --> 00:06:11,420
tracing out probably her first
117
00:06:11,420 --> 00:06:12,954
letters as she learned to read
118
00:06:12,954 --> 00:06:17,954
by finding the letters of
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
119
00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:22,910
and making those into words herself.
120
00:06:22,910 --> 00:06:26,170
And it seems very natural that that would
121
00:06:26,170 --> 00:06:29,500
be the place to which
she would take Shelley
122
00:06:29,500 --> 00:06:31,270
as a young man courting her
123
00:06:31,270 --> 00:06:33,523
at her father's house but secretly.
124
00:06:35,610 --> 00:06:37,830
- [Narrator] Percy Shelley
has deep admiration
125
00:06:37,830 --> 00:06:40,130
for Mary's father, William Godwin,
126
00:06:40,130 --> 00:06:42,600
the most radical free thinker of England
127
00:06:42,600 --> 00:06:45,750
and fierce advocate of
the French Revolution.
128
00:06:45,750 --> 00:06:48,370
His reputation attracts
all of the intellectual
129
00:06:48,370 --> 00:06:50,900
elite in a century where the distinction
130
00:06:50,900 --> 00:06:53,140
between artists and scientists
131
00:06:53,140 --> 00:06:54,613
did not yet exist.
132
00:06:56,860 --> 00:06:59,820
- She was an extraordinary young woman
133
00:06:59,820 --> 00:07:02,700
and has had an extraordinary
upbringing herself
134
00:07:02,700 --> 00:07:04,700
with these very brilliant parents.
135
00:07:04,700 --> 00:07:07,770
Most young women at the time
did not have much education,
136
00:07:07,770 --> 00:07:09,310
certainly couldn't go to university,
137
00:07:09,310 --> 00:07:11,380
Mary Shelley couldn't go to university.
138
00:07:11,380 --> 00:07:14,500
- She was very much formed by her parents,
139
00:07:14,500 --> 00:07:16,040
William Godwin, political philosopher
140
00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:18,900
Mary Wollstonecraft the
Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
141
00:07:18,900 --> 00:07:21,130
and she did have some formal education
142
00:07:21,130 --> 00:07:22,700
but much of her education was sitting
143
00:07:22,700 --> 00:07:24,910
at the dinner table of the Godwins
144
00:07:24,910 --> 00:07:27,040
and all the great scientists and writers
145
00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:29,740
of the day would come
and have supper there.
146
00:07:29,740 --> 00:07:33,100
- [Narrator] Mary is instantly
captivated by Percy Shelley's
147
00:07:33,100 --> 00:07:35,690
charisma, the brilliant 22 year old
148
00:07:35,690 --> 00:07:37,640
is indeed quite the catch.
149
00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:40,230
He has beauty, intelligence, pedigree,
150
00:07:40,230 --> 00:07:43,748
poetic talent and revolutionary ardor.
151
00:07:43,748 --> 00:07:47,950
This great romantic poet,
fascinated by science
152
00:07:47,950 --> 00:07:50,550
will be the true inspiration for the hero
153
00:07:50,550 --> 00:07:51,723
of Mary's novel.
154
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:54,760
Despite his great liberal ideas,
155
00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:57,950
Mary's father disapproves
of this relationship
156
00:07:57,950 --> 00:08:00,010
and permanently disowns his daughter
157
00:08:00,010 --> 00:08:01,810
when she runs away with her lover
158
00:08:01,810 --> 00:08:04,240
to take to the roads of France.
159
00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:06,070
The escape of the young romantic
160
00:08:06,070 --> 00:08:08,750
couple embodies the English avant garde
161
00:08:08,750 --> 00:08:11,870
literary movement in
search of inspiration,
162
00:08:11,870 --> 00:08:14,510
thrills, and experience.
163
00:08:14,510 --> 00:08:16,880
By car, on foot, or on the back
164
00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:19,040
of a donkey their incredible journey
165
00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:21,040
takes them through a country partly
166
00:08:21,040 --> 00:08:23,740
destroyed by the Cossacks.
167
00:08:23,740 --> 00:08:26,420
At the end of the road
they discover the Alps,
168
00:08:26,420 --> 00:08:29,380
Switzerland, Lord Byron
and the gothic knights
169
00:08:29,380 --> 00:08:31,710
which would lead to
the vision of a hideous
170
00:08:31,710 --> 00:08:36,474
creature and its obscure
creator, Victor Frankenstein.
171
00:08:36,474 --> 00:08:39,307
(thunder rumbles)
172
00:08:51,180 --> 00:08:53,470
In Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein
173
00:08:53,470 --> 00:08:55,760
isn't the name of the awful creature
174
00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:58,833
but of its creator, Dr.
Victor Frankenstein.
175
00:09:00,140 --> 00:09:03,190
Far from being the mad
scientist we imagine,
176
00:09:03,190 --> 00:09:05,710
the protagonist is a handsome and talented
177
00:09:05,710 --> 00:09:07,233
young medical student.
178
00:09:08,310 --> 00:09:11,240
This prince charming
has a secret obsession,
179
00:09:11,240 --> 00:09:14,490
a burning ambition,
alone in his laboratory
180
00:09:14,490 --> 00:09:17,390
like an alchemist, Victor Frankenstein is
181
00:09:17,390 --> 00:09:19,593
searching for the secret of life.
182
00:09:21,010 --> 00:09:23,730
He studies anatomy, examines the natural
183
00:09:23,730 --> 00:09:26,650
decomposition of bodies and investigates
184
00:09:26,650 --> 00:09:29,723
the boundaries between life and death.
185
00:09:34,171 --> 00:09:37,254
- (foreign language)
186
00:10:07,248 --> 00:10:09,915
(gate creaking)
187
00:10:16,250 --> 00:10:18,040
- [Narrator] The young Dr. Frankenstein
188
00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:21,210
aims to create a complete human being,
189
00:10:21,210 --> 00:10:24,340
entirely from reassembled body parts.
190
00:10:24,340 --> 00:10:27,490
To gather the pieces of this morbid puzzle
191
00:10:27,490 --> 00:10:30,350
he digs up material from cemeteries
192
00:10:30,350 --> 00:10:33,083
and visits slaughter houses for a grim
193
00:10:33,083 --> 00:10:35,263
and sordid patchwork.
194
00:10:36,610 --> 00:10:39,101
Early 19th century science was preoccupied
195
00:10:39,101 --> 00:10:41,523
with the study of the human body.
196
00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:44,790
- The first thing he does to go hunting
197
00:10:44,790 --> 00:10:48,800
about in graveyards
looking for bits of bodies
198
00:10:50,980 --> 00:10:53,290
and this of course was very common
199
00:10:53,290 --> 00:10:55,810
during Mary's upbringing because
200
00:10:55,810 --> 00:10:58,750
there were grave robbers
often medical students
201
00:10:58,750 --> 00:11:00,962
who would get a little money from
202
00:11:00,962 --> 00:11:03,740
bringing to their tutors, a suitable body
203
00:11:04,910 --> 00:11:06,703
for anatomical work.
204
00:11:12,750 --> 00:11:15,100
- [Narrator] The moon
gazed on my midnight labors
205
00:11:15,100 --> 00:11:18,180
while with un relaxed
and breathless eagerness
206
00:11:18,180 --> 00:11:20,853
I pursued nature to her hiding places.
207
00:11:23,890 --> 00:11:28,390
Who shall conceive the
horrors of my secret toil
208
00:11:28,390 --> 00:11:31,060
as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps
209
00:11:31,060 --> 00:11:34,460
of the grave or tortured the living
210
00:11:34,460 --> 00:11:37,413
animal to animate the lifeless clay.
211
00:11:45,850 --> 00:11:47,900
- Victor Frankenstein describes himself
212
00:11:47,900 --> 00:11:49,523
as being in a frenzy,
213
00:11:50,730 --> 00:11:53,760
of being in a trance when he begins
214
00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:56,563
the creation of his new human life.
215
00:11:57,640 --> 00:11:59,720
We see this from the way he locks
216
00:11:59,720 --> 00:12:02,880
himself in his laboratory for months,
217
00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:04,750
the way that he does not emerge,
218
00:12:04,750 --> 00:12:06,720
he does not respond for letters
219
00:12:06,720 --> 00:12:09,093
from his fiancee Elizabeth Lavenza.
220
00:12:11,330 --> 00:12:13,320
- He's quite arrogant in a way
221
00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:16,270
and I think he feels that he's destined
222
00:12:16,270 --> 00:12:18,400
for high things and nothing's really going
223
00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:20,083
to stand in his way.
224
00:12:24,888 --> 00:12:27,971
- (foreign language)
225
00:12:56,736 --> 00:13:00,580
- And although Frankenstein's
creation of life
226
00:13:00,580 --> 00:13:02,750
from dead bodies might seem
227
00:13:02,750 --> 00:13:05,780
far removed there is some association
228
00:13:05,780 --> 00:13:07,940
I think in Mary Shelley's mind between
229
00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:10,940
birth and death.
230
00:13:10,940 --> 00:13:14,020
- In addition to the
loss of her own mother
231
00:13:14,020 --> 00:13:17,690
she had a tragic loss
during the first year
232
00:13:17,690 --> 00:13:19,980
that she was with Shelley of their
233
00:13:19,980 --> 00:13:22,720
first little baby who they'd called Clara.
234
00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:24,420
- I assume quite heartbreaking,
235
00:13:24,420 --> 00:13:27,020
very short notes in the diary she kept
236
00:13:27,020 --> 00:13:28,830
saying you know that the baby
237
00:13:28,830 --> 00:13:30,630
was alright and then one morning
238
00:13:30,630 --> 00:13:33,253
she wakes up and finds her baby dead.
239
00:13:34,696 --> 00:13:37,446
(chimes ringing)
240
00:13:38,460 --> 00:13:41,510
- And Mary then wrote in her journal
241
00:13:41,510 --> 00:13:43,960
of having dreams where the child
242
00:13:43,960 --> 00:13:45,593
had come back to life.
243
00:13:48,260 --> 00:13:50,660
It's difficult not to think of that
244
00:13:50,660 --> 00:13:53,610
when we see her two years later
245
00:13:53,610 --> 00:13:56,430
writing the story of a creature
246
00:13:56,430 --> 00:13:58,233
being quickened into life.
247
00:14:03,368 --> 00:14:06,451
- (foreign language)
248
00:14:34,810 --> 00:14:37,280
- [Narrator] Creating life, the idea
249
00:14:37,280 --> 00:14:40,010
was also very appealing to great engineers
250
00:14:40,010 --> 00:14:43,130
and brilliant inventors eager to recreate
251
00:14:43,130 --> 00:14:47,143
the mechanics of life down
to the smallest details.
252
00:14:48,670 --> 00:14:52,810
At the time Europe was
shaken by a new invention,
253
00:14:52,810 --> 00:14:55,790
Jacques de Vaucanson and Jaquet-Droz
254
00:14:55,790 --> 00:14:58,550
successfully created a series of larger
255
00:14:58,550 --> 00:15:00,740
than life automatons.
256
00:15:00,740 --> 00:15:02,940
With the help of surgeons they then
257
00:15:02,940 --> 00:15:06,600
tried to recreate the main
functions of the human body.
258
00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:09,030
The automata of the Enlightenment era
259
00:15:09,030 --> 00:15:11,860
embodied the scientific
vision of the time.
260
00:15:11,860 --> 00:15:13,710
The human body was a machine
261
00:15:13,710 --> 00:15:16,810
and that machine could
be broken down to pieces,
262
00:15:16,810 --> 00:15:20,090
analyzed and duplicated.
263
00:15:20,090 --> 00:15:22,310
Mary Shelley draws her inspiration from
264
00:15:22,310 --> 00:15:24,540
this new current of modern thought
265
00:15:24,540 --> 00:15:28,143
as well as from her own
tormented personal experience.
266
00:15:30,090 --> 00:15:33,110
- Mary's father suffered from narcolepsy
267
00:15:33,110 --> 00:15:37,040
which is this curious illness of simply
268
00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:39,430
falling asleep at the table
269
00:15:39,430 --> 00:15:43,140
and appearing to be dead and
then coming back to life again.
270
00:15:43,140 --> 00:15:44,380
Well that's just something Mary
271
00:15:44,380 --> 00:15:47,390
saw over and over again as a child.
272
00:15:47,390 --> 00:15:50,600
And I think that must've fed into her idea
273
00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:54,030
of how you can quicken
somebody back into life again.
274
00:15:54,030 --> 00:15:57,050
- Mary Godwin is fascinated by this moment
275
00:15:57,050 --> 00:15:59,630
where you kickstart life
276
00:15:59,630 --> 00:16:03,800
and in the novel, in 1818 she says
277
00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:05,310
I got the instruments of life around me
278
00:16:05,310 --> 00:16:07,300
that I might infuse a spark of life,
279
00:16:07,300 --> 00:16:10,860
the word spark which is this divine spark.
280
00:16:10,860 --> 00:16:12,710
Only it's coming from somewhere else,
281
00:16:12,710 --> 00:16:14,023
probably from electricity.
282
00:16:14,954 --> 00:16:18,037
(electricity sparks)
283
00:16:25,560 --> 00:16:27,340
- [Narrator] Around the same time another
284
00:16:27,340 --> 00:16:31,220
current turns the century
upside down, electricity.
285
00:16:31,220 --> 00:16:33,440
A mysterious energy that scientists are
286
00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:35,403
only just learning to master.
287
00:16:36,420 --> 00:16:39,907
In 1790 physicist Luigi
Galvani is the first
288
00:16:39,907 --> 00:16:43,310
to try and claim divine power for himself
289
00:16:43,310 --> 00:16:46,313
by reviving a dead
animal with electricity.
290
00:16:49,650 --> 00:16:52,080
He conducts experiments on dead frogs
291
00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:54,950
and manages to make their legs move.
292
00:16:54,950 --> 00:16:58,130
A few years later, his
nephew Giovanni Aldini
293
00:16:58,130 --> 00:16:59,810
goes even further.
294
00:16:59,810 --> 00:17:03,380
He tries to revive mammals
before crossing the line
295
00:17:03,380 --> 00:17:05,953
and taking on a human guinea pig.
296
00:17:07,741 --> 00:17:11,000
- In 1803 he went even
further and did an experiment
297
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:12,880
with a recently hanged criminal
298
00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:15,690
called Foster from
Newgate Jail, a murderer
299
00:17:15,690 --> 00:17:17,990
and he put him on a slab,
wired him up to a huge
300
00:17:17,990 --> 00:17:20,520
voltaic battery to see what would happen
301
00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:22,890
and he twitched and there were spasms
302
00:17:22,890 --> 00:17:25,590
and crucially his one eye opened
303
00:17:26,940 --> 00:17:29,030
and that's very very
similar to the creation
304
00:17:29,030 --> 00:17:30,183
scene in Frankenstein.
305
00:17:33,326 --> 00:17:34,843
(electricity buzzes)
306
00:17:34,843 --> 00:17:37,926
- (foreign language)
307
00:18:05,210 --> 00:18:07,260
- [Narrator] A creature made of scraps,
308
00:18:07,260 --> 00:18:10,420
scarred hands and face stitched together,
309
00:18:10,420 --> 00:18:12,880
a fictitious character that foreshadows
310
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:14,570
the mutilated men.
311
00:18:14,570 --> 00:18:17,130
The broken faces that were also
312
00:18:17,130 --> 00:18:18,990
stitched up by surgery
313
00:18:18,990 --> 00:18:22,040
and the first prosthesis of the time.
314
00:18:22,040 --> 00:18:23,850
As though history had never ceased
315
00:18:23,850 --> 00:18:25,460
to make Mary Shelley's novel
316
00:18:25,460 --> 00:18:28,383
a reality for the last two centuries.
317
00:18:30,460 --> 00:18:33,480
As early as 1910 Victor Frankenstein
318
00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:37,050
found his first real life counterpart.
319
00:18:37,050 --> 00:18:38,963
His name, Alexis Carrel,
320
00:18:39,860 --> 00:18:42,230
a young brilliant surgeon, Carrel
321
00:18:42,230 --> 00:18:45,210
began extracting organs from cadavers
322
00:18:45,210 --> 00:18:47,370
in an attempt to transplant them
323
00:18:47,370 --> 00:18:48,903
into living bodies.
324
00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:53,390
He successfully sewed arteries and veins
325
00:18:53,390 --> 00:18:55,860
which no one had ever done before.
326
00:18:55,860 --> 00:19:00,023
He thus became a great
pioneer of organ transplants.
327
00:19:01,360 --> 00:19:03,630
Carrel operated in rooms entirely
328
00:19:03,630 --> 00:19:07,010
painted black, everything must be black
329
00:19:07,010 --> 00:19:11,470
he insisted even the
surgical team's attire.
330
00:19:11,470 --> 00:19:13,830
Consciously or not, Carrel quotes
331
00:19:13,830 --> 00:19:16,043
the words of Victor Frankenstein.
332
00:19:17,040 --> 00:19:20,740
In 1912 he wrote, one day science
333
00:19:20,740 --> 00:19:23,030
will discover the mystery of life
334
00:19:23,030 --> 00:19:25,423
and from that day on we will
335
00:19:25,423 --> 00:19:27,690
be able to create human beings.
336
00:19:27,690 --> 00:19:29,620
Three months later he would receive
337
00:19:29,620 --> 00:19:31,930
the Nobel prize for medicine
338
00:19:31,930 --> 00:19:36,930
and 20 years later Carrel
sank into scientific madness.
339
00:19:37,280 --> 00:19:40,260
He firmly believed in his
intellectual superiority,
340
00:19:40,260 --> 00:19:43,480
convinced that he belonged
to an intellectual elite
341
00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:45,860
whose duty was to shape humanity.
342
00:19:45,860 --> 00:19:48,270
The surgeon became the
apostle of a eugenic
343
00:19:48,270 --> 00:19:51,510
movement proposing the
elimination of madmen
344
00:19:51,510 --> 00:19:53,170
and simple minded people.
345
00:19:53,170 --> 00:19:55,580
It was as if the obsession
with forging life
346
00:19:55,580 --> 00:19:57,563
could only lead to disaster.
347
00:20:00,189 --> 00:20:03,189
(suspenseful music)
348
00:20:05,842 --> 00:20:09,333
(thunder crashes)
349
00:20:09,333 --> 00:20:11,833
(clock ticks)
350
00:20:17,600 --> 00:20:20,240
- [Narrator] It was on a
dreary night of November
351
00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:23,640
that I beheld the
accomplishment of my toils.
352
00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:26,930
With an anxiety that
almost amounted to agony,
353
00:20:26,930 --> 00:20:30,030
I collected the instruments
of life around me,
354
00:20:30,030 --> 00:20:32,080
that I might infuse a spark of being
355
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:34,493
into the lifeless thing
that lay at my feet.
356
00:20:35,779 --> 00:20:38,612
(thunder crashes)
357
00:20:41,208 --> 00:20:44,125
(unsettling music)
358
00:21:12,150 --> 00:21:14,500
- He selected all these elements to make
359
00:21:14,500 --> 00:21:17,190
him perfectly proportionate,
he's like Vitruvian man,
360
00:21:17,190 --> 00:21:20,991
like Leonardo's man,
everything is in proportion.
361
00:21:20,991 --> 00:21:24,420
But when you look into
his eyes there's something
362
00:21:24,420 --> 00:21:27,270
odd about him, those watery eyes,
363
00:21:27,270 --> 00:21:28,670
says Mary give the game away.
364
00:21:28,670 --> 00:21:30,053
He's dead behind the eyes.
365
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:34,960
You look into his eyes and you realize
366
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:36,260
there's something missing.
367
00:21:41,260 --> 00:21:43,290
- Victor Frankenstein is horrified when
368
00:21:43,290 --> 00:21:47,220
he looks at his body he
describes it as a catastrophe
369
00:21:47,220 --> 00:21:50,720
and actually profanes saying great god
370
00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:52,193
what had I assembled.
371
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:57,480
- I always find it very tempting
372
00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:00,510
to say that it's all in
the eye of the beholder
373
00:22:00,510 --> 00:22:02,820
and that actually Mary intends us
374
00:22:02,820 --> 00:22:06,860
not to see a hideous creature but to see
375
00:22:06,860 --> 00:22:10,650
Frankenstein revolted by what he's done
376
00:22:10,650 --> 00:22:12,770
and that makes the creature hideous.
377
00:22:14,274 --> 00:22:17,980
(suspenseful music)
378
00:22:17,980 --> 00:22:20,580
- Frankenstein lives and
rushes out of the room
379
00:22:20,580 --> 00:22:22,573
in a postpartum moment of depression.
380
00:22:25,220 --> 00:22:27,480
The heart of the book is a manufactured
381
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,500
person rejected by his dad.
382
00:22:30,500 --> 00:22:32,480
That's the key moment in the entire book,
383
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:34,200
everything else flows from that,
384
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:36,710
both ways before and after.
385
00:22:36,710 --> 00:22:38,870
Rejected by his dad and the fact that it's
386
00:22:38,870 --> 00:22:41,080
a creature who's been created without
387
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:42,530
the intersection of a mother.
388
00:22:44,428 --> 00:22:47,178
(dramatic music)
389
00:23:01,098 --> 00:23:03,560
- Come in.
390
00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:04,393
Come in.
391
00:23:14,310 --> 00:23:16,240
- [Narrator] How could
Mary Shelley have imagined
392
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:18,710
that 100 years after her novel
393
00:23:18,710 --> 00:23:20,870
the physical features of her creature
394
00:23:20,870 --> 00:23:23,420
would forever be
associated with the traits
395
00:23:23,420 --> 00:23:25,720
of the actor Boris Karloff.
396
00:23:27,062 --> 00:23:27,979
- Sit down.
397
00:23:33,155 --> 00:23:36,238
- (foreign language)
398
00:24:04,001 --> 00:24:07,057
- [Victor] Take care now,
Frankenstein, take care.
399
00:24:07,057 --> 00:24:08,730
- Nobody read Frankenstein,
400
00:24:08,730 --> 00:24:12,800
it's a tiny expensive elite edition.
401
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:17,390
That's 1818, 1823 suddenly
a play appears on the London
402
00:24:17,390 --> 00:24:21,000
stage, it's a huge hit
and by three years later,
403
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:23,540
eight different versions of Frankenstein
404
00:24:23,540 --> 00:24:26,100
are on the west end stage in London,
405
00:24:26,100 --> 00:24:29,010
eight different versions
competing with each other.
406
00:24:29,010 --> 00:24:30,918
And some changes have taken place.
407
00:24:30,918 --> 00:24:33,270
The monster or the creature has become
408
00:24:33,270 --> 00:24:36,826
the monster, is no longer
highly articulate, he grunts.
409
00:24:36,826 --> 00:24:39,602
(grunting)
410
00:24:39,602 --> 00:24:41,540
(screaming)
411
00:24:41,540 --> 00:24:44,780
Instead of being beautiful
and well proportioned
412
00:24:44,780 --> 00:24:47,410
with lustrous black
hair, like in the novel
413
00:24:47,410 --> 00:24:50,790
he's a bug eyed monster
like Karloff, green makeup.
414
00:24:50,790 --> 00:24:53,240
- [Man] Frankenstein made
him out of dead bodies.
415
00:24:54,577 --> 00:24:56,960
(grunts)
416
00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:58,730
- All of that is invented by the theater,
417
00:24:58,730 --> 00:25:01,280
that none of it's got
anything to do with the novel.
418
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,110
And that's how it gets into the culture.
419
00:25:03,110 --> 00:25:05,650
So when Hollywood makes
the Karloff version
420
00:25:05,650 --> 00:25:09,071
in 1931 it picks up on
the theatrical tradition
421
00:25:09,071 --> 00:25:11,460
as much as the novel.
422
00:25:11,460 --> 00:25:14,076
(grunts)
423
00:25:14,076 --> 00:25:16,243
(screams)
424
00:25:17,940 --> 00:25:20,253
- [Announcer] Karloff, Karloff, Karloff.
425
00:25:23,716 --> 00:25:25,783
- [Narrator] From that
moment on the character
426
00:25:25,783 --> 00:25:27,340
of Frankenstein's creature would appear
427
00:25:27,340 --> 00:25:30,570
in over 100 films and plays, creating
428
00:25:30,570 --> 00:25:33,330
a classic stereotype
for the science fiction
429
00:25:33,330 --> 00:25:37,573
and horror genres and becoming
a key element of pop culture.
430
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:46,810
The numerous adaptations of the novel
431
00:25:46,810 --> 00:25:48,607
spread the idea that Frankenstein
432
00:25:48,607 --> 00:25:50,730
wasn't the name of the doctor,
433
00:25:50,730 --> 00:25:52,540
but that of the creature.
434
00:25:52,540 --> 00:25:54,590
More importantly, they established
435
00:25:54,590 --> 00:25:59,412
the image of a mute monster
devoid of intelligence.
436
00:25:59,412 --> 00:26:03,010
In Mary Shelley's novel,
the monster bears no name.
437
00:26:03,010 --> 00:26:05,840
But he turns out to be a
much more complex being
438
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,240
than he seems, perfectly capable
439
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,003
of reasoning and feeling.
440
00:26:17,210 --> 00:26:19,650
Left alone, the creature escapes
441
00:26:19,650 --> 00:26:22,030
from Victor Frankenstein's laboratory
442
00:26:22,030 --> 00:26:23,840
and takes shelter in the forest
443
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:25,923
where he lives like a wild animal.
444
00:26:29,580 --> 00:26:32,210
But far from remaining in a primal state,
445
00:26:32,210 --> 00:26:35,883
he starts to evolve, he
discovers the use of fire,
446
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,040
sharpens his senses, and marvels
447
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:42,913
before nature and the
passage of the seasons.
448
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:49,930
- So the creature in some ways,
embodies the whole history
449
00:26:49,930 --> 00:26:52,930
of human evolution, birth, understanding
450
00:26:52,930 --> 00:26:55,220
the senses, looking at the moon,
451
00:26:55,220 --> 00:26:56,780
that wonderful scene
where he looks at the moon
452
00:26:56,780 --> 00:26:58,410
and tries to understand why it's light
453
00:26:58,410 --> 00:27:00,110
in the day time and dark at night.
454
00:27:06,370 --> 00:27:07,590
- [Narrator] In the process of learning
455
00:27:07,590 --> 00:27:09,450
how to live in the wilderness,
456
00:27:09,450 --> 00:27:11,970
the creature discovers what he looks like
457
00:27:11,970 --> 00:27:14,713
and the gruesome ugliness of his face.
458
00:27:18,060 --> 00:27:20,780
- He's seen himself, seen
a reflection of himself
459
00:27:20,780 --> 00:27:23,260
and that he's horrified by what he sees.
460
00:27:23,260 --> 00:27:25,100
And I think that's very troubling
461
00:27:25,100 --> 00:27:26,540
to the reader because partly
462
00:27:26,540 --> 00:27:28,150
what Mary Shelley is doing there
463
00:27:28,150 --> 00:27:30,200
she's again playing on an ancient myth,
464
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:32,820
she's playing and the myth of Narcissus
465
00:27:32,820 --> 00:27:34,550
looking at himself and being
466
00:27:34,550 --> 00:27:37,750
in love with what he sees and the poor
467
00:27:37,750 --> 00:27:39,880
creature instead of being delighted
468
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,823
with what he sees is aghast and horrified.
469
00:27:44,134 --> 00:27:47,051
(melancholy music)
470
00:27:48,030 --> 00:27:50,300
- [Narrator] Now aware
of his own appearance,
471
00:27:50,300 --> 00:27:52,510
the creature wanders in the forest
472
00:27:52,510 --> 00:27:55,320
like a wounded orphan, a glimmer of hope
473
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:57,690
shines upon him when
he discovers the house
474
00:27:57,690 --> 00:28:01,993
of a modest family and secretly
watches them for months.
475
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:08,000
- He gradually listens to a family
476
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,480
and realizes this is
language and he learns
477
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:12,153
their language and then he sees
478
00:28:12,153 --> 00:28:14,955
them reading and he manages to work out
479
00:28:14,955 --> 00:28:18,080
that the words that come out somehow
480
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,616
match these marks on the paper and then
481
00:28:20,616 --> 00:28:22,616
he teached himself to read.
482
00:28:22,616 --> 00:28:26,710
- He humanizes himself
by watching these people,
483
00:28:26,710 --> 00:28:29,040
how they care for each other, how kindly
484
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,030
they treat each other and
how industrious they are
485
00:28:32,030 --> 00:28:34,850
with their content with their little lot.
486
00:28:34,850 --> 00:28:36,810
He seems like a good person,
487
00:28:36,810 --> 00:28:39,423
he's blessing these people for bing
488
00:28:39,423 --> 00:28:41,100
what he'd like to be.
489
00:28:41,100 --> 00:28:43,400
- Very quickly the monster
490
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,590
adopts a very beautiful language.
491
00:28:46,590 --> 00:28:49,010
He's far the most eloquent
person in the book,
492
00:28:49,010 --> 00:28:50,903
far moreso than Frankenstein.
493
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:54,900
- [Narrator] The more I saw of them,
494
00:28:54,900 --> 00:28:56,260
the greater became my desire
495
00:28:56,260 --> 00:28:59,450
to claim their protection and kindness.
496
00:28:59,450 --> 00:29:01,920
I persuaded myself that
when they should become
497
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:04,940
acquainted with my
admiration of their virtues,
498
00:29:04,940 --> 00:29:07,310
they would compassionate me, and overlook
499
00:29:07,310 --> 00:29:08,813
my personal deformity.
500
00:29:09,660 --> 00:29:11,390
Who can describe their horror
501
00:29:11,390 --> 00:29:13,800
and consternation on beholding me?
502
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:15,970
- The minute they see him,
503
00:29:15,970 --> 00:29:20,321
they see evil because
he appears unlike them.
504
00:29:20,321 --> 00:29:24,200
And because he is alien he must be bad.
505
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:28,380
- And so when he's rejected
by people he goes bad.
506
00:29:28,380 --> 00:29:31,300
- And the creature understandably takes
507
00:29:31,300 --> 00:29:33,733
his revenge by burning the cottage down.
508
00:29:35,201 --> 00:29:38,118
(melancholy music)
509
00:29:48,900 --> 00:29:51,670
He isn't actually a monster in his spirit
510
00:29:51,670 --> 00:29:53,550
at all and Mary goes out of her way
511
00:29:53,550 --> 00:29:56,520
to show how the creature is right
512
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:58,330
when he tells us it's humanity
513
00:29:58,330 --> 00:30:00,360
who make him what he is.
514
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:02,360
It's not what he is born as.
515
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,532
- In many ways this monster is created
516
00:30:05,532 --> 00:30:09,350
from William Godwin,
Mary Shelley's father,
517
00:30:09,350 --> 00:30:13,207
his theories about the
perfectibility of human beings.
518
00:30:15,906 --> 00:30:18,989
- (foreign language)
519
00:31:06,380 --> 00:31:08,020
- [Narrator] Was I, then, a monster,
520
00:31:08,020 --> 00:31:11,620
a blot upon the earth,
from which all men fled
521
00:31:11,620 --> 00:31:14,010
and whom all men disowned?
522
00:31:14,010 --> 00:31:16,360
The cold stars shone in mockery,
523
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:20,420
and I, like the arch-fiend,
bore a hell within me.
524
00:31:20,420 --> 00:31:23,346
A slight sleep relieved me
from the pain of reflection,
525
00:31:23,346 --> 00:31:27,430
which was disturbed by the
approach of a beautiful child.
526
00:31:27,430 --> 00:31:30,150
He uttered a shrill scream,
I grasped his throat
527
00:31:30,150 --> 00:31:34,193
to silence him, and in a
moment he lay dead at my feet.
528
00:31:35,230 --> 00:31:37,510
- [Narrator] Faced with
contempt and horror
529
00:31:37,510 --> 00:31:39,760
the creature becomes a monster.
530
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:42,420
His gentle nature is gone, bitterness,
531
00:31:42,420 --> 00:31:45,480
hatred and violence are all that is left.
532
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:48,670
Consumed with loneliness he takes a long
533
00:31:48,670 --> 00:31:50,790
journey back to his creator,
534
00:31:50,790 --> 00:31:54,960
the only person who can offer
him the affection he longs for
535
00:31:56,460 --> 00:31:59,310
Mary Shelley is haunted
by a terrible fascination
536
00:31:59,310 --> 00:32:01,570
with history, the great concepts
537
00:32:01,570 --> 00:32:03,480
of freedom and equality that arose
538
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:05,640
from the French Revolution had paved
539
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,170
the way for a new era of hope
540
00:32:08,170 --> 00:32:11,893
but ended up leading men to
even greater misfortunes.
541
00:32:12,860 --> 00:32:15,080
Mary Shelley's mother and father visit
542
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:19,110
France in December 1792 and are horrified
543
00:32:19,110 --> 00:32:21,540
to see all their dreams of freedom
544
00:32:21,540 --> 00:32:24,963
crushed by human perversion and injustice.
545
00:32:26,930 --> 00:32:30,050
If men are good, then
why did they turn evil
546
00:32:30,050 --> 00:32:31,543
during the reign of terror?
547
00:32:32,410 --> 00:32:35,540
The wonderful dream
spearheaded by the people
548
00:32:35,540 --> 00:32:38,563
had become a hideous, political monster.
549
00:32:50,097 --> 00:32:53,097
(church bells ring)
550
00:32:56,290 --> 00:32:59,240
In August 1816, Mary and Percy Shelley
551
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:02,200
leave their villa on
the banks of Lake Geneva
552
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:04,700
and travel to the Sea of Ice,
553
00:33:04,700 --> 00:33:07,543
a glacier at the foot of
the majestic Mont Blanc.
554
00:33:09,582 --> 00:33:11,260
(mysterious music)
555
00:33:11,260 --> 00:33:13,650
They fall in love with the staggeringly
556
00:33:13,650 --> 00:33:16,640
beautiful mountains, their jagged peaks
557
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:18,013
and eternal snow.
558
00:33:18,990 --> 00:33:21,470
The Alpine landscape is a magnificent
559
00:33:21,470 --> 00:33:23,890
yet dreadful vision that plunges them
560
00:33:23,890 --> 00:33:28,770
into an odd trance, a
mixture of pleasure and fear.
561
00:33:28,770 --> 00:33:31,880
Overwhelmed by a deep
sense of the sublime,
562
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,420
they stand before the dramatic setting
563
00:33:34,420 --> 00:33:36,547
where the confrontation
between the creature
564
00:33:36,547 --> 00:33:39,373
and its creator will take place.
565
00:33:40,290 --> 00:33:42,230
- But she thought this was
a really desolate place,
566
00:33:42,230 --> 00:33:44,090
the end of the world, great place
567
00:33:44,090 --> 00:33:46,610
to have a cosmic meeting between
568
00:33:46,610 --> 00:33:48,510
the creator and the created.
569
00:33:48,510 --> 00:33:50,130
- And that's where they meet.
570
00:33:50,130 --> 00:33:54,743
Above the glacier, above
those massive frozen waves.
571
00:33:56,540 --> 00:33:59,060
- [Narrator] I suddenly
beheld the figure of a man,
572
00:33:59,060 --> 00:34:01,610
at some distance, advancing towards me
573
00:34:01,610 --> 00:34:03,860
with superhuman speed.
574
00:34:03,860 --> 00:34:06,430
I perceived, as the shape came nearer,
575
00:34:06,430 --> 00:34:08,700
sight tremendous and abhorred,
576
00:34:08,700 --> 00:34:11,664
that it was the wretch whom I had created.
577
00:34:11,664 --> 00:34:15,522
Rage and hatred had at first
deprived me of utterance,
578
00:34:15,522 --> 00:34:18,710
and I recovered only to
overwhelm him with words
579
00:34:18,710 --> 00:34:21,563
expressive of furious
detestation and contempt.
580
00:34:22,503 --> 00:34:24,880
Cursed be the day, abhorred devil,
581
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:26,700
in which you first saw light.
582
00:34:26,700 --> 00:34:28,610
Cursed be the hands that formed you.
583
00:34:28,610 --> 00:34:31,810
You have made me wretched
beyond expression, begone.
584
00:34:31,810 --> 00:34:34,573
Relieve me from the sight
of your detested form.
585
00:34:37,860 --> 00:34:40,340
- [Narrator] I expected this reception.
586
00:34:40,340 --> 00:34:42,600
All men hate the wretched.
587
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,510
Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable
588
00:34:45,510 --> 00:34:48,950
to every other and trample upon me alone,
589
00:34:48,950 --> 00:34:51,940
to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency
590
00:34:51,940 --> 00:34:54,780
and affection, is most due.
591
00:34:54,780 --> 00:34:59,410
Remember that I am thy creature,
I ought to be thy Adam,
592
00:34:59,410 --> 00:35:01,393
but I am rather the fallen angel,
593
00:35:02,505 --> 00:35:05,460
whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.
594
00:35:05,460 --> 00:35:08,853
Make me happy, and I
shall again be virtuous.
595
00:35:10,834 --> 00:35:14,430
(melancholy music)
596
00:35:14,430 --> 00:35:16,949
- When he finally meets Frankenstein
597
00:35:16,949 --> 00:35:20,140
on the glacier, he feels that
598
00:35:20,140 --> 00:35:23,240
you know Frankenstein is
kind of god like figure
599
00:35:23,240 --> 00:35:26,090
who has created him and given him life
600
00:35:26,090 --> 00:35:27,540
but then not looked after him
601
00:35:27,540 --> 00:35:29,250
then sent him off into hell.
602
00:35:29,250 --> 00:35:33,470
- He read three key books,
Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther
603
00:35:33,470 --> 00:35:36,542
which told him all about
growing up and friendship,
604
00:35:36,542 --> 00:35:39,460
Milton's Paradise Lost which told him
605
00:35:39,460 --> 00:35:42,080
all about what it's
like to be the new Adam
606
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:43,900
and Plutarch's Life of the Greeks
607
00:35:43,900 --> 00:35:47,050
which told him about heroic
behavior, how to be a hero.
608
00:35:47,050 --> 00:35:49,320
So his entire life is in those three works
609
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:52,180
of literature and he explains
this to Frankenstein.
610
00:35:52,180 --> 00:35:55,330
And so he says I've done all this and yet
611
00:35:55,330 --> 00:35:56,473
everyone rejects me.
612
00:35:57,606 --> 00:36:00,523
(melancholy music)
613
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,330
It's this rejected child
614
00:36:06,330 --> 00:36:08,715
saying to his dad, come on dad
615
00:36:08,715 --> 00:36:12,980
I need support, I need
help, I need a partner,
616
00:36:12,980 --> 00:36:14,193
I need to belong.
617
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:18,650
Mary Wollstonecraft in the Vindication
618
00:36:18,650 --> 00:36:19,870
of the Rights of Woman writes,
619
00:36:19,870 --> 00:36:22,120
the greater part of the horrors
620
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:25,350
in this world which stalk
the world in hideous form,
621
00:36:25,350 --> 00:36:28,160
she says, is down to the
negligence of parents.
622
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,810
So there's a lot of
autobiography in Frankenstein.
623
00:36:30,810 --> 00:36:32,370
- The question of
whether there's something
624
00:36:32,370 --> 00:36:34,250
of Mary Shelley in the creature
625
00:36:34,250 --> 00:36:37,010
is quite a tricky one I think
626
00:36:37,010 --> 00:36:40,310
because her novel is
dedicated to William Godwin,
627
00:36:40,310 --> 00:36:42,310
it's dedicated to her father
628
00:36:42,310 --> 00:36:44,420
and it's difficult to
know how to read that
629
00:36:44,420 --> 00:36:47,170
to know whether that is a genuine tribute
630
00:36:47,170 --> 00:36:49,510
or whether there is something reproachful
631
00:36:49,510 --> 00:36:52,300
in that on whether there is a sense
632
00:36:52,300 --> 00:36:55,883
that she has been a
neglected, abandoned child.
633
00:37:00,060 --> 00:37:03,990
Mary Shelley is re writing
the biblical creation myth.
634
00:37:03,990 --> 00:37:06,650
She puts three lines from Paradise Lost
635
00:37:06,650 --> 00:37:08,830
as the epigraph of the book,
636
00:37:08,830 --> 00:37:12,524
did I request thee, maker to mold me man?
637
00:37:12,524 --> 00:37:15,212
This is where Adam after the fall,
638
00:37:15,212 --> 00:37:18,970
in Milton's poem is asking god,
639
00:37:18,970 --> 00:37:20,453
why did you make me?
640
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,290
And of course this is basically
641
00:37:24,290 --> 00:37:26,700
the big question the creature has
642
00:37:26,700 --> 00:37:28,730
for Frankenstein when he meets him,
643
00:37:28,730 --> 00:37:29,843
why did you make me?
644
00:37:33,502 --> 00:37:36,585
- (foreign language)
645
00:38:11,599 --> 00:38:14,330
- (foreign language)
646
00:38:14,330 --> 00:38:17,382
- [Narrator] 50 years
after Alexis Carrel's
647
00:38:17,382 --> 00:38:19,650
experiments, Victor
Frankenstein once again
648
00:38:19,650 --> 00:38:21,853
finds a real life counterpart.
649
00:38:22,741 --> 00:38:26,310
In a documentary called
experiments in the revival
650
00:38:26,310 --> 00:38:29,530
of organisms, Soviet propaganda shows
651
00:38:29,530 --> 00:38:32,270
how new techniques allow various organs
652
00:38:32,270 --> 00:38:34,423
to function independently.
653
00:38:36,820 --> 00:38:39,893
A heart can now go on
beating outside of the body.
654
00:38:43,820 --> 00:38:46,190
And a dog's head separated to the body
655
00:38:46,190 --> 00:38:48,463
can function thanks to a machine.
656
00:38:53,050 --> 00:38:55,370
A few years later Demetri Demikhov
657
00:38:55,370 --> 00:38:56,673
goes even further.
658
00:38:58,260 --> 00:39:01,440
In 1953 he attaches the head of a puppy
659
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:04,090
on an adult dog's back and creates
660
00:39:04,090 --> 00:39:06,656
a very strange creature.
661
00:39:06,656 --> 00:39:10,239
- [Man] (foreign language)
662
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:14,450
- [Narrator] In the middle of the Cold War
663
00:39:14,450 --> 00:39:16,570
American neurosurgeon Robert White
664
00:39:16,570 --> 00:39:19,563
has a bigger ambition
than his Soviet rivals.
665
00:39:20,930 --> 00:39:25,134
In 1970 he tries an astounding operation.
666
00:39:25,134 --> 00:39:26,730
Transplanting the head
667
00:39:26,730 --> 00:39:29,163
of a monkey onto another monkey.
668
00:39:32,450 --> 00:39:35,300
White claims he's
conducting these experiments
669
00:39:35,300 --> 00:39:37,483
in order to save human lives.
670
00:39:38,350 --> 00:39:41,390
He imagines a patient
whose head would be viable
671
00:39:41,390 --> 00:39:44,670
but whose body would be fully paralyzed.
672
00:39:44,670 --> 00:39:47,853
Why not transplant his
head onto another body?
673
00:39:48,796 --> 00:39:51,180
(sinister music)
674
00:39:51,180 --> 00:39:54,033
Here's what he said a few
years prior to his death.
675
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:58,750
- [Robert] I predict that
what has always been the stuff
676
00:39:58,750 --> 00:40:02,750
of science fiction,
the Frankenstein legend
677
00:40:02,750 --> 00:40:04,910
in which an entire human being
678
00:40:04,910 --> 00:40:07,820
is constructed by sewing
various body parts
679
00:40:07,820 --> 00:40:12,253
together will become a clinical
reality in the 21st century.
680
00:40:13,240 --> 00:40:15,590
- [Narrator] Was this pure
fantasy from a surgeon
681
00:40:15,590 --> 00:40:18,280
driven mad by his own powers?
682
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:20,620
Or a necessary transgression in order
683
00:40:20,620 --> 00:40:22,440
to prolong life?
684
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,513
How far can and should
science go in manipulating
685
00:40:25,513 --> 00:40:28,240
bodies and creating hybrids?
686
00:40:28,240 --> 00:40:29,553
Where do we draw the line?
687
00:40:33,071 --> 00:40:36,154
- (foreign language)
688
00:40:55,281 --> 00:40:58,308
- The bride of Frankenstein.
689
00:40:58,308 --> 00:41:01,308
(celebratory music)
690
00:41:06,540 --> 00:41:07,990
- [Narrator] Soon, a female version
691
00:41:07,990 --> 00:41:10,870
of the creature appeared in the movies.
692
00:41:10,870 --> 00:41:13,090
In Mary Shelley's novel, however
693
00:41:13,090 --> 00:41:15,643
the events take a rather tragic turn.
694
00:41:17,690 --> 00:41:19,700
Moved by the plea of his creature,
695
00:41:19,700 --> 00:41:23,283
Victor Frankenstein agrees
to cross another boundary.
696
00:41:25,889 --> 00:41:28,330
He promises to make him a mate.
697
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:31,810
And so the monstrous Adam would have
698
00:41:31,810 --> 00:41:34,170
an equally twisted Eve
699
00:41:34,170 --> 00:41:36,523
and finally bid loneliness goodbye.
700
00:41:41,230 --> 00:41:43,430
- So Victor Frankenstein agrees to create
701
00:41:43,430 --> 00:41:45,630
a mate on condition that the creature
702
00:41:45,630 --> 00:41:47,730
will disappear into the
wilds of South America
703
00:41:47,730 --> 00:41:49,780
in the jungle and never be seen again.
704
00:41:49,780 --> 00:41:52,340
So off he goes and travels across Europe
705
00:41:52,340 --> 00:41:54,220
and eventually goes to this remote island
706
00:41:54,220 --> 00:41:56,800
in the Orkneys to as far away
707
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:58,510
from the scientific community as possible
708
00:41:58,510 --> 00:42:00,257
and it's all very remote.
709
00:42:00,257 --> 00:42:01,937
Always very remote, you gotta be
710
00:42:01,937 --> 00:42:05,113
as remote as possible from any
sort of mainstream science.
711
00:42:06,346 --> 00:42:09,263
(mysterious music)
712
00:42:13,950 --> 00:42:15,560
- If he does bring her to life
713
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:17,830
she does mate with the creature
714
00:42:17,830 --> 00:42:20,330
they might produce a new race
715
00:42:20,330 --> 00:42:21,910
of creatures that are going to be
716
00:42:21,910 --> 00:42:24,030
bigger and more powerful than mankind
717
00:42:24,030 --> 00:42:26,210
and that instead of mankind blessing
718
00:42:26,210 --> 00:42:29,500
him as a great hero he's actually
719
00:42:29,500 --> 00:42:32,240
going to be the cause of the
destruction of the human race
720
00:42:32,240 --> 00:42:33,200
so that worries him.
721
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:34,750
But there's another very interesting
722
00:42:34,750 --> 00:42:37,250
anxiety he has which is the thought
723
00:42:37,250 --> 00:42:39,670
that when he animates this creature,
724
00:42:39,670 --> 00:42:41,940
she might look at the monster and think
725
00:42:41,940 --> 00:42:43,450
I'm having nothing to do with him.
726
00:42:43,450 --> 00:42:46,060
I'd much prefer Victor, so there is this
727
00:42:46,060 --> 00:42:51,060
real sexual fear that
this huge female creature
728
00:42:51,060 --> 00:42:53,649
might pursue him.
729
00:42:53,649 --> 00:42:56,566
(melancholy music)
730
00:42:59,170 --> 00:43:01,635
- In this makeshift laboratory
731
00:43:01,635 --> 00:43:03,470
he starts creating a mate and successfully
732
00:43:03,470 --> 00:43:05,460
pulls off the operation for a second time
733
00:43:05,460 --> 00:43:07,453
which by the way means it's replicable
734
00:43:07,453 --> 00:43:10,593
which means that in
scientific terms, it worked.
735
00:43:11,713 --> 00:43:14,463
(dramatic music)
736
00:43:16,500 --> 00:43:18,697
- And quite quickly he seems to create
737
00:43:18,697 --> 00:43:23,697
this female and is ready
to bring her to life
738
00:43:26,190 --> 00:43:27,233
but then he stops.
739
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:36,830
- Then in this terrible scene in Scotland
740
00:43:36,830 --> 00:43:39,180
he makes a mate and then aborts it.
741
00:43:39,180 --> 00:43:41,870
And throws all the piece
of the mate all over.
742
00:43:41,870 --> 00:43:45,770
And the creature's watching, that's it.
743
00:43:45,770 --> 00:43:48,070
It's no more mister nice guy after that.
744
00:43:48,070 --> 00:43:50,560
You know he almost creates a mate
745
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:52,210
what a dreadful thing to do so not only
746
00:43:52,210 --> 00:43:53,457
does he reject the creature
747
00:43:53,457 --> 00:43:56,694
but he aborts the creature's mate.
748
00:43:56,694 --> 00:44:00,760
At that point the creature
turns into Boris Karloff.
749
00:44:02,900 --> 00:44:05,697
- I shall be with you
on your wedding night.
750
00:44:09,350 --> 00:44:11,930
- After that of course there's no quarter
751
00:44:11,930 --> 00:44:14,207
from the creature he's gonna go around,
752
00:44:14,207 --> 00:44:16,870
he's gonna destroy, if
he can't have a mate
753
00:44:16,870 --> 00:44:18,710
he's gonna destroy Frankenstein's mate.
754
00:44:18,710 --> 00:44:21,856
So he kills Elizabeth
on their wedding night.
755
00:44:21,856 --> 00:44:23,430
(screams)
756
00:44:23,430 --> 00:44:25,181
- [Narrator] It came from the room
757
00:44:25,181 --> 00:44:26,900
into which Elizabeth had retired.
758
00:44:26,900 --> 00:44:30,140
She was there, lifeless and inanimate,
759
00:44:30,140 --> 00:44:33,400
thrown across the bed,
her head hanging down
760
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:35,690
and her pale and distorted features
761
00:44:35,690 --> 00:44:38,120
half covered by her hair.
762
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:41,050
While I still hung over her
in the agony of despair,
763
00:44:41,050 --> 00:44:42,680
I happened to look up.
764
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,350
With a sensation of horror
not to be described,
765
00:44:45,350 --> 00:44:47,810
I saw at the open window a figure
766
00:44:47,810 --> 00:44:49,753
the most hideous and abhorred.
767
00:44:50,830 --> 00:44:53,410
A grin was on the face of the monster,
768
00:44:53,410 --> 00:44:56,430
he seemed to jeer, as
with his fiendish finger
769
00:44:56,430 --> 00:44:59,413
he pointed towards the corpse of my wife.
770
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,260
- [Narrator] By depicting the
murder of the doctor's fiancee
771
00:45:10,260 --> 00:45:13,350
Mary Shelley's novel
reaches an unprecedented
772
00:45:13,350 --> 00:45:15,660
level of violence and terror.
773
00:45:15,660 --> 00:45:18,240
The reserved young woman is long gone.
774
00:45:18,240 --> 00:45:20,580
She has become a fully fledged writer
775
00:45:20,580 --> 00:45:23,360
who has freed herself from all conventions
776
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,090
with startling audacity.
777
00:45:26,090 --> 00:45:28,820
Her story was so visionary
that two centuries
778
00:45:28,820 --> 00:45:31,960
later the Frankenstein
novel has become a myth
779
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:33,293
for the modern world.
780
00:45:35,342 --> 00:45:38,092
(delicate music)
781
00:45:52,450 --> 00:45:54,690
- Frankenstein's heart, Lieutenant.
782
00:45:54,690 --> 00:45:55,623
- Frankenstein?
783
00:45:57,370 --> 00:45:58,690
It's still living?
784
00:45:58,690 --> 00:45:59,963
- It can never die.
785
00:46:01,380 --> 00:46:02,213
- Never?
786
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,250
- Frankenstein's story is very
old, you've never read it?
787
00:46:07,137 --> 00:46:08,550
- One of the extraordinary things about
788
00:46:08,550 --> 00:46:11,810
Frankenstein is that an 18 year old girl
789
00:46:11,810 --> 00:46:15,920
managed to create what's
really a modern myth.
790
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:20,850
So myths are always bigger
than the basic story.
791
00:46:20,850 --> 00:46:24,020
They reflect some need in society
792
00:46:24,020 --> 00:46:28,850
and they also have this
capacity to transform
793
00:46:28,850 --> 00:46:32,480
and be applied by later generations that's
794
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:33,920
kind of what myths do.
795
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:35,520
- I mean to me it means a novel,
796
00:46:36,526 --> 00:46:37,680
it means theater
productions, it means films,
797
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:38,800
it means all sorts of things.
798
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:41,390
But out there, for people
who haven't read the book
799
00:46:41,390 --> 00:46:42,830
and maybe haven't seen that many
800
00:46:42,830 --> 00:46:45,350
of the movies either the F word is about
801
00:46:45,350 --> 00:46:49,020
a brilliant way of expressing
anxieties about progress.
802
00:46:49,020 --> 00:46:51,853
(explosion sound)
803
00:47:02,390 --> 00:47:06,430
- 1945, Japan, the atomic apocalypse
804
00:47:06,430 --> 00:47:08,573
hits Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
805
00:47:12,460 --> 00:47:15,170
The words of American
scholars seem to resonate
806
00:47:15,170 --> 00:47:18,410
like an echo to Mary Shelley's novel.
807
00:47:18,410 --> 00:47:20,903
My god, what have we done?
808
00:47:21,780 --> 00:47:24,270
- I think the obvious application
809
00:47:24,270 --> 00:47:26,430
of Frankenstein perhaps
in the 20th century
810
00:47:26,430 --> 00:47:29,113
would be something like the atom bomb.
811
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:33,880
The idea of a scientist pursuing what
812
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,009
seems very legitimate research, something
813
00:47:36,009 --> 00:47:39,870
that's groundbreaking but then
814
00:47:39,870 --> 00:47:42,381
immediately or very soon afterwards
815
00:47:42,381 --> 00:47:45,200
has very destructive consequences
816
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:47,650
which are not something
that the scientists
817
00:47:47,650 --> 00:47:49,000
might've foreseen.
818
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:51,020
I think this is something she's
819
00:47:51,020 --> 00:47:52,960
very prophetic about actually.
820
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,930
- I think Frankenstein
is the creation myth
821
00:47:55,930 --> 00:47:57,670
for the modern world.
822
00:47:57,670 --> 00:48:00,320
A world where human
beings have taken control
823
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,549
of things that used to
be attributed to god.
824
00:48:02,549 --> 00:48:06,410
(electricity buzzing)
825
00:48:06,410 --> 00:48:08,180
- [Narrator] With her creature,
826
00:48:08,180 --> 00:48:10,340
the young novelist foresaw a world
827
00:48:10,340 --> 00:48:13,210
in which science and
technology would dominate
828
00:48:13,210 --> 00:48:15,780
man's future even if it meant
829
00:48:15,780 --> 00:48:17,603
denying our own humanity.
830
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:25,840
Today, science explores new forms of life
831
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:29,650
and seeks to recreate them
with artificial creatures
832
00:48:29,650 --> 00:48:32,723
like a new species
transcending human kind.
833
00:48:38,530 --> 00:48:40,310
Will man ever be supplanted
834
00:48:40,310 --> 00:48:43,133
and subjugated by the
beings he has created?
835
00:48:44,910 --> 00:48:48,210
Will we ever hear an android, a cyborg
836
00:48:48,210 --> 00:48:51,060
or any kind of artificially
intelligent creature
837
00:48:51,060 --> 00:48:53,780
utter the same words that
Mary Shelley's monster
838
00:48:53,780 --> 00:48:55,673
said to Victor Frankenstein?
839
00:48:58,501 --> 00:49:03,313
You are my creator, but I am your master.
840
00:49:04,820 --> 00:49:06,473
- We've crossed a line,
841
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:10,670
we've crossed a line
that shouldn't be crossed
842
00:49:10,670 --> 00:49:14,300
and I think that is the fear that haunts
843
00:49:14,300 --> 00:49:15,970
the technological age.
844
00:49:15,970 --> 00:49:18,250
That it's a step into the void,
845
00:49:18,250 --> 00:49:20,390
just as the monster steps into the void
846
00:49:20,390 --> 00:49:21,740
at the end of Frankenstein.
847
00:49:24,922 --> 00:49:27,839
(melancholy music)
848
00:49:35,690 --> 00:49:36,890
- [Narrator] In the final pages
849
00:49:36,890 --> 00:49:39,810
of her novel, Mary Shelley
leads her characters
850
00:49:39,810 --> 00:49:42,680
towards the end of their tragic journey,
851
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:46,100
consumed by the loss of
his fiancee Elizabeth,
852
00:49:46,100 --> 00:49:49,291
Victor Frankenstein has
only one obsession left.
853
00:49:49,291 --> 00:49:53,450
To destroy the monster
he created by chasing him
854
00:49:53,450 --> 00:49:58,450
onto the arctic ice even at
the cost of his own life.
855
00:49:59,070 --> 00:50:01,175
- We've got the science of vitalism,
856
00:50:01,175 --> 00:50:02,460
we've got electricity,
we've got galvanism,
857
00:50:02,460 --> 00:50:05,303
she added a new science,
polar exploration.
858
00:50:07,210 --> 00:50:10,363
And she thought this is a
great setting for a big finish
859
00:50:10,363 --> 00:50:12,664
for Frankenstein.
860
00:50:12,664 --> 00:50:15,630
(ice cracking)
861
00:50:15,630 --> 00:50:19,520
- They're pursuing each other
into a more and more bleak
862
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:24,520
and barren world into this desolate place,
863
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:27,133
the kind of murder glass of the north.
864
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:32,600
The creature and the creator almost
865
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:35,030
seem to have become one and united
866
00:50:35,030 --> 00:50:36,823
in their hatred of each other.
867
00:50:40,180 --> 00:50:41,887
- Frankenstein is on the
trail of the creature
868
00:50:41,887 --> 00:50:43,890
and the creature is on
the trail of Frankenstein
869
00:50:43,890 --> 00:50:45,460
and they're both sort
of hunting each other,
870
00:50:45,460 --> 00:50:49,540
they just locked into this
hunter and hunted relationship
871
00:50:49,540 --> 00:50:51,350
and it doesn't matter how it ends,
872
00:50:51,350 --> 00:50:52,923
they just trudge off together.
873
00:50:56,141 --> 00:50:59,058
(mysterious music)
874
00:50:59,990 --> 00:51:02,170
- [Narrator] I was hurried away by fury.
875
00:51:02,170 --> 00:51:06,027
revenge alone endowed me
with strength and composure.
876
00:51:06,027 --> 00:51:09,600
I beheld my enemy at no
more than a mile distant,
877
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:14,240
but now, when I appeared
almost within grasp of my foe,
878
00:51:14,240 --> 00:51:16,455
my hopes were suddenly extinguished,
879
00:51:16,455 --> 00:51:19,950
a ground sea was heard,
the thunder of its progress
880
00:51:19,950 --> 00:51:23,520
became every moment more
ominous and terrific.
881
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:26,390
In a few minutes a tumultuous
sea rolled between me
882
00:51:26,390 --> 00:51:30,573
and my enemy, and thus preparing
for me a hideous death.
883
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:35,590
(waves crashing)
884
00:51:39,199 --> 00:51:42,746
(unsettling music)
885
00:51:42,746 --> 00:51:44,930
- [Narrator] Victor
Frankenstein dies a victim
886
00:51:44,930 --> 00:51:47,900
of his obsession and his irresponsibility
887
00:51:47,900 --> 00:51:49,163
towards his creature.
888
00:51:50,770 --> 00:51:53,260
His fate and tragic end are reminiscent
889
00:51:53,260 --> 00:51:55,990
of the mythological character Prometheus
890
00:51:55,990 --> 00:51:58,650
who stole the fire of knowledge and made
891
00:51:58,650 --> 00:52:02,723
men out of clay thus
unleashing divine punishment.
892
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:07,890
Mary Shelley made Victor
Frankenstein a modern Prometheus
893
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:12,343
as indicated in the second
title she gave to her novel.
894
00:52:15,185 --> 00:52:17,430
(dramatic music)
895
00:52:17,430 --> 00:52:19,020
At the end of the story,
896
00:52:19,020 --> 00:52:21,190
the creature is left alone to mourn
897
00:52:21,190 --> 00:52:24,600
the death of his creator, like a child
898
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,053
abandoned forever.
899
00:52:29,923 --> 00:52:31,460
- [Narrator] Oh, Frankenstein,
900
00:52:31,460 --> 00:52:35,040
what does it avail that I
now ask thee to pardon me?
901
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:37,530
thou didst seek my extinction,
902
00:52:37,530 --> 00:52:40,310
that I might not cause
greater wretchedness
903
00:52:40,310 --> 00:52:42,770
and thou wouldst not desire against me
904
00:52:42,770 --> 00:52:46,050
a vengeance greater
than that which I feel.
905
00:52:46,050 --> 00:52:50,580
Blasted as thou wert, my agony
was still superior to thine,
906
00:52:50,580 --> 00:52:53,100
for the bitter sting of
remorse will not cease
907
00:52:53,100 --> 00:52:55,060
to rankle in my wounds
908
00:52:55,060 --> 00:52:57,443
until death shall close them for ever.
909
00:53:01,730 --> 00:53:03,300
- There is a hint that the creature
910
00:53:03,300 --> 00:53:05,457
is just going to do away with himself
911
00:53:05,457 --> 00:53:07,700
out of a state of misery, and you know
912
00:53:07,700 --> 00:53:09,250
there's nothing left for him in the world
913
00:53:09,250 --> 00:53:11,780
and in a way the purpose of his life
914
00:53:11,780 --> 00:53:13,670
had become this terrible pursuit
915
00:53:13,670 --> 00:53:15,250
of the purser and the pursuit
916
00:53:15,250 --> 00:53:16,600
and once that's gone
917
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:18,683
there's nothing left, he has no mate.
918
00:53:19,663 --> 00:53:24,480
But what happens is he
just disappears into
919
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:25,670
the darkness.
920
00:53:25,670 --> 00:53:26,503
- And he's gone.
921
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:31,853
Into the dark and the ice and that's all.
922
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:36,710
- [Narrator] And now, I bid my hideous
923
00:53:36,710 --> 00:53:39,880
progeny to go forth and prosper,
924
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:42,803
Mary Shelley wrote in
the preface to her novel.
925
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:47,590
For 200 years the creature has devotedly
926
00:53:47,590 --> 00:53:49,620
honored his creator's wish.
927
00:53:49,620 --> 00:53:52,650
He has left such a strong
mark on the collective
928
00:53:52,650 --> 00:53:55,980
psyche that everyone has almost forgotten
929
00:53:55,980 --> 00:53:58,430
about his literary origins
930
00:53:58,430 --> 00:54:01,213
and the novelist who gave him life.
931
00:54:02,903 --> 00:54:05,653
(waves crashing)
932
00:54:07,101 --> 00:54:09,851
(dramatic music)
67722
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.