Of the Film Young Frankenstein - Movie Review Example

Young Frankenstein In 1974, Mel Brooks was still working on building his reputation as a brilliant satirist. He had created a few films, including the ‘art’ film The Producers and worked on several television shows, but was ready to create something larger. What he created was a spoof on the horror film in the form of his film Young Frankenstein starring Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr and Madeline Kahn. In presenting his story, Brooks retells the classic story written by Mary Shelley with a twist of his own as a means of gaining greater artistic license. Rather than telling about Victor Frankenstein, Brooks chooses to tell about his grandson, Frederick. His use of theatrical elements mimic the tricks of the trade in horror film production from the 30s, 40s and 50s while still using them in a way that highlights his comic appeals rather than the psychological thrills of the older films. This is largely accomplished through the postmodern slant to the film in which the illusion of film is made manifest in the character’s sometimes direct and surprising address directly toward the theatre audience. To more fully understand the art of cinema as it plays with crossing and re-crossing category distinctions, it is helpful to examine Brooks’ film as it compares with the horror films of the past. This can be accomplished through a detailed summary and analysis of the film as it works with and builds upon the defining characteristics of the horror genre. Young Frankenstein begins with Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced Fronk-en-stene and played by Gene Wilder) teaching a medical class at an unnamed American university to an amphitheater full of students. He is informed that he has inherited the family castle back in Transylvania and he becomes interested in discovering what it is he’s gained, particularly since he is about to get married to Elizabeth. Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn) is apparently a wealthy socialite as she bids good-bye to Frederick at the train station, being very particular about what parts of her he might touch. Upon his arrival in Transylvania, Frankenstein meets Igor (pronounced Eye-gore once he learns of Fronk-en-stene’s pronunciation) and Inga. Igor (Marty Feldman) is the grandson of the Igor who assisted Frankenstein’s grandfather in his creation of a monster and Inga (Teri Garr) is Frederick’s new not-quite-innocent laboratory assistant. One more character is introduced as the group arrives at the castle and Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman), the housekeeper, appears. After discovering Victor Frankenstein’s secret lab, Frederick discovers his grandfather’s plan could work and he and Igor go off to exhume a body (Peter Boyle) for the experiment. Igor steals a brain from a nearby lab but breaks the first one he was supposed to get. Thinking one brain is as good as another, he takes a brain marked Abnormal. With all the principle characters in place and all the parts on hand, Frankenstein and his monster go through the same raising the roof / lightening sequence once used in an earlier version of Frankenstein and the monster comes to life with an inherent fear of fire. The monster is restrained while Inspector Kemp (Kenneth Mars) investigates the Frankenstein castle in response to the townspeople’s justified concerns about having a Frankenstein back on the property. During this time, Frau Blucher has set the creature free and another spark sets it off, this time managing to escape the castle and encounter people outside the castle walls. These include a young girl and a blind old man, again in mimicry of the older film. Once Frankenstein finally accepts his heritage, he is able to make a new connection with the monster he’s created and train him for public appearance. Unfortunately, an exploding stage light causes the monster to flee again, inciting the townspeople against him. During his escape, the monster encounters Elizabeth, who has arrived unexpectedly from New York. Her singing entrances him and her figure encourages him to the point where he would have raped her had Elizabeth been truly unwilling, but she is excited by his animal nature and then amazed by his physical size and sexual stamina. Finally, Frankenstein is able to lure the monster back to the castle with music where he transfers some of his intellect into the monster to save them both. The monster wakes up just on time to reason with the townspeople, who have broken into the lab and the film ends with the monster married to Elizabeth and the more animalistic Frederick married to Inga. The film is a postmodernist comedy created in the style of the classic horror and, as such, has a great deal in common with the horror film. According to Kawin (2003), “A good horror film takes you down into the depths and shows you something about the landscape” (325). While Brooks chooses to explore the depths in a comic way, he nevertheless clearly makes a statement regarding the true nature of many relationships in his emotionless portrayal of the almost mechanized characters at the beginning of the film. We see in the departure scene between Frankenstein and Elizabeth at the train station how the modern world has reduced something even as natural as human touch and emotion to a mechanized, untouchable element. Despite the length of the journey about to be taken by Frankenstein, Elizabeth won’t permit him to kiss her (it’ll mess up her lipstick), hug her (it’ll wrinkle her ‘taffeta’ dress), disturb her hair by pressing a kiss to her head or even hold her hand as it might damage her polished nails. Finally, they end up saying good-bye with a simple touch of the elbows. Although Frederick has been making all the advances, which makes it clear that Elizabeth is the one putting up the wall between them, there is little evidence that Frederick is really any more in touch with his true self than Elizabeth. He teaches in a rather mechanical way and, although easily excited, he struggles always to maintain calm outward control. It is suggested that his inability to make a physical connection with Elizabeth is because he has not yet come to fully accept himself. This, too, is a fundamental element of the horror genre. “The seeker, who is often the survivor, confronts his or her own fallibility, vulnerability, and culpability as an aspect of confronting the horror object, and either matures or dies. (Matures in this sense refers to the adult act of making peace with the discrepancy between self and self-image)” (Kawin 325-326). Starting the film denying his identity to such an extent that he deliberately encourages mispronunciation of his name as a means of separating himself from his family’s past, Frederick eventually comes to realize that he is a Frankenstein and embraces his heritage as he embraces the monster he’s created. The strange, passionless relationship between Frederick and Elizabeth is strongly contrasted against the relationships that develop as the film moves forward. Inga increasingly plays on sexual innuendo as she works with the awakening Frederick and there is an instant passion that awakens in Elizabeth upon encountering the monster. “This turns out to be a relatively consistent pattern in the horror films of the twenties, thirties and forties: a perverse or somehow unsatisfactory love triangle among the boy, the girl and the monster; a happy coupling of the surviving couple that depends on their dealing with the monster or coming to some kind of understanding with the forces it represents … and a romantic resolution that bodes well for the society at large” (Kawin 327). The creature is obviously a monster as it breaks into Elizabeth’s room and kidnaps her off into the forest before taking advantage of her. While Elizabeth objects slightly, it is obvious that the objections are made only for propriety’s sake. The horror film enables her to escape the normal social restraints and explore her more carnal nature free of judgment. In many ways, the more natural character of Inga is also introduced as a sort of monster form in the sense that she is less ‘civilized’. She is first seen offering a ‘roll in the hay’ as Frederick climbs into the back of a hay wagon he will be riding home. She touches him often not only here, when she curls into him for protection against the lightning and the wolves, but throughout the rest of the film, demonstrating instances of intelligent thought as well as natural carnal desire. This contrast between the two women forces attention and an obvious preference for the more natural rather than the technological. It is this emphasis on the role of the scientist that is often used to distinguish between horror and science fiction. Essentially, the horror genre establishes the scientist as a negative force as it seeks to discover things best left undiscovered, such as Frankenstein’s investigations into how to reanimate dead tissue and thus steal the power of life and death from the hands of God. All it takes to make science fiction out of this story is to tell it from a different perspective in which the scientist is established as a positive force seeking to bridge the communication barriers between humanity and monster (Kawin 335). In Young Frankenstein, Brooks manages to walk a fine line between science as something to dread and science as something to bridge the unexplored places. “Horror emphasizes the dread of knowing, the danger of curiosity, while science fiction emphasizes the danger and irresponsibility of the closed mind. Science fiction appeals to consciousness, horror to the unconscious” (Kawin 335). As Frederick creates his monster, he is seen to have as little knowledge about what he’s getting into as his grandfather had had when he created his creature. In keeping with this idea, the creature is abnormally strong and decidedly dangerous should he set his mind to it. The townspeople react in typical horror fashion by instantly rising up against the monster, but then a shift occurs as Frankenstein acknowledges his past. Rather than leading to the ultimate failure, this realization enables the scientist to shift the focus from the horror to the science fiction. He opens the minds of the townspeople by suggesting that the monster could be something more than a terror. “Horror and science fiction then, are different because of their attitudes toward curiosity and the openness of systems, and comparable in that both tend to organize themselves around some confrontation between an unknown and a would-be knower” (Kawin 335). Only when Frederick confronts the problem by sharing his own intellect, giving up a piece of himself, is the film able to come to a satisfactory conclusion. The postmodern twist of the film enables Brooks to turn this expected ending on the comic by taking the unexpected step of giving the suddenly passionate Elizabeth to the suddenly intelligent monster and the naturally exuberant Inga to the now more naturally passionate Frederick – resolving the romantic triangle by introducing a balancing fourth in a surprising yet viable way. Other elements of postmodernism in the film include several points in which the audience seems to be addressed directly. This is most evident in the character of Igor. His Groucho Marx style facials to the camera incorporate the audience into the action while calling attention to the illusion of the screen and the action occurring therein. Although Brooks employs the black and white film, the somewhat clumsy old-style wipes and the dramatic music of the older classic style to invoke a sense of the horror films of the past, these sudden and surprising appeals to audience interaction twists the perspective and enables the audience to begin understanding the story from an interior perspective. Finally, while Frankenstein seems to provide the necessary bridge between the savage and the civilized, turning the film into science fiction, there is a mysterious change that takes over Frankenstein himself following his symbolic death in the form of electronic intelligence transfer that brings him more into the realm of the unknown, thus bringing the film back under question whether it adopts the horrific or the science fiction perspective. Mel Brooks’ film Young Frankenstein thus defies definitive categorization as it constantly shifts genres from comedy to horror to science fiction and back again in a continuous cycle operating on a number of levels. While two couples survive to the end of the film, both ending the film happily married, they are not unchanged from their original states. Elizabeth has become a near nymphomaniac following her passionless existence seen at the beginning of the film. She is married to a man who first appeared in the film as a lifeless corpse and spent much of the film in a state of near-animalistic intelligence. Although his physical size remains the same, the monster’s libido seems significantly reduced following his stabilization. Inga is tamed in the sense that she has become a happily married woman while the libido of Frankenstein himself seems to almost take over the man upon hearing the signature song. Works Cited Kawin, Bruce. “Children of the Light.” Film Genre Reader III. Barry Keith Grant (Ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003: 324–345. Young Frankenstein. Dir. Mel Brooks. Perf. Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr, Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn. Twentieth Century Fox, 1974. Read More