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Robert De Niro as Frankenstein
By Adam D. Miller

Robert De Niro has appeared in some of the greatest films of all-time, particularly under the direction of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola: Mean Streets, The Godfather, Part II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas are only a handful of the many successes of De Niro’s career.  In total, the actor has appeared in approximately seventy films.  Some have been brilliant, others disastrous.  Frankenstein is a disaster far beyond the explainable.

When Mary Shelley released her novel Frankenstein (1818), her intention was not to present a mad scientist and his monstrous creation.  Instead, she aimed to portray the far reaches of human insanity and what happens when you create something out of madness brought upon by lifestyle and grotesque fascination.  Anyone who has read the book knows that the true monster is Victor Frankenstein, not his creation.  And yet, since then, the story has been bastardized by many adaptations in film and television.  As a result, most people continue to believe that Frankenstein was a tall, green-skinned monster with black hair and pegs coming out of its neck, terrorizing everything and everyone in its path.

Director Kenneth Branagh’s intentions, then, were respectable.  With his 1994 film adaptation of Frankenstein, he set out to present the story as a loyal representation of the classic novel.  After all, this was Kenneth Branagh – the man who brought us some of the most effective and loyal adaptations of Shakespeare on film (including 1996’s Hamlet).  The characters are loyal to those in the book, and the creature appears to be what Shelley had envisioned, though I doubt Shelley would have envisioned the overly-dramatic overtones.  She probably wouldn’t have cast Travis Bickle himself, Robert De Niro, in the role of The Creature either.

Robert De Niro will always and forever be the New York-Italian brand of actor (like Harvey Keitel, Al Pacino, and several others) who has Bronx-fashioned mobster personality all over him, regardless of what roles he is playing.  It is virtually impossible for anyone who has seen him in his countless roles onscreen over the past thirty years to accept him as The Creature, a role usually tackled by European horror veterans. 

Who’s to blame?  Branagh?  De Niro?  Perhaps the blame should be placed on the Casting Director.  Priscilla John was effective in casting films as A Fish Called Wanda, and continues to find success as a Casting Director for more recent films like About A Boy.  Gerard Depardieu was initially offered the role of Frankenstein’s monster, but he turned the role down.  Too bad.

The saving grace is that the film really isn’t that bad.  But it’s hard to forget that the creature behind all that makeup is the young Vito Corleone.

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