Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (film)

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a 1994 film about a brilliant but unorthodox scientist Victor Frankenstein who artificially creates and gives life to a humanoid being. When he abandons his creation, it escapes and later swears revenge.

Directed by and Starring Kenneth Branagh. Written by Frank Darabont.

Be warned. It's alive.  (taglines)

Dialogue

I busied myself to think of a story — which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature — and awaken thrilling horror. One to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.

-Opening line taken from the introduction of the novel

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Victor Frankenstein: Do you share my madness?

Robert Walton: No, not madness.

Victor Frankenstein: What, then?

Robert Walton: There is a passage to the North Pole. And I will find it!

Victor Frankenstein: At the cost of your own life and the lives of your own crew?

Robert Walton: Lives come and go. If we succeed, our names will live on forever. I will be hailed as the benefactor of our species.

Victor Frankenstein: You're wrong. I of all men know that.

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Victor Frankenstein: I haven't got time to argue!

Elizabeth: Oh, isn't it convenient? Or doesn't it fit in with your plans? Don't you ever think of anything or anyone than yourself?

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The Creature: You gave me these emotions, but you didn't tell me how to use them. Now two people are dead, because of us. Why?

Victor Frankenstein: Something at work in my soul, which I do not understand...

The Creature: What of my soul? Do I have one? Or was that a part you left out? Who were these people of which I am comprised? Good people? Bad people?

Victor Frankenstein: Materials, nothing more.

The Creature: You're wrong. [picks up recorder] Do you know I knew how to play this? In which part of me did this knowledge reside? In these hands? In this mind? In this heart? And reading, and speaking. Not things learned so much as things remembered.

Victor Frankenstein: Trace memories in the brain, perhaps.

The Creature: Did you ever consider the consequences of your actions? You gave me life, and then left me to die. Who am I?

Victor Frankenstein: You? I don't know.

The Creature: And you think that I am evil.

Victor Frankenstein: What can I do?

The Creature: There is something I want. A friend.

Victor Frankenstein: A friend?

The Creature: A companion... a female. Someone like me, so she won't hate me.

Victor Frankenstein: Like you? Oh God, you don't know what you're asking...

The Creature: I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine, and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.

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[Reading from the Bible at Frankenstein's funeral]

Robert Walton: "And yea, I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly, and I perceived that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. For God shall bring every work and every secret thing into judgment, whether it be good or whether it be evil."

Taglines

• Be warned. It's alive.
• It's Alive.
• Be warned.

Cast

• Robert De Niro — The Creature
• Kenneth Branagh — Victor Frankenstein
• Helena Bonham Carter — Elizabeth
• Tom Hulce — Henry Clerval
• Aidan Quinn — Robert Walton

External links

• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein quotes at the Internet Movie Database