Shelley subtitula su novela Frankenstein as ‘the modern Prometheus’ for a very simple reason: Victor steals the fire of life and then does not want to take charge of the fire. He creates a creature, is frightened by his own experiment and runs away. The novel, furthermore, is not a simple linear story: a captain heading to the North Pole writes letters, Victor tells him his story and, within it, the creature demands a word. Three voices, three looks and the same reproach: the true horror is not the laboratory, but the abandonment. The ‘monster’ learns to speak, to read, to feel, and what he demands is not blood, but something much more modest: a place in the world, a cabin, a company. In the novel, the creature learns to read and that reading fuels his hatred of his father.
Del Toro takes up that myth two centuries later and gives it the form of a Gothic opera. It respects the idea of the layers – ship trapped in ice, dying Victor, creature telling his version – but shifts the focus: from the simple scientific ‘hybris’ to the chain of family guilt, abuse and broken parenthood. His Victor is no longer just a reckless student, but a brilliant surgeon, molded by a brutal father and by economic interests that see resurrection as a business. Furthermore, Del Toro recovers the Creature’s intelligence, which was present in the novel and which many previous films lose. Neither in the novel nor in Del Toro, the creature is a brute and clumsy, but rather a tall, pained, almost ascetic figure, closer to a romantic martyr than to a fairground scarecrow, although equally ugly.
The film underlines its kinship with the novel in a school manner: it is divided into a “Prelude”, followed by “Victor’s Tale” and “The Creature’s Tale”. The nod to the book is clear: first the captain, then the scientist, then the ‘monster’. The problem is that the division is so sharp that one, as a spectator, feels at times the theater. The emotion is woven like a long confession, and suddenly a label appears that reminds us which chapter we are in. It doesn’t ruin the movie, of course, but it exposes the seam just where the myth would ask to flow like a single long complaint from son to father.
The difference in temperament is also noticeable in the outcome. Shelley ends in pure desolation: Victor dies, the creature announces that it will be lost in the darkness and that it will destroy itself. Del Toro, on the other hand, allows himself a more luminous gesture: there is forgiveness, there is a last act of care with the creature pushing the boat towards safe waters and the feeling remains that, at least this time, the son dares to break the cycle of inherited violence. The modern Prometheus of the 19th century left ashes; that of the 21st century leaves, if not redemption, then the possibility of a less cruel farewell.
But, beyond the differences in tone, makeup and budget, the underlying question is the same in the novel and the film. When we bring something into the world, are we willing to take charge of it? Shelley formulated it in times of galvanism; del Toro repeats it in times of algorithms and platforms. The disturbing thing is that, two hundred years later, we are still tempted to do what Victor did: light the fire, look at the sky and feign surprise when lightning strikes us.