There have been hundreds of Frankensteins. So why another one? Jett and Gareth ask whether a filmmaker’s obsessive need to tell a familiar story can itself justify the retelling—and what a new Frankenstein has to say about creation, responsibility, monsters, and the people who make them.
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Gareth (01:40.492)
Welcome everybody to the Film Talk. I'm Gareth Higgins.
Jett Loe (01:44.327)
I'm Jet Low.
Gareth (01:45.622)
And the conversation, as they say, never ends. Today, we're going to talk about a a big film. One of those Netflix productions. It's being watched all over the world. It's one of the most filmed stories since Guillermo del Toro started filming the same story, I guess, because you seem to think that he makes the same film every time. I'm not so sure that this is his version of Frankenstein.
with Jacob Elordi as the creature and Victor Frankens, Victor, sorry, with Jacob Elordi as the creature and Oscar Isaac as the monster.
Jett Loe (02:19.857)
Victor Frey as himself.
Jett Loe (02:28.113)
Yes, we've got a clip here in this clip. Victor Frankenstein played by himself, Victor. How many times in the film, by the way, Gareth, does the word Victor get uttered? It's, it's, it's... What did you do? What was that?
Gareth (02:40.079)
You didn't pick up on what I did there. Maybe you didn't want to. I said, Jakey Balorty as the creature and Oscar Isaac as the monster.
Jett Loe (02:49.723)
You know, I got it. I think you're not the first to come up with that. God bless you, sir.
Gareth (02:54.58)
well, there's nothing original under the sun. you know, like...
Jett Loe (02:59.813)
Well, according to chat GPT, according to chat GPT, says, according to Wikipedia, according to chat GPT, there's been over 423 feature films, and 200 short films directly adapted from Frankenstein. Let's listen to this one. In this scene, Victor Frankenstein is faced facing a disciplinary hearing in a beautiful circular structure, kind of an anatomy lesson.
vibe going on and he's turning the hearing into a sort of demonstration of his feelings and thoughts on life and death with some practical demonstrations. Let's listen in. Royal College of Medicine Disponerio Tribunal 1855.
Gareth (03:53.081)
And that is Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, perhaps the 424th filmed version of Mary Shelley's story. And that clip that you just played, Jett, it actually contains two of the things that I love the most about Guillermo del Toro's films. One is.
Jett Loe (04:03.229)
Classic.
Jett Loe (04:14.482)
Yes.
Gareth (04:15.822)
I've been trying to think of a word for this. You, I imagine, will have a better synonym for it, but the visual design of the thing, every one of his films is extraordinary. In a sense, he should be thought of in the same way that people think of Tim Burton and Ridley Scott, just to name two Hollywood directors. Yeah, Zack Snyder as well. There's a tactility to
Jett Loe (04:28.882)
Yes.
Jett Loe (04:37.489)
Zack Snyder.
Gareth (04:45.73)
the sets, there's an imagination that's very personal, the things are designed beautifully. I'm gonna get to why they're not perfect. And I don't mean perfect in the sense that you wouldn't like. mean, there's a problem with how these films look and have looked probably since The Devil's Backbone, which I think is his best film. But the design is gorgeous.
Jett Loe (05:15.461)
Absolutely.
Gareth (05:15.68)
And there's and there's compassion for marginalized creatures and marginalized people. The the the reanimated. I guess you could call it the reanimated extract of a dead body in this scene. It's horrifying and deeply sad and calls forth compassion. And everyone in the room is.
Jett Loe (05:37.085)
Yes.
Gareth (05:43.427)
totally dehumanizing toward this resurrected body, including the people who insist that this is blasphemy. It's blasphemy to resurrect this body and then just storm out of the room and leave this poor resurrected extract of a body behind. So there's compassion at the treatment of marginalized creatures at the hands of the dominant, whether they are the authority.
Figures or kind of mad scientists. These are the two things I like the most about del Toro's movies We talked a long time ago and I've thought about this this this film a lot his most popular film his most well-known film film that won the best picture Oscar the shape of water I hate to say this but the shape of water is a brilliant brilliant brilliant film with a terrible ending and I mean ethically a terrible ending and from a creative point of view
It's just awful because the film devotes so much time to honoring marginalized characters, to centering people who don't normally get to be the center of a story. And then at very end, pure retributive vengeful killing. This film, this Frankenstein film is like the inverse of that. It's not a good film and it has a magnificent ending in terms of the ethical moral heart.
Jett Loe (07:01.511)
Yeah, that thing is fantastic.
Gareth (07:04.748)
what's actually happening in the ending. And the problem leading up to that is that the performances are all over the place with two exceptions, two exceptions. David Bradley as the blind man and I think Jacob Bellordi as the creature is really great. Oscar Isaac, great actor. He feels like he's in a Monty Python film to me.
Jett Loe (07:26.813)
Can you tell me, okay, what is his accent? I just have to say, can you pronounce the word cadaver, cadaver like he does in this film? What, where is he from? He's from Hollywood.
Gareth (07:32.207)
It's a sincere, it's an absolutely sincere performance and it hits the wrong notes. Christoph Waltz, goodness gracious, goodness gracious, goodness gracious. Also a great, well this is the thing, he's also a great actor but because of his charisma he has to compete against himself every time because the...
Jett Loe (07:48.305)
He's in the Christoph Waltz role.
Gareth (07:59.247)
The two roles that introduced him to the world, the two Tarantino films, and he's been an Inglorious Masters and Django Unchained, are so over the top, iconic in cinema history. It's hard to get those out of your mind. It's hard to get that out of my mind when he played Blofeld. He needs to tone it down a bit. I think he's just miscast in this because he's competing against himself. And Mia Goth just doesn't have a whole lot to work with.
Jett Loe (08:25.056)
boy.
Gareth (08:26.766)
in the role of Elizabeth. These are tropes rather than fully fleshed out characters. There's something really strange about the fact that it's two and a half hours long and at times it feels so much longer. And then there's things that move far too quickly, such as how does the creature develop language skills by reading books and by listening to the blind man who he goes and lives with for a while. But in terms of the film's universe, it really feels like
He was there three weeks before he could have presented face to face on BBC Two in the 1960s. It just makes, it makes no sense at all. Having said that, there's a lovely grace note. The accent that you talk about accents, the accent that Jacob Elordi uses when he has developed these language skills is really smart because he actually sounds like he's carrying the cadence of the blind man and that part of wherever they are in the world. So.
There's all these serious attempts at doing something good, but what weaves it together is so thin. And lastly, and I'm sure you're going to want to talk about this because I don't understand the technical questions behind this, but Del Toro's films look like they're varnished. They look like they're an old table.
And I don't mean that to be snarky. I love the guy. I love the guy's heart. I love the guy's visual imagination. And what confounds me is for someone who has such an elegant visual imagination, why does he let his films look like they are, they could be old tables that have had all the character, all the grain sandpapered out of them, and then just a layer of translucent lacquer has been placed on top of it? Takes me right out of the movie. I know that there are...
techniques that can be used after you shoot digitally to make the thing look like film. I know you didn't like it when...
Gareth (10:27.906)
that when when when yeah when Alexander Payne did that in the Holdovers but I love that it felt like I was it felt like I was in the 70s and
Jett Loe (10:28.135)
Giamatti picture.
Jett Loe (10:32.733)
You know, I kind of do like in the Holdovers, folks. If you haven't seen the Holdovers, originally they were going to shoot it on film. This is a period piece. And they did tests, as you do, before you do a major motion picture, you test different film stocks, different ways of shooting. And they decided...
not to shoot it on film and instead they paid a fortune to a company that can kind of introduce film grain. This is much more than just adding a filter to something. This is literally adding what's called gate weave, which is a little bit of movement between every frame and it looks great. But yeah, I do want to touch on...
Gareth (11:01.614)
Thank you.
Gareth (11:05.262)
I guess you could call it a little bit of crackle. And again, if this film didn't look so shiny, I would probably like it 30 % more than I did. I just feel it's really a disappointment because so much effort is put into the design of how the thing looks. And then this.
Jett Loe (11:09.009)
Yeah.
Gareth (11:30.174)
I don't know if it's a thought through mistake or if for some reason Netflix doesn't want to let him make the thing look like a movie. Maybe Netflix is now so implacably opposed to theaters that they don't want their films to look like what films used to look like in theaters. I just don't know. I do want to hark back to one last thing before I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Jett Loe (11:55.687)
Yes, sir.
Gareth (11:58.445)
I remember watching, you know, I have these strong feelings about The Shape of Water, which really is probably the most disappointing ending after a movie that was so good up until that last moment and negated its own meaning. You've got a character who literally has the power of resurrection. And when his lover gets killed in front of him, instead of resurrecting her, he goes and rips the throat out of the guy who has killed her, throws him onto the ground.
picks up his girlfriend, jumps into the water, resurrects her, swims off into the distance, everything's happy, and as we discussed before, what he could have done is either heal the hand of the Michael Shannon character in the shape of water and shock him into facing what he did, and then resurrect his girlfriend and swim away, or kill Michael Shannon knowing that he's gonna resurrect him a minute later. Once he's done that, he feels bad about it, brings him back. It's just a much more literally creative...
idea and it left such a sour taste in my mouth after such a lovely film, so well put together, so well acted, so well written. Nightmare Alley, was, was it you? I think it was you and my husband Brian who both pointed out to me that, you know, Nightmare Alley brilliantly put together, but ultimately it's an absolutely tragic film about a survivor of terrifying childhood abuse.
who ends up being punished at the end of the film and it plays like Schadenfreude rather than tragedy. And I had been so beguiled by the film that it took somebody else to point this out to me. Hey, don't you remember what happened to the Bradley Cooper character at the start of that movie? He's clearly had an absolutely terrible life. We're not supposed to feel Schadenfreude when he ends up being made into the geek at the end of the movie. We're supposed to feel that this is a tragedy. And I really don't know.
what Guillermo del Toro wants me to feel or is thinking himself. I feel confused because there seems to be this care for marginalized people, but there's also this thing about total force to annihilate the bad guy. No compassion available in there. Help me out, Jett, with this confounding film made by someone who made...
Jett Loe (14:14.909)
I'm here to help.
Gareth (14:20.576)
One of the greatest films of this century, The Devil's Backbone, which is full of this compassion and yes, that's certainly defensive violence, but a heart beating alongside a crisply realized world in which an unexploded bomb stuck in the middle of the courtyard of an orphanage is one of the clearest metaphors.
Jett Loe (14:47.485)
Metaphor.
Gareth (14:47.918)
for what happens if people are not helped with, I'm not gonna say dealing with, but tending to their trauma and the wounds that arise from trauma. So please help me out with this film that maybe has the best ending of any movie this year and nothing that went before earns that ending.
Jett Loe (15:02.365)
I'm here to help. I will...
Jett Loe (15:10.641)
I'm here to help Gareth. I woke up this morning saying to myself, how can I help Gareth resolve his conflicting feelings about the work of Guillermo del Toro? I mean, that's what I live for. You know, let's be absolute. I've got nothing else to do. Listen, hey, wish me luck. I'm supposed to fly out to LA in a few minutes and with all these flight cancellations, who knows, maybe I'll be trapped there. Always be nice. I always love going back to LA. Lovely, lovely weather, lovely people.
Gareth (15:16.206)
Well, rightly so, rightly so, you know.
Jett Loe (15:39.879)
Here's the thing, Gareth, you can be good at one thing. Doesn't mean you're good at everything. So you can be a visionary in terms of set design, the look of a film, blocking, moving the camera, but maybe you're not also a visionary in terms of plotting. There are some directors who have an incredible confluence of skills, and we consider these the great directors, the...
the Hitchcocks and the Tarkovskys and the Ozus and the Kelly Reichards, what have you. So Guillermo del Toro films look great, but to your point, the kind of vision that we see that would make a great coffee table book does not necessarily work as a plotted piece of linear media, right? I would love a coffee table book of this film. The film looks gorgeous. I do want to talk.
a little bit before I get into some of the themes about the issues you have with the look of it. And also to your point about Nightmare Alley, let's not forget that that was a remake of a, you could call it a film noir. So there's a whole genre of films, film noir, in which there is a darkness, in which there aren't winners, in which the world is dark, because the folks that made it had gone through the Second World War, right? They'd seen the horrors of war, and even though the West was, in theory, or the United Nations, as they were called then, were triumphant.
Gareth (16:48.45)
Mm-hmm.
Gareth (16:59.97)
Mm-hmm. Sure.
Jett Loe (17:06.717)
One could not shake off the darkness at noon that surrounded them. You know, this reminded me when we saw The Hobbit and I'm watching and it's like this huge amount of money is being spent on this thing. It's the Peter Jackson thing. And I saw it in 48 frames per second. Almost, it was almost, that's correct, right? And Del Toro was originally, I'm supposed to do it, was involved in pre-production for a long time. But The Hobbit is 48 frames per second. And that sort of made it look
Gareth (17:20.832)
Almost the Del Toro Hobbit, lest we forget.
Jett Loe (17:36.549)
incredibly real like you're looking at a theater production. But what that meant was all these incredible sets, the wardrobe, the makeup, the prosthetics, all looked incredibly fake. And while watching The Hobbit, I thought, you know, if they had shot this in 16 millimeter on film, which has that gate weave where every frame's a little bit off and then projected through, you know, the same thing when you're projecting it through an old school film projector, that would mask the falsity of it, the stageyness of it. Instead, it just looked cheap with something that costs hundreds of millions of dollars.
Gareth (17:44.952)
Plastic. Plastic.
Gareth (17:49.795)
Mm-hmm.
Jett Loe (18:05.703)
You know, the same thing with Wicked, right? Wicked was lit very flatly and color-graded. It looks like they've changed a little bit in the sequel. And I understand thematically, we talked about Wicked, that you go from light to darkness as they go into Oz, away from the school. But it makes all these, all the fantastic sets and wardrobe and costume look inexpensive. And when you look at this film, I mean, it's beautifully designed. Yes.
Gareth (18:09.927)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gareth (18:28.376)
Do know, actually, can I just say something? Do you know what it makes them look like, the toys? If there was a Guillermo del Toro, Frankenstein's children's toy marketing merchandise thing, the film already looks like those toys. The sets already look like those toys. You know, like when you got your Ewok Village, when Return of the Jedi came out.
Jett Loe (18:46.801)
I'm sure there is.
Gareth (18:55.734)
and its proportions were all wrong and it was plastic and not made from actual trees. A little bit like that.
Jett Loe (19:03.613)
Well, you know, here's an experiment for any film students out there because Frankenstein, Del Toro's, hold on, because Del Toro's, wait, wait, here's what you do. It's on Netflix, which means people have access to it, right? So what you do is you get yourself a Super 8 camera, you point it at the screen and you then record it onto film and then project it back and let's see how it looks. To me, I think that would give it a little.
Gareth (19:09.984)
I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait.
Gareth (19:17.101)
Yes.
Gareth (19:27.31)
Mm-hmm.
Jett Loe (19:28.965)
a little something, it'll make it more sculptural, more interesting. Now it's quite possible, Gareth, we're just doing, hey, kids, get off my lawn here, right? That we are just.
Gareth (19:35.264)
We might be. We might be. I thought you were going to suggest that people build their own Ewok villages.
Jett Loe (19:40.509)
No, do you know in Return of the Jedi, the word Ewok is never mentioned? No one ever calls it Ewok. We don't never hear of that at all. It's only because it's in the marketing material and probably in the toys that we actually even know that they're called Ewoks. So somebody out there, please just use your Super 8 or 16 millimeter camera. It'll cost some money because you got to run it for two and a half hours.
Gareth (19:48.174)
The mysteries of cinema.
Gareth (20:03.137)
you
Jett Loe (20:03.623)
This is a long film. Do you know, Gareth, at one point the film was just about over and it fades to black and I was like, thank goodness, this has gone on forever. And then over black, my hand to God, dear listeners, Gareth, we get Victor Frankenstein say, but that was not the end of it. And I'm like, no. And then it fades back up. This is the kind of film that has great lines like, I cannot endure this vulgar demise. Or how about this one? Come out of the shadows if you are here. It's something.
So it has this incredible look. would make a great coffee table book. The plotting is rough. It has a wrap around story, which Toro has interestingly talked about the use of circles, always putting circles around Victor Frankenstein because the story is circular. I don't know if that really works. mean, the wrap around story is interesting because the sea captain, Norwegian sea captain, these are kind of hint of the thing here with the Scandinavians dealing with monsters, right, is actually really compelling.
Gareth (20:55.288)
Yeah.
Jett Loe (20:59.549)
And we don't know what's going to happen. And that's actually really interesting. Some of the best parts of the film. you know, Gareth, I'm kind of reminded of House of Dynamite because watching House of Dynamite, which we talked about a couple weeks ago, I'm watching this and going, what makes this film necessary? What is it about the House of Dynamite, the script, that makes it necessary when we already have fail safe or Dr. Strangelove or the Russians are coming or threads?
and it didn't feel compelling. And that's what I felt here. Again, beautifully designed, but the question is what makes this film different than all the other 423 motion pictures? I was hoping for something different. I would have liked, has there ever been a female Frankenstein? Like a female, like a Victoria Frankenstein instead of Victor. I know there's the early 70s movie, Lady Frankenstein. And can I just point out that on the post...
Gareth (21:49.543)
You've heard it. do mean a female Frankenstein scientist or a female Frankenstein's monster? okay.
Jett Loe (21:55.079)
Yes. No, scientist. Because, know, this film is based on a book famously, you you could even argue that, you know, one of the main instigators of a whole genre of science fiction and horror was Mary Shelley. It's a woman. So what about a Lady Frankenstein? There is a movie called Lady Frankenstein, early 70s with the tagline, only the monster she made could satisfy her strange desires, which I have not seen. And I kind of want to check out the IMDB listing here, folks.
Gareth (22:06.638)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gareth (22:21.262)
you
Jett Loe (22:23.589)
Here's the synopsis, Baron Frankenstein's daughter and his assistant slash her lover continues experiments in an attempt to rebuild his legacy after he's killed by a psychotic murderous first monster and stars Joseph Cotton, who I'm assuming is, you know, not just a one trick wonder in Citizen Kane, my friends.
Gareth (22:41.134)
He was in that phase of his career. A lot of people get to keep going, that's always a welcome presence. Well, did, no, we forgot, he did show up in the genuine, one of the most underrated masterpieces ever made, Heaven's Gate.
Jett Loe (22:45.147)
It wasn't a lot of those. But here's...
Joseph Godden? Yes. Was he in-
Jett Loe (23:00.667)
He is in heaven's gate. Is he in towering inferno? No.
Gareth (23:01.91)
Yes, he is. He's got to be. think anybody who was remote, anybody who had an agent in the early seventies was like contractually required to be in the towering inferno.
Jett Loe (23:13.341)
Sure, it's great. Because hey, look everybody, it's Fred Astaire. Oh, but he's not going to dance. Okay. So I, you know, the thing is, is that you can imagine a version, is it asking for too much? You have this beautiful dessert. Are you also asking it to be good for you? With Frankenstein, know, imagine if the plotting, imagine if it been a female, if it had been Victoria Frankenstein rather than Victor Frankenstein, you are missing this beauty of the plot that can match the beauty.
Gareth (23:18.044)
Hehehehehe
Jett Loe (23:43.093)
of the visuals. You know, have to ask when you're watching this movie, you can ask yourself, well, wait a minute, look at this fantastical, fantastical world. Why is it not as compelling, let's say as Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things, which is also kind of a Frankenstein's story when you think about it, which also takes place in a fantastical world, or The Wizard of Oz. It just, it's either too much or not enough. I wish the world was more fantastical.
It's realistic in some ways, but then he lives in this giant tower, which is from a different movie. So it doesn't coalesce. And then you have the accents, like Mia Gottsack, I don't know what's happening there. I loved her in Pearl and Triple X, what have you, but it just doesn't work.
Gareth (24:24.76)
Well, Jacob Elordi's accent perhaps makes up for everybody else's not very good accents. I've never read the book and I haven't watched a canonical Frankenstein film in a good while. Are we doing spoilers? Are we doing spoilers for the ending? We should do spoilers for the ending. right, always be spoiling. Always be spoiling.
Jett Loe (24:28.603)
Yes, he's great.
Jett Loe (24:43.845)
Always, always do, always do spoil. We've already, you spoiled, you spoiled shape of water.
Gareth (24:52.376)
the statute of limitations once a film has been out for, well, I don't know, spoilers, when there are spoiler alerts, spoilers are possible. Does the book end with Victor apologizing to the creature and asking for his forgiveness? Is that a new Frankenstein phenomenon?
Jett Loe (25:09.083)
You know, I read it.
Jett Loe (25:13.829)
I read it so long ago. I remember the ending, the original book. He does wander off onto the ice, but this idea that he can heal himself, that's invented for this picture. And I recall that as the monster, the creature wanders off, he's wandering off to die. So I don't recall. So yeah, maybe that is the great invention.
Gareth (25:34.263)
Isn't it, I mean, in the Branagh De Niro version, doesn't it end with the monster, is the monster doing a funeral pyre for Victor and allowing himself to be consumed in that funeral pyre? It'd be interesting if that's not the case. I wonder where I got that idea from. Anyway, this, of course, you know, I'm delighted by.
Jett Loe (25:48.359)
How was that film? How was De Niro?
Gareth (25:58.509)
the meaning of the ending in this film because anything that reduces dehumanization and violent conflict and, you know, maintains people's or enhances people's dignity, we have got to evolve our storytelling to make that kind of climax or resolution as compelling, as captivating, if not more than the typical method of Redemptive Violence, just blow everything up.
or kill the bad guy. And that is actually what happens at the end of this movie. This is an ending of the movie that I would have liked to see in the shape of water, but the problem is everything is so deflated up to this point that I didn't believe it. You know, Victor is chasing the monster across the world for, I don't know, years, and then suddenly he feels regret. Like, I didn't see anything in there in terms of building blocks toward making that feel credible.
Jett Loe (26:55.921)
Yes. Yeah, because what happens is there are some nice scenes in there. The scenes in the confessional are great. The scenes at the Royal College of Medicine disciplinary hearing is great. But the film doesn't earn its big narrative turns. And for that reason, it's unfortunate. Is that made up by the beautiful production design, wardrobe design, the gold accents on the bottom of Christoph Waltz in the Christoph Waltz role?
Gareth (26:57.046)
HAHAHAHA
Gareth (27:14.606)
It's such a pity.
Jett Loe (27:25.677)
are absolutely fantastic.
Gareth (27:27.352)
Hold on, the gold accents on the bottom of Christoph Waltz, what are you talking about?
Jett Loe (27:31.503)
on his shoes when he enters in the disciplinary hearing.
Gareth (27:32.896)
On his shirt, you did what you did. I mean, you didn't mention the word shoes.
Jett Loe (27:38.267)
Well, it's implied. Listen, we've talked a lot about here about this franksign again.
Gareth (27:39.606)
was confused.
Gareth (27:44.044)
Is it still worth watching? It's still worth watching. It's a Guillermo del Toro film. It's worth watching and pondering and being confounded by.
Jett Loe (27:49.021)
It looks great. What if you, because it's on Netflix and this is, you know, these people have spent years on this film, so this feels so flippant. I'm sorry for being a jerk, but you could put it on in the background and then have, you know, put it on in the background and read Mary Shelley's book. and that reminds me, it ends with a quote, but not from Mary Shelley, from Lord Byron.
Gareth (27:55.085)
Ahem.
Gareth (28:13.336)
iron.
Jett Loe (28:14.781)
the heart will break and yet brokenly live on. And a lot of people are like, what the hell? Again, a woman, a woman created this new genre and has changed the world with this. And then we're ending with some dude's quote, someone on Reddit, Uncle Underscore Lola did his own version of the quote with the same font and everything. And Uncle Underscore Lola recommended the quote by Mary Shelley, life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish is dear to me.
Gareth (28:44.216)
Hmm. Hmm.
Jett Loe (28:44.367)
and I will defend it. And that would have been something. What are you gonna recommend instead? There's so many, there's hundreds of Frankensteins out there, Gareth. Can you recommend a different Frankenstein for folks?
Gareth (28:55.566)
I can and I mean this in all sincerity. Last night I watched a film that within the first four minutes I just I knew it was one of the best films of the year. Certainly the best, certainly the best nonfiction film I've seen and very quickly I realized that this person's story can be seen as a variation on the themes in Frankenstein.
Jett Loe (29:10.609)
Begonia.
Gareth (29:24.706)
on the themes in Frankenstein. If the key themes in Frankenstein are of taking responsibility for your actions and the need for love and validation that everybody has, then it was not, well, I hope, I mean, 19 years of the film talk, albeit with a 10 year hiatus in the middle of it, I hope we've both, we've validated each other. We've validated, and dear listener, you validate us every time you send us one of your lovely messages.
Jett Loe (29:34.139)
Was it the Jet-Lo story?
Jett Loe (29:44.197)
I had things to do. I had to go somewhere.
Gareth (29:55.063)
It's Riefenstahl, the documentary about the German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Incredible filmmaker, actor, photographer, inventor of exquisite cinematic technique and Nazi apologist. this is it's a bit like you remember that film Listen to Marlon a few years ago that used Marlon Brando's own kind of personal therapeutic cassette recordings as the narration for a film about his life. It's kind of similar to that because this
filmmaker, Andres Ville, had access to all these recordings that Linné Riefenstahl made, including voicemails, including private conversations she was having with people that are ultimately about her failure to reckon with what she did and what she was complicit in. At the same time, it's clear that she was she was horribly, violently treated by at least one senior
at Nazi. So it does induce a bit of compassion for her. Why did it make me think of Frankenstein other than this question of responsibility for your actions and the need for love and validation? Is that to a degree she and Hitler made each other? I mean, surely another filmmaker would have come along and made propaganda films. Who knows that they would have been as epically influential as Triumph of the Will and Olympia. But it is one of those historic relationships where
these two people made each other bigger. One of them obviously responsible for some of the worst monstrosities of the 20th century and the other one trying to tell herself that she wasn't all that complicit in it after all. I am assuming you haven't seen this film or you're you're just utterly speechless at my description of it because you haven't said a thing.
Jett Loe (31:48.965)
No, I can't wait to see it. You know, I've got a couple of her photo books here when she went to Africa and they're incredible. I mean, she's an incredible photographer. But, you know, reminded talking about, you know, her work with the Nazis in Hitler, I'm reminded of that Star Trek Next Generation episode where the crew of the Enterprise, as they often do, encounter a being with godlike powers and this godlike creature does something horrific and commits genocide and...
Gareth (31:53.804)
Her books. Yeah. Yeah.
Jett Loe (32:19.067)
Patrick Stewart, as Picard says, says something along the lines of, don't have laws to fit to judge your crime, or we're not fit to judge you because the crimes are so immense. So that's my initial feeling thinking about Reif and Stahl, the work that she did in the service of the greatest evil that is imaginable. I've got a different recommendation. It's maybe a little bit lighter that while watching
Gareth (32:33.336)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gareth (32:43.8)
Have you?
Jett Loe (32:49.341)
this picture, we have the classic sort of, how are we going to call this, like an incel thing? What is it? These, know, spurned men. I'm thinking of the New York Times that just did an opinion piece recently that was originally titled something along the lines of, did women ruin the workplace? And then they quickly changed it to, did liberal feminism ruin the workplace? But they've gotten a lot of flack for that.
But I'm thinking about Menorah Sperne. So in this version of Frankenstein, Victor is spurned by Mia Goth, is one way to put it, and this catapults him into animating the creature. And there's another film that does this, and it's a really interesting motion picture, folks. If you haven't seen it, you should. It's a classic. It's from the mid-80s. I think, let's see if Gareth can guess it. It's a situation where the inspirational brilliant scientist is both the scientist himself and
becomes the monster and that of course is David Cronenberg's classic 1986. What's that? Back to the future. Yes, you could think of Marty as the Frankenstein, you know, why is Doc palling around with his teenager? Has he created, you know, he creates the actual personality of the young boy. You know, I'm talking about Cronenberg's 1986 The Fly with Jeff Goldblum as the scientist who then becomes
Gareth (33:44.494)
Back to the future.
to the future.
Jett Loe (34:09.553)
mutated into a terrible creature, but again, he's spurned on by an argument he has with his girlfriend and gets drunk and things go bad from there. It's a beautiful, sad film. And I think if you look at it through the lens of the Frankenstein myth that Mary Shelley created, I think it's a valuable contribution to the canon. And it's also a brilliant motion picture. Any last thoughts on the Frankenstein?
Gareth (34:31.726)
Wouldn't you say that most of Kronenberg's are beautiful side films?
Jett Loe (34:39.128)
absolutely. There's a strain of cold Canadian melancholy that runs. You just get cold. You get cold watching them. They're chilly.
Gareth (34:45.198)
To all, listen, to our warm and gregarious Canadian listeners, please, please, lean into your warm gregarity and disregard the last remark about your cold melancholia. Unless you identify with it, in which case, be our guest.
Jett Loe (34:59.591)
Think about scanners. You watch that film, you're gonna get cold. Everybody is in parkas and sweaters and jackets throughout scanners.
Gareth (35:04.718)
Okay.
Gareth (35:08.372)
you're talking about the physical temperature. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting thing. know, people superficially think of Cronenberg as a frightening director, but there is a lot of heart and pathos in his films. Dear listener, Jett's given you the tips on how to watch Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. I recommend you watch The Devil's Backbone, which is a really extraordinary.
Jett Loe (35:13.337)
Yes. Metaphor.
Jett Loe (35:32.253)
Great motion picture.
Gareth (35:38.264)
Sad and beautiful film as well.
Jett Loe (35:43.242)
if you enjoy these conversations, at least I know I do. there, I got that going for me. You can always visit us.
Gareth (35:47.342)
Are you one of our Patreon supporters, Chet, given how much you enjoy these conversations? Do you get the benefits? Do you get the Patreon benefits?
Jett Loe (35:54.181)
I should probably sign up that way can get our bonus episodes. I do get those archive episodes. Go to patreon.com slash The Film Talk if you want, because we've done hundreds of shows. You get all the archives on a regular basis and our bonus shows. We're also on Facebook at facebook.com slash The Film Talk. Well, I've enjoyed talking with you, Gareth. You want me to do right now? I'm going to go watch Lady Frankenstein because only the monster she made could satisfy her strange desires. I've been Jett Lo.
Gareth (36:00.345)
D-
Gareth (36:22.542)
I've been Gareth Higgins, we'll keep talking.
Jett Loe (36:26.097)
next time.