Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:04] Welcome along to another episode of the Dispatchers podcast. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again. And today I want to talk about Guillermo del Toro's brand new adaption of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It's a new film, for those who aren't aware of it. It has been released on Netflix. It was in theaters for a couple of weeks, but now you could watch it on Netflix, I think most places around the world. So sometimes they have these staggered releases, but it is on Netflix in my country and I think in most other places as well, judging on basically the conversation that I'm seeing online about this film. Guillermo del Toro, a phenomenal filmmaker and someone whose work I've loved for a long time, and some I've seen are describing this as like his magnum opus. They are talking about this as being like one of his big sort of cinematic moments.
[00:00:56] I don't know if that's entirely correct, but I don't think it's outside of the realms of possibilities. This is a truly beautiful and well made film, and it really is something that clearly seems to be a passion project for him. He's invested a lot into it. And I have to say, for me, despite the fact that some fans are a bit upset because he has adapted the story, this is his interpretation of the story. He has kept the core bones of the story.
[00:01:22] Victor Frankenstein, the scientist who creates a monster, and then the sort of insanity and death and. And destruction and shoes on the back of that, that's there. But he has changed key components of the story, and some people are upset about this. I actually don't mind this. I'm kind of used to now the concept of filmmakers taking original source material and then adapting it. What I do find frustrating, and this is certainly not a criticism of this film, because it doesn't do it, is when filmmakers take original source material and they are not faithful to that source material in a way that is actually destructive and counterproductive. It violates those fundamentals of goodness, truth and beauty that should really be at the heart of any good storytelling. And normally this happens in the modern context when you take a piece of literature or maybe another film that was released some decades ago, and then you remake it, you reinvent it, you reimagine it, and what you do is you gut the heart out of it and you get the storytelling strength and goodness and truth and beauty of it. And what you do is you holler at those original characters and you just turn them into mouthpieces for ideological propaganda. Commonly this is done at the service of woke ideology. And it is really, really frustrating and heartbreaking basically to see a once formerly great story gutted in this way or the other four form of this is. It might not be ideological, but it's just gutted for the lowest common denominator. It is where you take a story or a formerly great film and then you try and turn it into a modern marketing commodity. So you just reduce it to that lowest common denominator of what can we do to sell this as a product? And all the heart and soul is missing and it's just sort of ticking a whole lot of boxes in the hope that maybe you'll, you know, sell a few tickets at the movie theater, you'll draw a crowd, and maybe even you can sell a few product placements along the way. You know, the typical sort of stuff where art becomes corrupted by that corporate influence. But none of that is present in this particular adaption. There are some major changes, though. So first of all, Victor Frankenstein now has an abusive childhood, an abusive father, and serious childhood trauma.
[00:03:35] Elizabeth is also not engaged to him. Elizabeth is engaged to his younger brother, William. And. And that is one of the bigger changes in this story. But from my perspective, I actually think this adds to the story and the themes that Guillermo del Toro has chosen to focus on and his adaption.
[00:03:57] Both stories are strong and good. The original Mary Shelley version is its own thing, and I think you've got to see this as a different thing in its own right, but it really is a good thing as well.
[00:04:08] It focuses, I think, in a bit more of a laser focused kind of way on some key themes that I think are really important. And that's what I want to talk about, talk about today.
[00:04:17] The one thing, though, I'd have to say about the character of Elizabeth is in this adaption, she feels like she's the one character. And it is a very minor critique for me. It's not major, it's not devastating. It doesn't destroy the story, it doesn't destroy the film in any meaningful kind of way. But it did stick out to me a little bit like her character. She feels a little bit odd. And it feels to me like her character maybe has been written by, with more of a modern sensibility. So it was like they had to give her her own sort of feminine and feminist agency in her own right. They couldn't be more faithful to the original character. Now, there is a way in which you could argue that they are paying homage here to Mary Shelley, because Mary Shelley is sometimes viewed as a bit of a proto feminist. And so you could argue that's possibly what's going on here. They are. They are seeing Mary Shelley, and they've sort of given her a place in her own story in this way.
[00:05:15] But it also kind of feels a little bit odd, like she basically is in this strange relationship where she.
[00:05:22] And I think, good on them for doing this. Elizabeth chooses. Right, so she's engaged to William. But clearly there is this sort of burgeoning romance, these feelings of infatuation between her and Victor that begin to develop.
[00:05:37] And Victor wants to act on it, but she chooses the right thing and says no to that. And that's a really good thing to see in a film because often in modern filmmaking, what you end up with is you end up with people just engaging in hedonistic behaviors because they follow their passions. It's a very modern, liberal idea. Just do what feels good. But this film doesn't fall for that. And so that's a strength. That's a. You know, that's a positive. That's a tick in the box there.
[00:06:01] But at the same time, she also then falls for. So remember, there's a bit of an infatuation with her and Victoria. She's got William, she's engaged to. And then there's the monster. And she falls for the monster. And that's the bit, to me, that feels kind of odd. And in a sense, you could say, okay, there's a. There's a sort of a thematic element that they may be touching on here, this idea that all three of these men in her life are monsters in one way or another. And it's not a particularly good anthropology. It doesn't see masculinity in a. In a particularly good light. So you could argue maybe that's what they're doing. But for me, what stuck out even more was the sense in which it doesn't really make sense why she would fall for the monster. There's not really much in her character arc or her character development before that point that would lead us to believe that she would actually not just be fascinated by this creature. That's definitely there. And I think it's well laid out in a character arc that she would be some. Someone who would be sort of captured by the science of this moment, but she's actually fallen for the creature. And. And that. That aspect of it I just don't think makes a lot of sense. It seems to me that she would rightly be more horrified and fearful and afraid of the Monster. And that's not really what's going on in the film. So that, that aspect of it I found a little bit odd. But it wasn't the sort of thing where it destroys the story. And it's not something of a major critique for me. I'm not saying, oh, that was awful. I wish they'd changed that. Nothing like that at all. It was just a minor thing that sort of stuck out to me as a little bit odd. Her character, she doesn't quite feel consistent with the times that she's living in, whereas every other character, generally speaking, it feels like they are very much historically consistent with the period in which they live.
[00:07:49] Now, having said this, that this is a truly beautiful film and one that absolutely is worth watching, I watched it last night with my eldest daughter and we both really, really loved the film. There was so much about it that is beautiful. And, well, Craf did. It's not a family movie night film, just for those who are wondering. For younger kids, there's no sexual content. There is no, what I would call gratuitous violence, but there is violence in this and there is some gore. I mean, it's Frankenstein. It's a gothic horror story. And so you would expect that. And there is what you might call body horror involved with the experiments and the building of the creature and the body parts and things like that. So it's. It's not a family friendly movie night movie, but it is still a good film in its own right. And it's the sort of film that absolutely I'd have no problem recommending to people with that caveat. You know, don't watch it with younger kids.
[00:08:41] Here's the thing, though. I want to go beyond just the film itself and look at the deeper theological elements here, because there are three main things that really struck me as very important about this film, and in particular, the aspects of this retelling where Guillermo del Toro, the things he's focused on and changed, I think they actually strengthen aspects of the original themes in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I think, in a very important kind of way.
[00:09:08] And whether you like it or not, everything you do is about theology. I've been making this point for quite some time now for those who might be new to my channel or who are watching me for the first time. You might not have heard me say this before, but everything is theological, everything is religious. Basically, for a long time, we have labored under a false pretense of liberalism in the modern west, where we've wrongly thought that basically we could separate society and human experience and the human life from religion. But everything is ultimately religious. Even atheism is in fact a statement about theism. It's a reaction and a response to, and it's a declaration, a commitment to a particular theological belief. There is no God. So therefore I'm going to live according to that particular theological idea. So everything is religious. And this film, I think is a very powerful primer on that point. And it speaks to the truth of this. The first thing that really is important, the deeper theological theme in this movie is there's this whole emphasis really on what you would call the Baconian philosophy. So this is Francis Bacon. And Francis Bacon is very much someone who sets up a relationship between humanity and nature, the natural order, where nature is the enslaver of human beings. When he says knowledge is power, what he means by that is that as our knowledge of the natural world grows, so will our scientific understanding and prowess and therefore our control over nature will grow. And basically we can then free ourselves from the enslavement of nature. Now there's a certain truth to this in the sense that like as our scientific knowledge grows, we can do things like create vaccines. And no longer are we bound by the restraint of nature. We're not enslaved to certain diseases anymore. Our knowledge, not just in the area of medicine, but other forms of technology, like we can create artificial light so that at night things are not as restrained, we are not imposed, we are not restricted by darkness. We don't just have to wait for the moon to come out or for the, the sun to be present during the day. We can actually move about in the darkness, the motor car, we can increase the distance we travel, etc. Etc. There are, there are overcoming of limitations of nature that happens on the back of this.
[00:11:30] However, like all of these philosophies, the original founding fathers of them, like Francis Bacon, he doesn't really imagine a world in which we would keep following that idea to its inevitable and logical and very self destructive conclusion.
[00:11:46] Like all philosophers of this sort, the understanding really in their mind as well. We're only going to take this so far. So sure we want to free ourselves from disease and we want to free ourselves from say, limitations around travel or whatever it might be. But we don't want to, you know, take this all the way to the point of self destruction. There's got to be a point at which we recognize that there are limits on this. And very much someone like Francis Bacon is operating and inheriting a Christian vision of reality when he's proposing his philosophy. But once that begins to erode, his philosophy becomes more dominant. And the natural conclusion, basically, once you set up this idea that human beings are effectively in a type of oppositional and defiant relationship with nature, and nature is our enslaver, and our power as it grows means that we, you know, have an obligation, effectively. Because if you're in slavery, what should you do? You should free yourself from the slavery. It's not good to be a slave. And so the question obviously arises, well, what are the limits to this freeing of ourselves from slavery? Are there any limits? And where are we going to get these moral boundaries from?
[00:12:51] And so basically what happens is, you know, don't be surprised if future generations, basically more and more people start saying, well, why should we stop with just disease? Or why should we stop with just travel? Why not keep going and freeing ourselves in an unlimited kind of way? If we create a technology, then why shouldn't we use it?
[00:13:10] Like, it's one thing to say, okay, well, let's free ourselves from the restraints of polio, for example, but why shouldn't I also use new technology to cut off my genitals and free myself from the restraint of being born as a man, for example? And so this is not something that Bacon intends, but this is the inevitable outcome. And it sets up a bit of a problem, too, where humanity is put into a relationship of opposition to nature, and not just nature as an enslaver, but nature is something we fight, and, you know, it's a fight for dominance. So don't be surprised if future generations then take this idea and run with it. And instead of seeing themselves as being in a holistic sort of relationship of stewardship, which is the Christian version of nature, that future generations, you create a paradigm where they say, well, nature is ours to dominate. And then we start dominating and consuming natural resources because we are the dominant, you know, and powerful one. Now, we've developed a certain hubris and arrogance as our knowledge of the natural world sort of grows. And that's very much an idea that is present in this film. It is very clearly there. The idea of. And like, the way this is most obviously represented is power over death. That is the ultimate limitation, right? Death is the ultimate, you know, doorstop. It's the power that belongs only to God. And often when we see this or we think about Frankenstein, we think about that aspect of it. Oh, you know, it's a warning. Don't play God. But it's more nuanced. It's deeper than that. And you really get that. I think in this film, this, you know, why should we be limited by the restraints of nature? Why can't we take that power from. For ourselves? So that idea is in both versions of the story, and it's a very prescient idea. And there's something important that I think, like I want us to think a little bit deeper about this idea because it's not just a very simplistic kind of, oh, well, you can't tell me what to do. I want to wield that power for myself. It's not just the Promethean thing. And that's very much present here, the idea of Prometheus and the grabbing of the fire and all the rest of it.
[00:15:19] That. I mean, that these. The story at the heart of this is very much. That's there, but there is.
[00:15:25] There's something important about this idea. And to unpack it, I want to actually quote from a piece of writing that was written by the late Catholic Pope, Pope Benedict xvi.
[00:15:36] And it's a document that he wrote called Spe Salvae, which is on Christian hope. And he talks about this very issue. And I think it sums things up so perfectly. He says this, and let me bring it up on screen so you can see it.
[00:15:50] What is the basis of this new era, so the modern era that we find ourselves living in? It is the new correlation of experiment and method that enables men, and this is Francis Bacon, that enables man to arrive at an interpretation of nature in conformity with its laws and thus finally to achieve the triumph of art over nature. Victoria cursus artis supernatum. And this is notorum. Sorry that. That is a direct quote from the philosophical work of Francis Bacon there, you know, the triumph of art over nature. The novelty, according to Bacon's vision, lies in a new correlation between science and praxis, science and practice. This is also given a theological application. The new correlation between science and praxis would mean that the dominion over creation given to man by God and lost through original sin would be re. Established. So let me just take a little break here. For those who are not familiar with this, the Christian version of reality, God creates humanity good and in a state of perfection and fullness of relationship with him. And then our original parents commit some catastrophic, what we call original sin, which severs and ruptures that relationship and brings sin and imperfection into the world. And so that's what he's referencing there. Let me carry on. Anyone who reads and reflects on these statements attentively will recognize that a disturbing step has been Taken. And this is the key point, the deeper point I want to get to here about Bacon and Frankenstein and everything else up to that time.
[00:17:31] The recovery of what man had lost through the expulsion from paradise.
[00:17:37] And by the way, this is, again, this is important because this whole theme is very much in this film. At one point the monster is introduced to Milton's Paradise Lost, and that's exactly what this is all about. So this is quite an important theme here. The recovery of what man had lost through the expulsion from paradise, from the Garden of Eden was expected from faith in Jesus Christ. Herein lay redemption. So this is prior, like the Baconian idea, changes not just things about science, but how we see redemption is the point that's being made here. Previously we look for that redemption in the spiritual, in the theological, in the Godhead, in the divine.
[00:18:19] And now what's happened under Bacon, as Benedict goes on to say now, this redemption, the restoration of the lost paradise, is no longer expected from faith, but from the newly discovered link between science and praxis.
[00:18:36] It is not that faith is simply denied, rather it is displaced onto another level, that of purely private and other worldly affairs. And by the way, this is exactly what happens on the back of Bacon. Faith is relegated into the private life. Sure, if you want to believe stuff, sure, but not in the public square.
[00:18:57] Science is now the thing, the empirical stuff that holds the power.
[00:19:01] And we start treating science, we also start elevating scientific knowledge. And this is where we get scientism and imperial empiricism and we start falling for this nonsense that science is the ultimate source of truth or the only source of truth.
[00:19:14] This absurd, self contradictory proposition that some believe that only empirical things can actually be true or can claim to be true because they're empirically testable. The problem is, of course, that is that that is a principle. So empiricism is a principle. It's not a material or an empirically testable thing. So the principle of empiricism can't even pass its own test, its own litmus test, bright line, test for what you are and are not supposed to believe. So this is quite a major shift and it's really key what he's saying here. He goes on to say this, and at the same time it becomes somehow irrelevant for the world. So faith is deemed that way. This programmatic vision has determined the trajectory of modern times and it also shapes the present day crisis of faith, which is essentially a crisis of Christian hope.
[00:20:05] Thus hope too, and this is the important bit in Bacon, acquires a new form now. It is called faith in progress. So our hope is no longer faith in God, but faith in technological progress. For Bacon, it is clear that the recent spate of discoveries and inventions is just the beginning. Through the interplay of science and praxis, the totally new discoveries will follow. A totally new world will emerge. The Kingdom of man. He even put forward a vision of foreseeable inventions, including the airplane and the submarine. As the ideology of progress developed, further joy at visible advances in human potential remained a continuing confirmation of faith in progress as such.
[00:20:56] And this is a really, really key point to understand here. And this is something very essential and important about the Frankenstein story here.
[00:21:05] This whole idea that it's not just science will save us, but science, or that our technology will give us good things and power.
[00:21:15] But effectively, science becomes like the new faith. That's the key thing. And you see that very much in this story. It is his faith in science. We'll get to that when we talk about the next point in just a second. But it is very much this idea of Victor Frankenstein's faith in science as sort of being the pivotal form of salvation. This is clearly what he's grasping at. It's not just, I want to grab the Promethean fire for myself and some sort of arrogance or hubris.
[00:21:43] He wants it because he will overcome death. And this is where the changes, Guillermo del Toro's adaption of the story, this is where they really matter, because his life is marked by this childhood trauma in the story. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen the film, but there is childhood trauma, and his grasping at the fire is really his attempt. He's really stuck as a child. He is desperately grasping at love. He is desperately grasping to overcome something that was done to him. So his motivations are good here, but what he's doing is disastrous. And so this very deep theological truth is at play here, that we have usurped faith in God with faith in progress. Now, of course, what we are finding out now is that this faith in progress, and that's exactly what marks this story, too, this is exactly what Victor Frankenstein discovers, is that it cannot deliver the promise, or what he believes the promise to be progress, cannot actually give him the progress that he wants, because it's not just material progress, it's not just scientific progress. That's not enough.
[00:22:49] There's something deeper that's missing here, and we'll get to that in just a second. Now, the second deep theological truth here, and this is another one that if you know a little bit about philosophy and about history in the west, you will probably recognise this straight away. And that is the presence of Friedrich Nietzsche and his Nietzschean ideology very much in this story. In fact, that was one of the first things I said to my daughter after we had finished watching the film was the. The Nietzschean themes that are very strong. And so Frederick Nietzsche, the guy who goes from being a. A, you know, the son of a minister to a man who proudly wears the badge of the Antichrist. And ironically, his life story is actually similar to Victor Frankenstein. In this new adaption, Nietzsche experiences great tragedy involved in his own family life and that definitely shapes that path. Mythology shapes his philosophy. Nietzsche is the man who goes on to wear the badge of being the Antichrist and he's quite proud of this. He is not just someone who is opposed to Christianity. He believes Christianity is a moral evil that is doing harm to society because it has an over emphasis on mercy and compassion. And he believes this is holding us back. He says this is like a master slave morality. And basically what do you end up with is this idea where we are being held as slaves.
[00:24:08] And he says, you know, who talks a lot about mercy and compassion and you know, who needs to talk about all that stuff the slave does because they don't have any power. But you know, who doesn't need to talk about mercy and compassion? And he's not held back by that kind of talk. The master, because he is powerful. And so for him, Christianity is this toxic evil which is destroying our society because it makes us weak. And it's got a focus on like, mercy and compassion. And he believes that's holding us back. And that's why he thinks that we need to look to the pagans of the past and imitate what they do, which is they worship strength and they are not afraid to use strength and dominance over their neighbors, even in quite unjust ways, according to the Christian vision of reality. But for Nietzsche, you know, this is the Ubermensch, this is the overman, the strong man, the superman, the powerful man who will lead us forward. And so for Friedrich Nietzsche, his focus is on this idea that, you know, God is dead and we have killed him. So in one sense, he's very wary about what this means because unlike other thinkers in his era, he is very cognizant of the fact that the Christian vision of reality is what gave rise to and what shaped the West. So God is dead and we've killed him. There's a problem there. Where are we going to get our morality from there. And this is his proposal of the Ubermensch, sorry, the overman, the strong man who will lead us forward. This whole idea of self creation, the other way in which he sees this, though, is he thinks this is a good thing. You know, God is dead and we have killed him and, and that's something to celebrate. We are the new gods now. You know, the sun is no longer, as he writes, restrained in the, in the sky. It's not shackled. It doesn't have to, you know, rise in the east and settle in the west. You know, we are the new gods now. The sun can go wherever we command it to go. And so this idea of self creation, and that is very much at the heart of the story, this is Victor Frankenstein. He is literally self creating a whole new human person in his own image, according to his own ideas. And this is so fundamentally important. But what this film, and this is what I really love about this, this theological aspect of it. So people might recognize the Nietzsche and tendency here, the Ubermensch, the strong man, and it very much is set up in this film. Earlier on, there's a, there's a disciplinary, Borrow, borrow, boring, that's all Freudian, so that's not boring at all. There's a disciplinary board hearing that he is part of a medical academy hearing. And he literally at one point says, we will not be held back by dogma. And, and so this is a very Nietzschean idea. You know, we won't be restrained by Christian dogma and we won't be held back. And, and some of the others, you know, accuse him of, of this is heresy and this is blasphemy, et cetera.
[00:26:51] And, and this is very much this Nietzschean idea that's, that's set up here so people might recognize this, that.
[00:26:57] But what maybe that they will miss here. And this is what I love about the story and the way it sets it up is the fact that Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is wrong and so is Nietzsche.
[00:27:09] So Victor Frankenstein, although, like it's set up in the story and it very much is alluded to very powerfully in the story telling, this theme is touched on, it's not explicitly laid out in any dialogue, but it is clearly there is this idea of a man who has been so badly wounded by suffering in his own life and loss that he sees God as being capricious and, you know, God is evil, because otherwise this wouldn't have happened to me. This idea is very much present.
[00:27:39] But here's the thing, and this is what Victor Frankenstein misses And you discover this in the end. What if in actual fact, he's wrong, that God is not the capricious one? And we think, well, we'll do what Friedrich Nietzsche says, we will be the Ubermensch, we will grab power for ourselves, we will become the new gods now. But it turns out that we actually are capricious because we are not fit to wield that power.
[00:28:03] Like in the Christian Gospels. There's this very profound idea that is put forward, this teaching of Jesus, where he says, you know, seek and ye shall find, and, you know, ask God for your needs.
[00:28:15] And there's a very important sort of caveat, a theological caveat to this, though, you know, and he talks about this idea of, well, you know, who of you, if your son asks for bread, would give him a stone?
[00:28:28] And so what's loaded into this idea is God desires the best for us. But sometimes, and this is the key point, sometimes we are mistaken and we are receiving bread from God, but we think it's a stone because it doesn't necessarily feel good to us, it doesn't satisfy our passions, it doesn't make us feel, feel good at a pleasure centric level. And that's a big deal for our culture today. And we think, we fail to recognise the bread for bread. We think it's a stone and we think we're being hard done by. But what if, in actual fact, what we have been given by these limitations and obviously death, is the ultimate limitation he's trying to overcome in this film, in actual fact, that's in our best interest. It's not a stone as he sees it. He sees death as this rock, this evil thing that he must overcome. But what if it turns out that God is not being capricious? He has a much bigger vision because he is beyond even our capacity to understand, let alone think like God does. He can see well beyond our limitations and so he's actually acting for our good. In the world in which we operate, because of the stain of original sin, there are certain corruptions present. But God is not the capricious causer of those things. Our own human ancestors, our first parents, were, and we bear the burden of that. But God is still acting for our good in the midst of all of that, and we are mistakenly thinking that this is capricious, this is evil, and we will overcome. And so for him, it's overcoming death.
[00:29:53] But what if it turns out, and this is very much what Victor Frankenstein has failed to account for and is very present in this adaption, is the fact that in actual fact, he is the capricious one. As a human person, he is burdened by the stain of original sin and his own weakened will and his darkened intellect, they manifest so what seems like a good thing at first and just maybe even grasping at power and control. Look, I'll be the Ubermensch who brings society forward and saves them from death, or I will be the Ubermensch who is able to save people who might otherwise die. Won't that be a good thing?
[00:30:31] Like, it turns out that, in actual fact, very quickly, he's failed to account for the corrupting influence of original sin. And it's his own pride, it's his own sinfulness, and it manifests. The way he treats his creation is very different to the Christian vision of reality and the way God treats his creation. Even though there is discipline of the creation in the Christian story, it's not capricious and evil. But that's exactly what we see in Victor Frankenstein, the way he very immediately begins to treat his own creation. Why? Because it don't like, it won't do what he wants it to do.
[00:31:06] God doesn't treat his creation that way. It's a very stark difference. And there's another moment that I think maybe a lot of people might miss in this film, and that is Elizabeth's uncle, who is like the key benefactor that allows Frankenstein to create his monster.
[00:31:22] He actually.
[00:31:24] Now, I'm just trying to think whether I should tell you this or not.
[00:31:28] Let's just say I won't tell you the full story, but spoiler alert, if you don't want to hear this, maybe pause, go away, come back and watch the film. But basically, Elizabeth's uncle is unwell, and the reason he is bankrolling Victor Frankenstein is because he's hoping this might actually spare him from death. But what Victor Frankenstein ends up doing is actually he ends up killing the uncle himself. Now, there's a sort of an accidental fight and a battle that ensues, but that's his own hubris, his own pride, his own passions.
[00:31:59] He is not a good Ubermensch like he imagines himself to be. And this is what Nietzsche hasn't accounted for either.
[00:32:06] It's one thing to say we are the new gods now to celebrate this thing, and we will not be held back and restrained, but what if it turns out that we are not capable of wielding this power and that in actual fact, we are the capricious ones? And that's exactly what you see playing out in this particular story in a very, very powerful way. It's a deep theological truth that's very much at the heart of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. Which brings me to the third and final and very important theological truth that is at the heart of this story. What's gone on here is basically, and this is in both stories, obviously, Guillermo del Toro and his adaption, he's really emphasized this idea of.
[00:32:52] Of Frankenstein overcoming death. Death is the ultimate restraint. It is the ultimate enslavement of man. It is the like. It is the symbol par excellence of our weakness and vulnerability and our powerlessness. It's. It's the one thing we just can't overcome in any way whatsoever. There's no. It's not even a partial overcoming of it. It is. It just has the say. It has total control over us, and it will bring us all to an end one day. And so part of the story, often that people focus on is this whole idea of, well, you shouldn't play God. And this is, to be fair, this is how I really viewed the story for a long time as well, is this idea that it's a warning about trying to take power that doesn't belong to us, that belongs solely to God and wielding that power, and it is a warning not to play God. So it's like a moral warning. And, yes, that is part of the story, but there's something else here that's really, really important, and I think it gets lost. And it is a deep and very, very important theological truth. Basically, Victor Frankenstein thinks, wrongly, that the sole issue here, the problem here, is physical death.
[00:34:05] If I overcome physical death, then I've beaten nature. I can live on and on. But what's the problem with this idea? Because a lot of people think this way in our modern age. Right now, transhumanism is an ideology built on the back of this idea. We will live on forever and ever. We will cheat death. We will defy death. We will embrace a type of vampirism, except it'll be a good thing.
[00:34:29] But what's missing here is this view of the world is solely materialistic. It confines humanity and the human person to being nothing more than a material being. And so therefore, the only threat to a material being is physical. It's material death, the decay of the material. But if you can overcome that, then you have achieved the ultimate good. But what's missing, and this is very, very clearly presented in the story, is that, in actual fact, physical death is not really the problem. So if we go back to that point that Pope Benedict made earlier about trying to find Our redemption now, instead of in faith, we're trying to find it in progress and material progress in technology and prowess.
[00:35:09] Then sort of, this is. This is the key point. We're missing something deep here. We're missing the deeper heart of the human person, and we're not going to find that. And that's very much what Victor Frankenstein is doing here.
[00:35:22] He's looking solely to overcome death, but he's missed the heart of what is actually missing in the human person. He's reduced the human person to their materials, basically, and nothing more.
[00:35:35] And what's like, what's wrong with this is that basically, and you see this play out in the story, is that he overcomes death, he achieves that goal. But then it becomes apparent that there's something more here. It's not simply a matter of living on and on and on and on.
[00:35:54] This is. This is perhaps where possibly in the past. And this is. I want to quote Pope Benedict again in just a second, because I think he sums this up so beautifully, is that we have thought of the Christian vision of, like, eternity and eternal life as just being ongoing life.
[00:36:10] So why can't we mimic this?
[00:36:12] But it misses something fundamental that is true about the Christian vision of eternity. Let me read to you now from Pope Benedict, because I think it just sums this up so very perfectly. And again, this is from Spey Salvae.
[00:36:28] In some way, we want life itself, true life, untouched by death. And that's exactly what Victor Frankenstein wants. Yet, at the same time, we do not know the thing towards which we feel driven. We cannot stop reaching out for it, and yet we know that all we can experience or accomplish is not what we yearn for. So, in other words, we keep striving. This is what Augustine, St. Augustine says. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord. Here's this beautiful passage, one of my favorite pieces of his writing, where he says, oh, beauty, ever ancient, ever new. He's talking about God. There, you know, God. Oh ancient, even you. Oh, beauty, perfect beauty. And I was searching for you in the created order and created things, but you weren't there. I was looking for you, basically in all the wrong places. And this is what Benedict, Pope Benedict is talking about here. We cannot stop reaching out for it. And yet we know that all we can experience or accomplish is not what we yearn for. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you. This unknown thing is the true hope which drives us. And at the same time, the fact that it is unknown is the cause of all forms of Despair, and also of all efforts, whether positive or destructive, directed towards worldly authenticity and human authenticity. The term eternal life is intended to give a name to this known unknown. In other words, the thing we desire, but we don't quite fully grasp what it is.
[00:37:56] Inevitably, it is an inadequate term. So eternal life that creates confusion. Eternal, in fact, suggests to us the idea of something interminable, and this frightens us. Life makes us think of the life that we know and love and do not want to lose, even though very often it brings more toil than satisfaction, so that while on the one hand we desire it, on the other hand we do not want it. And this is a really key point that we see in Guillermo del Toro's adaption of Frankenstein. This is the thing he desires. But like what Pope Bennett is saying here is that we're searching for this eternal life, the here and now, to go on and on and on. That's what Victor Frankenstein thinks is the answer. But it's not the answer. It's not simply the ability to live on and on and on. And like he says here, this life is marked by turmoil and toil, and that's what Victor Frankenstein has not seen.
[00:38:55] Let me go back to Pope Benedict again. To imagine ourselves outside the temporality that imprisons us so, this limited finite life, and in some way to sense that eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality.
[00:39:17] This we can only attempt, and this is the key point. This is the thing that Victor Frankenstein has missed. It would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time, the before and after, no longer exists.
[00:39:32] We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy.
[00:39:45] This is how Jesus expresses it in St. John's Gospel.
[00:39:49] I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
[00:39:56] We must think along these lines. And this is the really key point. Now, if we want to understand the object of Christian hope, to understand what it is that our faith, our being with Christ, leads us to expect. And this is really, really essential, because basically, Victor Frankenstein has missed this point. He thinks it's just about overcoming physical death. But in actual fact, the Christian vision of eternal life is one of a restoration back to the state of the garden.
[00:40:31] That doesn't simply mean that we will live on and on and on and on for endless days. It means we will now be one with God. That's the point. So eternal life, as in the sense, I will be one with the perfect fullness and pureness of love. That's who God is in the Christian vision of reality, outside of time, I will be truly known. There will no longer be any darkness, any privation, all of the like. This is how Augustine talks about sin and evil. It is the absence of the good, all of that will be remedied. Perfect good will be the fullness of my experience.
[00:41:08] So it's not simply, oh, we live on and on and on and on and on.
[00:41:11] It is now we discover the fullness of the human experience because we find it in fullness of relationship, a true eternal one with eternity itself. God, the supreme Being above all else and all others, who is the source of all other beings. It is very profound. And so this is what Frankenstein has missed. And this is the problem. If we fail to recognize that the fall from the Garden, in one sense, death is a. Is a loss. So after the fall from the Garden, the original sin, there is death and suffering and destruction that enters the world.
[00:41:47] But it's more than that as well. And so, in one sense, the fact that now that we live in this corrupted, sinful life, death on, in one sense, is a. As a severing of what was meant to be. But in another sense, death is actually a good, because it would be an evil thing for this turmoil, broken, sinful life to go on and on and on. So death is like a mercy, because death, in the Christian vision of reality, is a doorway into this perfect and fullness, like this pure and eternal love, where there is no privation or darkness in us anymore. We have found the fullness of ourselves by being one with God, truly one with him at last.
[00:42:27] And so death is the doorway into that.
[00:42:31] And so it would be an evil for that to go on and on and on, to live on forever. And so it's actually about the restoration of that relationship with God. And so, on one hand, death is an evil. It's not the way it's meant to be. But on the other hand, it is a mercy because of this is not the life we're supposed to live. And that's exactly what Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, gets wrong in the story.
[00:42:51] He builds a life where he traps this monster in an eternity of this broken, capricious humanity, and him, the capricious, broken God, who cannot give to his creation anything that is truly meaningful and deep because he doesn't. It's like it's absent within him. And this is such a powerful theme in this film. At the conclusion of the film, Victor, basically, in the monster, they come around again and there's this recognition that basically, Victor is not simply he's a monster in his own right. That's clearly, you know, presented to us throughout the film and much earlier on. But he is in need of exactly what this monster is also in need of, that he's created. His creation needs to find the fullness of self giving love. That's what he was searching for.
[00:43:39] It's not the end of death.
[00:43:41] It is the fullness of love that is missing from his life. That's the Christian vision of eternity. The Christian vision of eternity is not simply the end of day death. It is the overcoming of the darkness and the limitation in that relationship. We will at last become fully known and we will become one with God again.
[00:44:00] And this is ultimately what the. Like where this film beautifully ends is the, the, the monster and Frankenstein together. And this very clear recognition that in actual fact, the whole time, what is absent from his life is not some power, it's not some power over death, it's not the ability to go on and on and on. And ironically, he actually dies. Victor Frankenstein dies at the end, but he dies complete because he finds someone who will actually love him with a sense of self giving love. But ultimately, there's also a great tragedy here, and the greatest tragedy here in this film. Again, this is the bit that often gets missed. It's not the, you know, don't play God, because, you know, that's an evil thing to do. Yeah, there's an aspect of this, but the ultimate evil is what? It's not that he's created a monster, it's the fact that he's created a being that can never know the fullness of love. And his entire creation is marked.
[00:45:00] The being that he's created is a commodity, an object, a thing, an instrument in Victor Frankenstein's own plans. He is a means to an end.
[00:45:11] That's the great evil he has created a human person who is doomed to roam this life because the monster can't die. He will go on and on and on in a state of absence.
[00:45:22] That's the great tragedy here. That's the heart of this evil.
[00:45:27] It's very profound. It is a profound and very important theological truth that lies at the heart of this. And I think one other thing about this is that if we're not careful, we can actually create ourselves into that type of monster in our own life, we can make certain decisions that effectively consign us to a cycle like St. Augustine. Desperately searching for God, desperately searching for goodness, for love, but looking in all the wrong places. And so we never find it. We become like that monster roaming the earth.
[00:46:02] And in one sense, this is where the character of Elizabeth is actually quite key, even though he has reimagined her. And like I said earlier on, there are things about this that I found a little bit jarring. But in another sense, she's also really important because what Elizabeth becomes is quite clearly she's the key to unlocking the darkness.
[00:46:23] It is that total self giving love. Male and female created in the image of God. And that's another thing that's really clearly missing in the story here.
[00:46:32] There is no Frankenstinian female creator, just a male in the human story of creation. Male and female. He created them. It says in the book of Genesis, chapter one, verse 17. Male and female. He created them in the image of God. He made them so. Male and female together. Image God.
[00:46:52] This monster has been created and is doomed to go on the greatest privation in his human life. He will never know the fullness of community.
[00:47:02] Very, very profound truths in the story. Very, very important theological truths. And in an age right now where so many of these things are breaking down, this essential anthropology, what it is to be human, it becomes even more important and essential than ever before that we understand and we build our lives according to that true anthropology. If you're not sure where to start, go to the Christian version of reality and understand that anthropology, because that is a truly good and beautiful vision for the human person and how we find the fullness of our humanity. Thanks again for tuning in. Please, if you're watching this somewhere, like YouTube, give the video a like and a share that really, really helps. If you're not already a subscriber, please subscribe. And if you haven't subscribed to my substack, the link is in the show notes. Please do that as well. Thanks again for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the Dispatches.
