On the first day of shooting “Frankenstein,” Guillermo del Toro held up a drawing of the creature he had made when he was a teenager.
“He said, ‘This is like Jesus to me,’” recalls Oscar Isaac.
For the Mexican-born filmmaker, Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel and the 1931 film with Boris Karloff are his personal urtexts: the origin of a lifelong affection for the monsters del Toro has ever since, in reams of sketches and in a filmography doted by them, breathed into life. For a misunderstood kid growing up in a devout Catholic family, Frankenstein’s creature, unloved by his maker but graced by Karloff with empathy and fragility, cracked something open.
“I felt I was being born into a world that was unforgiving, where you either have to be a little white lamb or you were doomed,” del Toro says. “The moment Karloff crosses the threshold in the movie, backwards and then turns, I was like St. Paul on the road to Damascus. I said: That’s me. It was just an immediate and absolute soul transference. And I think that’s never gone.
“It was forgiveness for being imperfect,” adds del Toro.
“Frankenstein,” which Netflix will release in theaters Oct. 17 and on its streaming service Nov. 7, may be the culmination of del Toro’s artistic life. It’s his chance to, finally, unleash a movie — a grand saga of creator and creation — that he’s been dreaming of decades.
“It’s the movie that I’ve been in training for 30 years to do,” del Toro said in a recent interview from Toronto, where he was mixing the film.
Del Toro first saw the 1931 film when he was 7. He read Shelley’s book at 11. Ever since, monsters have been less a narrative device to him than an abiding personal belief system. As long as 20 years ago, he was talking about his hopes of making a “Miltonian” adaptation of Shelley's novel. Time, though, he thinks has helped. As a child, he identified with the creature. After becoming a parent, he understood Dr. Frankenstein in a new way.
“It’s one of those books that changes with you,” he says. “So the movie changed. You feel like you’ve been dreaming about it for so long.”
In the film, an epic adorned with massive sets and lavish costumes, Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein, with Jacob Elordi as the monster. Isaac initially met with del Toro with no project in mind. Their talk turned toward their fathers.
“By the end of that conversation, he said, ‘I want you to be my Victor,’” Isaac says. “I didn’t really know he was doing Frankenstein. Then he gave me Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ and the Tao Te Ching and said, ‘Read these two things.’”
Isaac, 46, had long known del Toro, but it was their first film together. For the actor, the collaborative experience reminded him of his breakthrough role with the Coen brothers.
“It felt like doing ‘Llewyn Davis’ again. And I haven’t had that since,” Isaac says. “It’s the kind of feeling of a family all building this thing together in an incredibly communal way.”
An awards player for Netflix
Netflix, along with producers J. Miles Dale and Scott Stuber, are betting “Frankenstein” will be one of the fall’s top films. It’s premiering at the Venice Film Festival before stopping at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Del Toro's last film, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” won the streamer its first best animated film Oscar. In 2018, del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” won best picture. “Frankenstein” is all but sure to be in the Academy Awards mix this fall.
But there have been more than a hundred Frankenstein films over the years. Yet it’s also been a long time (Tim Burton's “Frankenweenie” in 2012?) since one really grabbed audiences. For del Toro, what makes his “Frankenstein” unique might be the depth of feeling he has for it.
“I believe you can cover ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ and be Joe Cocker or not. But the only thing you have is your voice,” says del Toro.
Inspiration from a halftime show
Del Toro's “Frankenstein” was also made with particular fidelity to Shelley, and seeks to avoid some of the more simplistic characterizations that have been done over the years. The conception of Victor Frankenstein was less mad scientist than an artist and showman. Isaac even took inspiration from an R&B icon.
“For one scene, when Victor goes into the tower for the first time, imagining his lab, I even watched a rehearsal of Prince coming to the Super Bowl and the way he looked around the stage, that kind of ownership,” says Isaac.
Del Toro, 60, sees himself in both Frankenstein and his monster, and wanted a “Frankenstein” that reflects the perspectives of both.
“Since ‘Nightmare Alley,’ I tend to think of the protagonist and the antagonist are sometimes the same character,” del Toro says. “That, I guess, happens after turning 50. You start to see the world as a paradox, as opposed to a dichotomy.”
It's tempting to see del Toro, himself, as a kind of Victor Frankenstein. He’s a maker of monsters, a conjurer of fantastical things. But despite having contemplated his Frankenstein movie for many years, he didn't want to make a preordained movie, electrified into life by his genius. He wanted to more gently shepherd it into being.
“Contrary to the doctor, I’ve learned to listen. When you’re a young filmmaker, you talk about the movie you see,” says del Toro. “What you learn with the decades of experience is that the movie is talking. And it tells you what it needs to be. People ask what comes with age as a director. I say, you understand that making films is not a dictation. It’s not a hostage negotiation with reality.”
