Bride of Frankenstein

As the Start of Winter approaches and daylight shortens, it is a season for gathering up what was left unsaid. Today pairs two films, 86 years apart, that both treat a voice as a question: in 1935 a made creature learns his first word, 'friend'; in 2021 a man rehearses his lines against a tape recorded by his late wife. One asks who is allowed a companion; the other asks whether a recording can stand in for a person.

暴风雨夜，Mary Shelley 在拜伦与雪莱面前接着讲那个故事：风车大火之后，被认定死去的怪物回到了乡野。Henry Frankenstein 想就此收手，旧日导师 Dr. Pretorius 却带着一屋子养在瓶里的小人找上门，提议再做一个同类。与此同时，怪物在一间盲人隐士的小屋里，第一次学会了几个词。

Frankenstein (1931) made the Monster a silent threat; four years later James Whale let him speak. From roaring to saying 'friend' and 'good', a made thing acquires wants rather than merely strength. Whale layers Gothic horror, mordant wit and a satire of creators into one film: Pretorius eats supper in a crypt and discusses making a mate beside a skull, almost sending up the entire genre. Boris Karloff strongly objected to the Monster speaking, arguing that the character's power lay precisely in being inarticulate; the few lines that remain therefore carry unusual weight. Whale met Franz Waxman at a party and asked for a score that resolved nothing, and Waxman wrote three distinct themes, for the Monster, the Bride and Pretorius. In 1998 the Library of Congress placed the film on the National Film Registry. It is now frequently counted among the greatest sequels ever made and regarded as Whale's masterpiece.