and the Monster in one, he killed off the poor, undereducated
outcast he was born and – using pieces of other lives real or
imagined – reconstituted himself as the sophisticate he always
wanted to be. The only vestiges of the old “Jimmy Whale” are
found in his films, which, like the patchwork monsters they’re
about, turn the bits of horror, loneliness, and alienation that
Whale repressed from his past into an art that was quintessen-
tially about death, loneliness, and the pain of not belonging.
What makes this movie so deeply moving is the way these
Whale’s stroke, while not completely debilitating, leaves him
defenseless against images and scenes from his youth and
young manhood; they flood in on him in hallucinations that are
heartbreakingly sad. It is Clay – the least likely (or perhaps, as
a stranger and straight one at that, the most likely) of confi-
dantes – who gives Whale the chance to bring these disowned
memories back into focus – a last chance to confess to anoth-
er, and to himself, the unvarnished truth.
Empowered by Whale’s friendship and candor, Clay also
finds his way to telling the truth about his own past of grinding
poverty, alienation, and rootlessness. These two men, so com-
pletely different in culture, achievement, and sexuality, some-
how discover what they share, and that they do share these
things, in spite of the vast gulf between them, is what makes
their unlikely friendship so affecting.
Having used the Frankenstein myth as a metaphor for
Whale’s life and art, Condon goes the final step at the film’s cli-
max, where art becomes life.
Unable to bear the sadness of the past or his growing help-
lessness in the present, Whale tries to use the bond of affection
that has grown between him and Clay to put an end to his suf-
fering. In a terrible act of desperation, Whale accosts Clay sex-
ually – deliberately turning the younger man’s love into some-
thing ugly in the hope that Clay will react with violence and kill
him, as Frankenstein is killed by his monster. Although we
understand the despair that motivates him, Whale’s cruelty has
a devastating effect on Clay, who, as he tearfully says, is not a
monster. It isn’t hard to know at this point in the film who the
real monster is – and Whale, to his credit, realizes this. His apol-
ogy to Clay – and Clay’s acceptance of it – is a thing of great
grace and pathos.
That night Whale commits suicide. We do not see the act.
Instead, Condon gives us the most remarkable sequence in the
film – a wordless
the Creature) leads Whale to his rest, to sleep beside his long-
dead lover in the
the movie suggests, the place in time that Whale never really got
beyond – and it is one of the saddest scenes I’ve seen on film.
There is yet another sequence at the film’s close, long after
Whale’s suicide, that has almost as touching an effect. I will not
spoil it for you, save to say that it caps off this great movie – and
I truly believe that Gods and Monsters is a great movie (high
among the very best of last year, or any year) – perfectly.
I am happy to report that Universal’s DVD transfer is sen-
sationally good, visually and aurally. It and the movie get my
highest recommendation.
HP Comments:
I think His Nitpickingness is being grumpy and hypercritical.
Misappropriating a line from Apocalypse Now, complaining
about inaccuracies in a historical film (or any of today’s “true”
stories) is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
What makes Elizabeth work, despite the necessary
time compression and factual revisionisms (several
of which are more serious than the example he
cited), is the way it suggests the constant danger
she faced in the early days of her rule, and how she
persevered through enormous force of will, an inner toughness
she used to reshape herself from sweet young thing into iron
maiden. And her performance captures every nuance of the
changes she underwent, from the aflutteredness of a young
woman onward. The
circle justifies the Godfather borrowings and help give the
movie an irresistible pulse. (If Valin wants to see real
editing, he ought to check out Run, Lola, Run.)
The visual quality of Elizabeth is among the best. But, I
wonder, what is it about British films and pinkish skin tones?
Can’t figure it. The sound is big, bold and dramatic, with con-
siderable bass energy, a definite improvement over that in the
theatre where the dialog was drowned out consistently. Mrs.
Brown is a pretty good transfer, even though it isn’t enhanced -
why can’t Miramax cut against the Disney corporate grain,
which has decreed, for now, no enhancements, and do its trans-
fers the honor that many so deserve?
Gods and Monsters has the best color rendition of any DVD
I can think of, beautiful 2.35:1 framing – it looks better on this
disc, in terms of color fidelity and saturation, than it did in the
theater. The sound, even though
wonder why Universal didn’t go the extra mile, and use the orig-
inal four discrete tracks instead of their matrixed version?
