The movie that I have chosen to compare with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the 2000 science fiction thriller film “Hallowman” in which a man of a governmental team of megalomaniacal molecular biologists is made invisible. At first glance, one may not see the similarities between Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the movie “Hollowman” but after further film analysis, the similarities are striking. One scene that I have picked out so far from “Hollowman” that does a good job in representing the Frankenstein-like aspects of the movie is the scene where the invisible man, Dr. Sebastian Caine rapes his female neighbor.
The idea from Frankenstein of “the creature being more human than the creator” is especially prominent in “Hollowman.” One of the severe side effects of being invisible is that you feel very intense emotions, emotions that are uncontrollable; if while invisible one feels rage, lust, sadness, or otherwise, the feeling cannot be contained or controlled and therefore it is acted upon. One night when Sebastian is at home, he sees through the window of his neighbor that she has just gotten out of the shower and is naked. Sebastian then feels such a lust towards her that he goes over to her apartment, invisibly, and rapes her. This reminds me of the Creature in Frankenstein because like the Creature, Sebastian is experiencing more human emotion than his creator. These emotions, however, are quite different. In Frankenstein, the Creature feels the same amount of emotion as a human feels while Frankenstein feels little for his creation at all; while in “Hollowman” the creators, or other scientists, feel relatively strong emotions towards Sebastian while Sebastian feels intensified emotions. These concepts are slightly different, but the message of “the creature being more human that the creator” is still relatively strong.
This scene is also interesting in terms of film because of the way that the scene is shot. This interesting shooting begins when Sebastian first sees the woman through her window. The scene is filmed so that you see a view of the city surrounding the window along with the window of the woman’s apartment; this gives the illusion that the viewer is watching her through another sort of movie screen. For the continuation of the scene, the viewer sees through “Sebastian’s eyes” in that the scene is an eye-level-shot from his point of view. This causes the viewer to actually feel as though you are him, which is actually a terrifying feeling because you can sense that he is about to rape her. The rape in itself is not shown; however, a reaction shot of the woman when he pushes her down is shown and it is obvious what is going to happen. The way that the viewer sees these events heightens the fear that is felt of this scene because it puts you into the eyes, and because of this the mind, of a rapist and that is not at all a comfortable position.
