Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries

Frankenstein: A Modern Myth (2012x69)

Air date: Oct 31, 2012

From Boris Karloff to Mel Brooks, Frankenstein has fired the imagination of generations of artists who have created their own interpretation of this Gothic masterpiece. Written by a 19-year-old girl nearly 200 years ago, this was the first and greatest myth of the modern scientific age. Mary Shelley began writing her novel in Geneva, where she went to escape the judgmental gaze of British society with her lover Percy Shelley (a married man), her half-sister Clare and Clare's lover, the notorious poet Lord Byron. Living a life of subversive glamour, they were the rock stars of the 1800s. Shut up indoors during the wettest summer on record, Lord Byron suggested they each try to write a ghost story. Unable to begin, Mary panicked at first, but then in a waking dream she had the vision for her novel. Frankenstein - published anonymously in 1818 when she was just 21 - has gone on to inspire its own popular genre of horror movies, punk rock and theatre productions. Frankenstein: A Modern Myth looks at some of these depictions, including Danny Boyle's sell-out hit at the National Theatre. The film has exclusive access to rehearsals and interviews with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller - who alternate the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature - and with Danny Boyle. In a world preoccupied with debates about man overreaching himself, the perils of 'playing God' that animate Shelley's shocking ethical parable continue to keep the myth of Frankenstein alive today.