Haunted by 20th-Century Monsters.

• Author: Sharrett, Christopher
• Position: Two motion pictures offer insights into 20th century - Brief Article

Two, very different films offer insights into the ghosts of he rapidly passing 20th century. Bill Condon's "Gods and Monsters" and Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful" are movies that are alternately chilling, funny, humane, and appalling, and demonstrate a great deal about what this century has taught people. Both also remind viewers what motion pictures can do at their best.

"Gods and Monsters" is about the last years of director James Whale, portrayed by Ian McKellen with his usual intelligence. Whale was a director during Hollywood's golden era, who, although he enjoyed a reasonable output, is remembered best for his horror films for Universal Studios, especially "Frankenstein" and "The Bride of Frankenstein." The movie follows Whale's life in its waning moments as he occupies himself with painting, drinking, and fantasizing about a totally fictional young handyman who ends up becoming his model and near-protege. The picture suggests that Whale is haunted by memories of the monsters he created for Universal or, rather, by the internal demons these cinematic creations came to represent for him.

As a repressed gay man born into a highly class-conscious 19th-century British culture, Whale's vision of the world was shaped not only by the emotions he had to stifle in his formative years, but by the horrors of World War I, which he saw up close in the trenches. Able to express his sexuality only in secret, unable to comprehend fully the depravity of the war that set the tone for this century, Whale's Frankenstein monster, the film suggests, became an emblem of the director's permanent estrangement not just from Hollywood, but from humanity. In the movie, Whale says, "I gave the monster dignity." Indeed.

"Gods and Monsters" suggests, however, that art does not always function as a catharsis. Whale remained haunted, unable to find much reconciliation either with himself or the world that tormented him. The relationship of the Frankenstein monster to Whale's homosexuality becomes troubling as the film associates the young beefcake model Clayton Boone (Brendon Fraser) with author Mary Shelley's brainchild. Boone is an alluring obsession for Whale, an emblem of the sexuality that is part of his being and therefore synonymous with his destruction, given the strictures of his era.

In a sense, then, the picture is a parable not just about the fate of gay culture, but of all people forced to live a lie and tolerate repressive structures. It also...