Guillermo del Toro has created his own monsters on screen and adapted comic book monsters, so it was only a matter of time before he tackled Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. His adaptation is faithful, while emphasizing empathy for the creature (Jacob Elordi) that Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) created.
In crafting his sixth score for del Toro, Alexandre Desplat, who won the Oscar for the director’s Best Picture winner The Shape of Water, strove not to simply reiterate what was on screen.
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“It’s on the screen so why mimic what is already there?” Desplat said at Deadline’s Sound & Screen: Film event. “There’s always this thing I like to say: A good score balances function and fiction. Some scores are more function than fiction. This one needed fiction to be showing something else.”
Even though del Toro shows the creature to be deadly with superhuman strength, Desplat had no interest in replicating creature violence with his music.
“It was about being delicate,” Desplat said. “You’re going to love this creature. As brutal and huge and strong, he’s actually fragile and sensitive.”
Even monster aficionado del Toro used different terminology to describe him.
“He doesn’t like to say The Monster,” Desplat explained. “It’s the creature. That’s what he’s looking for to bring us to this world to be able to have empathy for the creature. That’s what he likes about Frankenstein.”
As in the novel, Victor eventually abandons his creature, a rejection that leads to more violence. However, in the creation of the monster, del Toro depicts Victor as an artist himself. Desplat incorporated that and other themes into his music.
“You see in the film, he behaves like an artist, dresses like an artist,” Desplat said. “He has this trance when he’s creating his creature. It’s as beautiful as can be. It’s about forgiveness and love and everything.”
Desplat admitted del Toro pushed him to be bolder with the music. But then, he knew he was doing his job when he could get an emotional reaction out of the Oscar-winning director.
“At times I wanted to do something very restrained and very French,” Desplat said. “He said, ‘More Mexican, more Mexican, more Mexican!’ On the other hand, I know when I’ve laid the tune or the moment, the picture that really is spot on because he cries. Because he’s Mexican. French don’t cry.”
Frankenstein premieres November 7 on Netflix.
Check out the panel video above.