Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)

Feeling through a world that has already ordered itself without consulting him, Frankenstein's mosnter is most pathetic not because he is merely different--taller, shoulders more squared, eyes recessed deeper--but because his emotions and sensation are the same yet incommunicable in a world where such emotions and sensations are no longer just as such, but rather understood through complex indoctrinated systems that dictate how to act, move, and to socialize. Not that the Frankenstein clan necessarily chooses to ignore the new sensations that Frankenstein feels and thinks he must explore, but rather because their only association with it is through the supporting system of customs, rituals, and prejudices. Without these, the Frankensteins are as "abnormal" as the monster, but the safety of which they choose not to leave. The final scene of the burning windmill with the monster trapped inside is most haunting because it clearly points to this binary between the monster and its creators: with the monster, the pain of murder and being murdered is clearly etched into his face and psyche. He understands murder not just through legalistic descriptions, but as the mere termination of life (the girl: first she speaks, next she's gone). The crowd on the other hand understands it only through ideas of retribution, normalcy, order. While the monster's reaction to his murder is pure agony, the mob's reaction to the murder of one of their own is one of being wronged (which, of course, implies a right). Whale's design for the film is straight out of Caligari's hospital through Conrad's eyes. Frankenstein's laboratory has walls that undulate, ceilings that spiral up, and hallways that juts into the horizon through exaggerated tromps d'oeil. Lights criss-cross to further push the effect of the set construction, highlighting shadowed corners, menacing beams, light from the building exteriors. Cmpare this, the monster's birthplace, to the grand rooms of the Frankenstein mansion, where the decor and construction is ordered by "good taste," by what is acceptably aristocratic.