I first saw this film at Glorietta 4 in 1999, where it was one of four British films they were screening at the time as part of a special "mini-festival." (For the curious, the others were Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Swept from the Sea, and Still Crazy. Despite much love for rock-and-roll films, it's only the latter I haven't seen. I rather liked the other two though.)
I actually entered the theater a bit frustrated, since I missed a minute or two, thanks to a friend who showed up late. The first thing I saw on screen was thus the scene where we first meet James Whale, with David chatting with Hanna while he prepares to leave for New York.
My not having seen the shots of Clay Boone at the beginning colored the entire film for me in a rather subtle way, and I saw the last scene in the film with Clay Boone and his family not as the bookend scene that it was but as a "now that James Whale is dead, let's see how our other major character is doing." This is, as I've just said, a very subtle difference, but one that I think is indicative about the way an overall narrative structure is governed by loads of tiny decisions.
A few remarks here and there that I'd like you all to think about and respond to…
Reflexivity and/or self-referentiality manifests itself in this film in different ways, most obviously through its attempt to tell a fictional account about a real-life person. Other films of this sort include Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994) and Shadow of the Vampire (E. Elias Merhige, 2000); both films are, coincidentally, fictionalized episodes in the lives of real filmmakers who made their name with horror films.
Back to the film at hand:
Gods and Monsters depicts the process of production, for example, not just with its scenes of James Whale shooting Bride of Frankenstein but also with the irony of a film director (a master of images) subjected to a post-stroke condition where he becomes mastered by images.
Gods and Monsters is also an allegory of spectatorship, from little moments like when James and Hannah are watching Bride of Frankenstein on TV at the same time as Clay and the others at the bar are doing so but also to something I missed when I first saw the film: that perhaps the film is not so much about filmmaker James but about film viewer Clay.
In other words, if we understand narrative as a progression from one plot point to another, it is Clay who undergoes a journey of character, making Gods and Monsters more his story. The irony, of course, is how Clay claims to have no stories to tell throughout most of the film.
In addition, we tend to assume that the storyteller or the filmmaker to be active, while the reader or the viewer is passive. Clay IS indeed passive at first, but you might look at the film as a story of his progression from passivity to activity. In fact, while many were assuming that James wanted Clay sexually, the "twist" is that this desire was actually for death rather than love.
(Expressing ourselves according to psychoanalytic theory, we were expecting Eros or love when it was actually Thanatos or death that was at stake with this situation of desire.)
This is rather long now, so I'll stop here and leave you room to respond. Agree or disagree? Did you even like the film or not? Why or why not? Any questions, insights, and opinions about Gods and Monsters are welcome.