...when Frollo caught Esmerelda in the church and she was talkin bout the birds and stuff he was starin at her boobs for like 10 seconds!! and the very second she turned back to him his eyes shot up!! i laugh evry time i see that! what a creep!!
Esmerelda: "You like animals?"
Frollo (completley perving on her): "Yes"
Gwa ha ha (**shudder**)
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Of course it was intentional, and there was nothing wrong with it. This was probably the best scene in the film. Esmeralda recognizes that there is some goodness in Frollo. After all, he did adopt Quasimodo, and I believe he sincerely loves the gypsy. His passion is not entirely carnal. He is not wholly a depraved human being. This scene was meant to show his tortured soul. What gets me is how everyone goes on about Laughton, O'Hara, and Mitchell when it was really Hardwicke who was the backbone of this film.
shareWell, unsurprising, considering he is really the great tragic hero of the novel... The film changes him a lot because the Hays Code prevented bringing the clergy into 'disrepute'.
He's heartbreaking in the book - like something out of Dostoevskii: a tormented young priest (he's only in his mid-30s), a brilliant scholar and scientist, destroyed and destroying because he can't cope with the conflict between his desires as a man and his vows of celibacy. Unfortunately, the Catholic Legion of Decency would have had a fit if the film had shown him as he was written by Victor Hugo! And I'm not sure which of the leading men in Hollywood at the time could have brought off the role. (Leslie Howard? He'd been a good stage Hamlet, and I think some of the same qualities are needed for this role.) Claude's just incredibly intense, and... well, ahem! You get the picture... ;-D
Yeah, that was pretty much the point of that scene. He was a pious man who had held himself above earthly pleasures, and when confronted with this woman he could not take his eyes or his mind off of her. It confused and tortured him. I'm sure he felt just as creeped out by his actions as the audience did.
shareAnd let's also don't forget the even more telling line (an allusion to a detail of the book the censors wouldn't allow in the film), but which has an oddly familiar and more disturbing ring to a present-day audience:
"You're not a priest...but yet you dress like one..."
"If you don't know the answer -change the question."
Hahaha. I was wondering if I was the only one who noticed that.
Never misjudge the most faithful
heart of your beloved. Forever yours, forever mine, forever us.
I'm a big fan of the book, and til this day Frollo still remains my most hated charachter in all literature
sharePersonally...I thought he was really hot. I won't say this is the best portrayal of Frollo but definately the most attractive for me.
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