1816. On a visit to the Swiss villa to Lord Byron come the poet Percy Shelley with his beloved Mary Godwin, her sister Claire Clermont and Dr. Polidori. This company is going to have an unusual night.
A fairly well-known true story of friendship and love of legendary personalities in English and world literature. It was the summer of 1816 in Switzerland that prompted Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein. And this is what Ken Russell, a famous provocateur, made his film about. His interpretation of the lives of famous people is quite controversial. The director stuffed mysticism and symbolism into the picture, but at the same time forgot about the whole plot. Why the movie sometimes seems like a meaningless mess. The accumulation of strange images, the games of the subconscious - all this does not add up to a coherent picture.
But the cast is good. Gabriel Byrne as Byron is definitely the best actor in the picture, although Russell's interpretation of his image is controversial. Natasha Richardson, the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and the future wife of Liam Neeson, who tragically died in 2009, is also quite interesting as Mary Godwin, the future Mary Shelley. Julian Sands plays Percy Shelley and Timothy Spall plays Dr. Polidori. The whole actor here is at the level, but everything spoils the indistinct plot and direction of Russell, who failed to make a whole picture of it.
A mystical thriller by Ken Russell based on real events and in the entourage of the 19th century. A little nudity, a lot of symbolism and confusion. I'm not impressed, although the actors are really good here.
You will fall into the arms of death, my dear, immortality for poets.
In fact, I came across this film by accident. My fascination with English romanticism led me to the film industry in search of adaptations of my favorite works. Needless to say, because of the specifics of the literary direction was negligible. But nevertheless, they were found. And “Gothic” by Ken Russell, although not based on the creations of Lord Byron or Percy Bysshe Shelley, but still quite hooked me. Here's why...
1816. A year without a summer in Europe. Switzerland. The shore of Lake Geneva. Villa Diodati. Rain, thunderstorm, lightning, wind almost every day. Disgraced Lord George Gordon Noel Byron, a few months ago forever left his native England, spends his days in a luxurious villa with picturesque views, writing verses for the immortal “Manfred” and the third song “Child Harold”. Dr. Polidori, his personal doctor and biographer, as he can, brightens up the life of a brilliant poet, though without much success. And in this routine depressive-monotonic atmosphere bursts three guests from Albion: the poet Ariel Percy Bysshe Shelley, his beloved Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her half-sister Claire Claremont, to put it mildly, is not indifferent to Lord Byron. George is not particularly surprised by the visit and receives guests according to all the rules of the English aristocracy: dinner, wine ... opium tincture. At first, the blood and flight of romantic fantasy seem just bizarre adult games. Here and hide-and-seek throughout the villa with elements of erotica and dancing with mechanical dummies and walking on the roofs in which the mother gave birth. And that's not all. But then midnight strikes and Byron brings to the stage the skull of a black monk, dug up by a gardener near Westminster Abbey in England. Skull foreshadowing trouble... And then: the demon, whether created by the imagination of romantic poets, in which they made themselves and all the guests of the villa believe, or the real otherworldly evil pursues the heroes and does not retreat one step, preparing a bloody and ruthless finale, the finale for everyone, if only it is not stopped.
The film echoes the spirit of late English romanticism so much that it feels like looking at what really happened almost 200 years ago on the Swiss Riviera with persecuted English romantics and their companions and companions. Gabriel Byrne’s brilliant acting, great musical accompaniment and unconventional directorial decisions of Ken Russell make the film truly intriguing, incredibly atmospheric and truly romantic. I recommend to all fans of Romanticism in general and, in particular, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and possibly John Polidori with his "Vampire".
10 out of 10
This story is about irrational fear, which is present in every human soul and reflects its secret desires and desires, but is sometimes brutally suppressed by consciousness. Humans once lived with ghosts and demons, but eventually learned to escape their nightmares into the illusory world of everyday reality. We invented this “real world” and then invented science to explain it. But sooner or later everyone will have to face the truth and agree with Lord Byron: “Imagination is stronger than reality.” Imagination reveals something more authentic and important about ourselves than a hundred textbooks on psychology and physiology.
Almost two hundred years ago, late in the evening, in a luxurious villa on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron hosted his friends - Dr. Polidori, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin and Claire Claremont. Heavy rain has locked the company in the house for a long time. The wind knocked loudly with shutters, and lightning burned a tree outside the window, bringing the imagination back to life, because the poet needs only a spark. On the advice of Lord Byron, everyone read an old spell and brought to life his most secret nightmare, and then tried to describe what he saw. It seems like a crazy bohemian game, invented under the influence of opium and alcohol. But this game gave birth to ghosts who took it seriously. Or maybe they were always there, but for the time being they were just afraid to look at them.
Our consciousness of that mysterious night reminds us of two classical works that for a long time determined the development of world horror literature. Shelley’s young wife could not forget her infant who had died in childbirth, it seemed to her that she was ready to do anything to return it, and at the same time she was afraid of this determination not to stop even before the inviolable boundary between life and death for a person. Thus Frankenstein was born, “who embodied all the pain and sorrow of mankind.” They say that he still wanders somewhere in the melting Arctic ice and curses his creator, who challenged God.
Love and hatred, fear and envy, trust and jealousy, craving for everything unnatural and rejected by society, the forbidden and contradictory relationship of Lord Byron and Dr. Polidori led to the emergence of the first literary story about the vampire - the terrible Lord Rothven, who possessed supernatural and destructive power. Soon he will have many accomplices, the most famous of whom will be Count Dracula, who lives in Transylvania. And someone Stephen King will kindly give these creatures a whole city - Salem's Lot.
But that night opened up something more important to gifted friends, from which they may have only been hiding in their literary quests. One cannot escape from one’s fears; one can only hide from them for the time being under the veil of Maya, but no military company is won by flight alone. And every one of us who has been too cowardly for too long and stubbornly denied the obvious naturalness of the supernatural will one day go into the land of our rejected nightmares forever.
As long as you're a guest in my house, you'll play by my rules.
Ken Russell's film Gothic.
As always, Ken Russell's picture is on edge. On the verge of sleep and reality, madness and genius, the most secret nightmares and a naive children's fairy tale.
1816, Switzerland. Lord Byron's villa. Unexpected arrival of guests. Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, his fiancée Mary Godwin, and her half-sister Claire Clermont. Let's add Dr. Polidori to this company. Meeting friends happens at ease, jokes, friendly pranks. The owner of the house offers in the form of a game to evoke his most secret fears from the subconscious and write the most terrible story.
What happened next is good or bad, hard to judge. But the stories, Frankenstein, Marie Shelley and The Vampire, Dr. Polidori, have been stirring the blood of readers for more than 200 years. But that’s not what the movie is about.
The Creator does not need an idea, the direction of the movement of thought is enough. And at some stage, the heroes of the work begin to live their lives and already dictate the development of events. This has been talked about a lot and, although this question is controversial by any real artist, the creator will confirm it to you. Maybe that’s not what the movie is about.
A true creator can look inside if he wants to. Inside things and phenomena, the secrets of one’s own psyche and the secrets of the movement of the universe. And not only to look, but also to justify, to find meaning in nonsense. It is the true creator who is able to infect the reader with the desire to understand this world, himself in this world, the importance of not only his words and deeds, but also thoughts and feelings.
And most importantly. Having pulled your deep fears out of the subconscious, you must become a little wiser, a little stronger, you must learn to appreciate the little that life has given you. You must learn to love this world, this life and those who live near you.
Unhealthy erotic fantasy on the theme of the Geneva tea party
Very strange movie. It is based on the real fact of the summer vacation of Byron and the company, a tea party at Lake Geneva, which eventually brought the world art "Frankenstein" and, indirectly, "Dracula".
In addition to the fact of tea drinking, much is ruthlessly distorted. Biographical facts of the actors, mainly. As "based on real events" this work should not be evaluated. This is a fantasy on the subject.
Actually, if we consider the events of the film rationally, the following happens: in the mansion of Byron, a kind of demonic lord, a cruel lecher, a motley company gathered. His doctor, the pathetic Polidori (played by an insecure man who later played Peter Pettigrew), is tormented by a painful passion for a cold patient. Byron himself has some views on the guest, pretty young Percy Shelley, but for fun drags into bed the half-sister of his sweet wife Mary, a sweet-hearted impressionable fool. All these strange people are obviously mad with fat, use opium, and under its influence they come to think of conducting something like a spiritualistic séance.
If we consider everything as a metaphor, the themes of the power of personal fears are not quite clearly touched upon here, even less clearly - sexuality as the basis of the creative principle, and a little more clearly - the absence of a clear line between normal life and madness.
Images of the heroes on the one hand, unique and contrasting, on the other - shallow and contradictory. All the characters experience some kind of cowardly sexual attraction to everyone present at all, without experiencing any more human feelings for anyone. As a result, the company arranges some kind of nullity, rather dull, in which the group intercourse of two opposite-sex couples, on the one hand, and a guy passionately kissing an insensitive peasant, on the other hand, apparently, should seem to the viewer the pinnacle of debauchery and voluptuousness.
However, there is some “noble insanity” here. Some small moments are really original. Many, including original-nauseous (with mucus, three episodes with leeches, with the madness of Polidori).
I personally liked the actor playing Percy Shelley. An interesting face, in some angles angel-like, in some - tenderly sweet, in some - sweet and simple.
I don't even know if I should watch. Very strange movie.