Summer of great poets. It is a great mystery to me why in just two years, from 1986 to 1988, three films were made, telling about the famous events that took place in the house of Lord Byron on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Summer of Ghosts was the second and, in my opinion, the most successful. I don’t know if the fact that I watched “Summer of Ghosts” in the first place is decisive, but the IMDB rating confirms my impressions – albeit slightly, this picture surpasses its competitors. There are several reasons, I think.
First, although the part of the “star” of the actors “Gothic” has more trump cards, but in the “Summer of ghosts” the cast was selected most successfully, while it is characteristic that the filmmakers did not try to pick up the roles of the main characters exclusively English. American Eric Stolz, in the role of Shelley, and South African Alice Kriege, in the role of his beloved Mary, look just wonderful and it is difficult to imagine in their role anyone else.
In “Greaming in the Wind” with the casting, everything turned out quite strange at all – the role of Polidori is played by an actor who would be suitable for a father, and Hugh Grant in the role of Byron is not that bad, but... Thank you, though, for not bezrukov.
Secondly, Ivan Passer’s film is much closer to real events and much better reveals the characters and mores that reigned in their extraordinary company. The insanity of the heroes is presented here as a consequence of the abuse of opium and is within a clearly delineated framework, well separated from their everyday “debauchery” and from a certain inadequacy of Claire. The craziest, but rather very eccentric, is represented by Byron, while in Gothic absolutely everything and always is crazy, and in Winddrift Polidori and Mary Shelley herself are the craziest.
So Gothic and Wandering in the Wind are more of a fantasy on the subject than an attempt to imagine how things really were. In addition, the "Breathing in the Wind" sins time and factual inconsistencies.
Third, Summer of Ghosts attracts with its minimalism: only ten actors are involved in the film, half of them in the episodes; and the slow narrative of the film is by no means its disadvantage.
Though the true masterpiece did not come out of any of the above films, all of them, I believe, are quite worthy of acquaintance. Mostly, of course, this applies to fans of the work of one of the main characters. And “Summer of Ghosts” is the most historically authentic and simply the most interesting film of all three.
6 out of 10