GOTHIC
UK, 1986, 87 minutes, Colour.
Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson, Miriam Cyr, Timothy Spall.
Directed by Ken Russell.
Gothic is a Ken Russell film made very much in the style of his films of the early 70s, especially the Devil's, The Music Lovers and his studies of Mahler and Liszt. The subject lends itself to this kind of treatment: June 1816, the lake of Geneva, Byron at his villa with Polidori and the arrival of Shelley with Mary Godwin and her half-sister Claire. This was the night, induced by alcohol and drugs and inhibition from freedom, especially as regards sexuality, where the group used their imagination to conjure up stories - the result of which, especially, was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
The film takes place over about twelve to fifteen hours, from the arrival of the writers, through their settling into the conversations about science and philosophy, literature and the imagination during dinner, an attempted seance to raise the darkest fears to night of madness, dreams and the blend of reality and unreality.
The morning after all is sunny and clear as if nothing had happened. And tourists then begin to visit the villa with its memories of this famous group. The screenplay is by Steven Volk - and lends itself to the Ken Russell treatment. Camera angles, swirling cameras, chases up and down staircases, extraordinary tableaux, giants, monsters, rotting flesh and maggots - all the wherewithal that Ken Russell can deck his films with. It is highly imaginative in a frantic and absurd way.
The film highlights the hysteria of the experience of the main characters. Gabriel Byrne is a sardonic Byron. Julian Sands an enthusiastic Shelley. Natasha Richardson gives a very good performance as the most normal of the group, Mary Shelley. Timothy Spall is an odd Polidori. The sane material is treated by director Ivan Passer with an American and British cast in his film from a year or two later, The Haunted Summer.
1. The 19th century, the romantic revolution against the Age of Enlightenment? Art and the imagination? As treated by Ken Russell?
2. 1816, the lake of Geneva and its beauty, the villa - interiors and exteriors? Detailed attention to costumes and decor? The re-creation of the period? Musical Score?
3. The title, 18th century romantic novels, a touch of the medieval, the spiritual, struggles between good and evil? Heroes and heroines? Villains? The real and the surreal? Russell and his styles of filmmaking? Editing, pace? Camera techniques? Symbols? Gothic and the 18th century, the imagination - fostered by drugs and alcohol, freedom of inhibitions?
4. The visual style of the film: Colour, symbols, editing? The sharing of the hysterical and hallucinatory experience of the principals?
5. Audience knowledge of Byron and Shelley and their entourage? Byron as poet, his reputation as devilish, lecherous, the exile from England? His relationships? Shelley as the young romantic poet, free-thinking, his relationship with Mary? Mary - as the most normal of the group? Claire, her relationship with Mary, her infatuation with Byron? Pregnant to him? Dr Polidori, his devotion to Byron, the homosexual attachment, drugs and medicine?
6. The arrival of the group, the moods? The staff and their reception of the group? Styles, relationships? Running through the house? The freedom of the house? Shelley nude on the roof?
7. The dinner and the conversation: Polidori, medical experimentation and investigations, psychology, metaphysics, good and evil, the role of the imagination, horror stories? Religion and freedom? The range of views?
8.The drugs, the laudanum, the alcohol? Uninhibited behaviour? The loss of control? Freedom and fear?
9. The seance, the plan to raise the fears, themes of skulls, monstrous nights, phallic symbols? Claire's collapse?
10. The aftermath and the behaviour of the group: Byron, sexuality, his liaison with the raid, the mask of his sister Augusta? Shelley, at the stables, the accident? Byron consoling him? Mary and Claire and their talk about Claire's pregnancy and its consequences?
11. The night going on, the racing through the house, the staircases, frantic and hysterical, Byron and the sexual encounter with Claire, Polidori torturing himself? Shelley and his shooting his image in the mirror? Mary, running through the house, going through the shattering glass? Claire and her collapse on the billiard table?
12. The consequences for Mary, the frenzy, her vision of what would happen to each of the characters: Byron, Greece, the leeches and his health, death? Shelley and his drowning? Polidori, the chemicals and his killing himself? Claire and the child? The image of the child drowning in Lake Geneva? Her frenzied leap and Shelley saving her?
13. The transition to the morning after, the calm, the sunny day, Byron and Claire taking tea, the others on the lawn? The unreality of the night before? Mary Shelley and the writing of her story?
14. The film's comment on 19th century society, intellectual society, imaginative and artistic, creative? The interpretation of the times? Imagination - and monstrous imagination?
15. The impact of the tourists all arriving at the end of the film - the status of Byron and Shelley and their entourage, their contribution to literature? The tourists visiting and wanting to experience the celebrities?
