HAUNTED SUMMER
UK, 1986, 106 minutes, Colour.
Eric Stoltz, Laura Dern, Philip Anglim, Alice Krige.
Directed by Ivan Passer.
Haunted Summer is set in 1816. It is a short focus on the interaction between Byron and Shelley, Clare Claremont and Mary Godwin. (This episode was filmed in the previous year by Ken Russell, in his flamboyant style, as Gothic.)
The film's director is the Czech Ivan Passer, director of a number of offbeat films in the United States since the '70s including Creator and, especially, Cutter's Way. The cast is a mixture of British and Americans. However, the location photography was done in Switzerland and captures some of the romance of Switzerland in the summer of 1816. Costumes and decor build the atmosphere of the period. The photography is by noted Italian photographer Giuseppe Rotunno. Music is by Haydn and songs by Orlando di Lasso. The screenplay is by Lewis John Carlino, the writer-director whose credits include The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, The Great Santini, Class.
1.The title, memories of the past, ghosts? The characters, imagination, passion, monsters, the British heritage of poetry and art?
2.The colour photography, the beauty of Lake Geneva? Costumes and decor? Sense of period? The classical musical score?
3.The background of the 19th century and its beginnings, after the age of reason, the romantic revolution? Conventions and morality? Disregard of conventions? Emphasis on emotion, freedom, the heart instead of the head? The breaking down of inhibitions? Drug-induced consciousness? Sanity and madness? Social, emotional, literary, psychological revolutions?
4.The status of the characters and audience knowledge of them? Their celebrity? Enhanced by their reputations? In real life?
5.The history of the period, the social and literary backgrounds? England and the British going on the grand tour of Europe? Switzerland? Youth at the beginning of the century? Relationships? Quests, interactions? The results?
6.The portraits of Shelley and Byron? Their status as poets, their reputations, reviews, popularity? Seen as seers of the century? Romantic ideals? Revolutionaries - of the mind? Their youthfulness, acting as boys, especially Shelley? Shelley and the goodness of human nature, ideals? Byron and the evil essential in human nature, cynical? The interaction between the two, jealousies and rivalries? The growing friendship, the envy and the relationship with Mary? Sharing the experience and strength of Mary? Healed or harmed by this haunted summer?
7.Shelley as an engaging young man, boyish, the ride in the coach, frolicking in the water naked, the pips in the dowager's collar, playing games? His relationship with Mary? Clare and her presence on the holiday? The holidays, riding the coach, going to the mansion? Conventions and breaking with conventions? His eagerness? Taking laudanum to expand consciousness, Byron and the experience of opium? Byron's intentions, Shelley's experience, not losing his innocence? The growing friendship, the challenge? Mary protecting Shelley? His understanding Byron? Sitting on the shore, the final encounter? The results of the experience, his short life afterwards?
8.The contrast with Byron and his reputation, the way that he was presented - and the echoes of people thinking him diabolical? His relationship with Polidori - despising him, using him? Understanding him? The explanations of his life, his poetry, relationships? His pessimistic view, evil as essential in human nature? The clashes with Mary? His relationship with Clare, having left her in London, her humiliation? The confession of the pregnancy, his reaction, his demands about the child, his sister Augusta looking after the baby? His opium experiments? His envy of Shelley's innocence, the clashes with Mary and the challenge? His fears, the monster in the night, Polidori kissing him? The result of his intervening in Shelley's life, in Mary's affections? The sexual encounter? His reaction, leaving for Greece? The values that he stood for?
9.Mary, her relationship with Shelley, love for him? Protective and caring? Her feminist views? Her writings (and audiences knowing that she wrote the Frankenstein story)? Her relationship with Clare, friendship? The going to bed and the three of them comforting each other? Her reaction to Byron, attracted yet hostile, protecting Shelley? The opium experiment and her being intended as the victim? Shelley still loving her? The confrontation with Byron, telling him the truth? Her compassion and the sexual encounter?
10.Clare and her relationship with Mary, accompanying her on the holiday? Her being abandoned by Byron? Her love for him? Contriving situations but failing with Byron? Observing the three, not understanding? Her confessing her pregnancy to Byron, his callous reaction? Her being on the outer? And her departure?
11.Polidori, his background, writings, secrets, homosexual dependence on Byron? Following Byron, the deals with the publisher? His being banished? The realistic and symbolic being a monster for Byron?
12.The background atmosphere of Switzerland at the period, the coachman, the guests in the hotel, the staff in the mansion?
13.Recapturing the world view of the romantic poets of the 19th century. Portraits, themes, literature and art, philosophy and life?
