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The Appropriate Tune - "The Devil Is an Englishman" by Thomas Dolby
In the summer 1816 the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his future wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley traveled with Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont to Lake Geneva in Switzerland to meet with Claire’s lover, poet and novelist Lord Byron. One night after entertaining each other with ghost stories, Byron proposed a friendly contest to see who could write the spookiest story. Byron’s fragment of a story would later be the inspiration for John Polidori’s “The Vampyre”, one of the earliest examples of vampire fiction, and Mary Shelley’s would become known as “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus”, considered one of the originators of the science fiction genre and one of the most important horror novels ever written. I think Mary might have gotten the win here.
The history of this blog is intimately connected with the work of Mary Shelley; We started with a Frankenstein movie god damn it, and Frankenstein-inspired movies have featured in the Marathon for most of its existence. So after years of film based on a book, why not at least one based on the book’s author? Well it just so happens that there was one, and it also just so happens that this was another movie I discovered through the late Harlan Ellison’s film column. He didn’t end up liking this one, so there’s a chance that this might end up film of the year.
Released in 1986, Gothic was written by Stephen Volk, directed by Ken Russell and produced by Penny Corke through Virgin Vision. Natasha Richardson plays the famous Mary not-yet-Shelley, who along with her lover Percy (Julian Sands) and sister Claire (Miriam Cyr) travel to holiday with Claire’s lover, the currently exiled Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) and his friend Dr. Polidori (Timothy Spall). It’s a bit of a rough day, a bit intense for people who don’t work for a living, but things get even weirder that night when Byron breaks out a collection of ghost stories. This proves to be something of an inspiration for the macabre-minded Byron and Percy, who like a couple of 12 year old girls after reading creepypasta convince the others to engage in a ritual to summon up a spirit of fear in order to get into that primal, human mindset. Then things go from weird to advanced weird.
There is a proper story under the surface of Gothic. Mary Shelley and her friends’ lives were indeed marked by tragedy and controversy, and having them confront those anxieties and seeing how it influenced their art is an interesting story, but then there’s all this absurdity shoved haphazardly into things. How about Lord Byron just has a goat? Or life-sized animatronic dolls, including a stripper? Why not throw in a scene where everyone has an orgy? All of which happens before the wild stuff is even supposed to happen, mind you, and some within the first 15 minutes. Movie tickets were a lot cheaper back then but Gothic made sure you got your money’s worth, seems like.
Ken Russell’s biggest virtue as a filmmaker it seems is his sense of daring. He attacks taboos and social mores, especially sex, with a reckless intensity that most of his peers at that time wouldn’t dare attempt, and his adaptation of The Who’s album Tommy was the fountain from which all over-the-top rock operas sprung from. Gothic then is a natural continuation of Russell’s dedication to excess; A fever dream, or rather a nightmare, that flits incessantly through depictions of graphic sex, disturbing violence and horrific surreal imagery (most of which are done with practical effects, which is a plus). One might be tempted to make comparisons with Marathon alum Society, in particular the final act, but Society was generally rather tame; Gothic on the other hand is as disorienting and panic-inducing as a bout of sleep paralysis, uncomfortable on a primal level at times. It’s certainly the primary reason to watch this film, if you chose ro watch it.
Ken Russell’s biggest sin as a director seems to be his lack of restraint. Usually the way it goes is that you establish a baseline, your ‘normal state, and then ramp things up as you move forward. Gothic by contrast has no ‘normal’ -- it starts off in a sprint and just barrels into the plot head first. There are undoubtedly some movies that are able to pull that off, but Gothic is not one of those movies. I ended up feeling burnt out not too long after the movie started to be honest, and so once we got into the meat of the film I viewed the events not with the shock and horror that was Russell’s intent but instead mild annoyance and disconnection. If I can’t determine what is meant to be ‘real’ in this story then what should I care that it’s happening? What are the stakes? Are there stakes, or was Russell more interested in making a 90 minute long music video?
It also doesn’t help that I hate every character in the movie, who run the gamut from miserable shitheads (Byron) to blood-boilingly obnoxious (Claire, a thousand times Claire), with Mary being the most likable mainly by virtue of being an observer and not an active participant in the plot. History tells us that Lord Byron was certainly not a saint by any means, but he was certainly a more complicated figure than the dour curmudgeon that we see on screen. If I went into this film largely ignorant of the context I would not have any idea who these people even are or why they even matter, which is a disservice to the audience and important figures of English literature. Again it’s a lack of restraint; start these characters off on a high note, show them off as the people they wanted to be, then as pressure mounts let the veneer slip away and let their inner demons out. That slow burn would have cut down on the ‘Byron screwed his sister’ scenes and everyone calling each other a sodomite however, so Russell didn’t bother with it. This is nothing against the actors themselves, Gabriel Byrne is a Marathon mainstay at this point and he put in good regardless of the film’s quality, I think they put in good work, it’s just that the material they were given failed to excite.
The score also ended up being a disappointment. I wouldn’t consider myself a super fan of Thomas Dolby, but I have enjoyed the songs by him that I’ve heard (really like ‘Hyperactive!’), and given the success of fellow New Wave star Danny Elfman in the world of cinema I was intrigued to see what Dolby would bring to the table. What he ended up bringing was something that sounded like a cross between an orchestral score and the synthwave stuff you’d hear in your bog-standard slasher flick, which as it turns out sounds like an episode of Doctor Who during the lean years. Amadeus had come out two years prior and Marathon alum The Draughtsman’s Contract had come out two years prior to that so going full-on period piece was an option, and it would have been right up Ken Russell’s alley to go the complete opposite route and go completely modern, so we got the worst of both worlds here. I feel bad, because this seems to be the first and last film he scored in his career and I do think he's a talented musician, but you don’t like what you don’t like, and by the very first scene of the film I didn’t like it.
If you watched Society or Dario Argento’s Phenomena and found yourself desperate for more, then Gothic will likely scratch that itch for you. As I said, it’s a fascinating film in that regard. Shock tactics are certainly good for grabbing someone's interest, however the main thing is to hold onto it, and in the end it felt like Russell had run out of ideas and was retreading old ground (take a shot every time dead kids show up). It does not get the recommendation. Painting your nipples to look like eyeballs however...sounds like a fun Halloween to me.
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