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alexsarllSome of you may be aware that I had the misfortune to be born in Derby. The video to White Town's 'Your Woman' remains, to the best of my knowledge, the only recorded evidence of that unhappy town ever looking cool.
Watching Johnny Depp as Rochester in The Libertine, one can't help but watch him in part *as* Johnny Depp - not least because Rochester is forever being hailed by his associates as 'John' or 'Johnny'. And in part he's Captain Jack* too, our hero the drunken lech, with occasional monkey and Jack Davenport as his sometime rival**. Such metatext aside it starts brilliantly - the prologue had me gripped, and for about a quarter of an hour, so I remained. But then, like so many promising films before it, it stops being an individual story and becomes A Film, following the set lines of Film Stories. Rochester's life, like his poetry, was remarkable - Lives of the English Rakes has a fine account of it. But it's a life which this film treats like Procrustes treated his guests. Rochester mentored Elizabeth Barry - so it must become the Mentor Film for a while, Karate Kid relocated to the Restoration stage (there's a valid point in here about the transition in theatrical styles (and trust me, this is a topic I care about a good deal more than most people), but I remain unconvinced that Rochester was the man through whom to tell it). And of course, Rochester may be cheating on his wife but that's an acceptable part of the template; when he Falls For The Female Lead he must lose interest in whoring! That's how these stories work on screen, you see, regardless of whether that's how it was. Like Quills, having had the Debauchee Finds Love Instead Of Just Lust plot it then goes into Maverick Genius Sticks It To The Man. Never mind that Rochester didn't even officially acknowledge Sodom, much less stage it for the King and the French Ambassador!
Please understand, I am not saying that you must slavishly follow the facts if you tell a story based in history; Marlowe and Shakespeare certainly didn't, and nor need the moderns. But the changes must be those necessary to bring the messiness of fact nearer to the truth of art - eliminate repetitions, meld similar characters, focus and distil. Do not force a remarkable individual into a template, amending the facts only to tell me a story I've seen a hundred times before, with a different name for the lead. Don't do an Opposite of Sex, give me a rebellious voiceover at the start which makes me think I'm going to love the film and then have the speaker undermine it for the next 90 minutes as he conforms to What The Lead Should Be. Don't ever *dare* homogenise while you preach about individuality.
Maddeningly, the film never wholly turns to crap. Throughout, there remain glimmers of insight into Rochester's cynicism, the idea that he uses theatre as a drug to offset his fatalism (and Lords know I can identify with that), that he does not like life so much as he pretends. And in some respects it even resists cliche - Rochester very much dies of syphilis, not with the photogenic symptoms of Hollywood Disease. But on the other hand, even the good scenes are never quite perfect. The colour, for instance - I could understand it being washed out and dissipated towards the end, when the film's feeling like the second half of any junkie movie, but right from the start? Surely the Restoration should look like Douglas Sirk by way of Jan Saudek, colours so bright and vibrant that you know they're not healthy?
A maddening missed opportunity all round.
(Also, stopped it midway to catch Preston making an arse of himself on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and the image on my screen switched quite seamlessly from louche Depp to louche Alex James, as the latter inexplicably took part in Celebrity Rape Trial or whatever it's called. The resemblance was startling)
I do like Skins, but appear to be incapable of giving it my full attention. Is that because it was made for the ADHD generation?
edit: And we all know it's Prom Night at the Buffalo Bar on Saturday, yes?
*Except when he's Father Jack, of course, slumped grubbily in a chair, yelling "DRINK!" and pissing himself.
**Though Richard Coyle aka Jeff confuses matters Davenport with a Coupling cross-current, and Tom Hollander spoils the Pirates correspondences by being a friend, rather than the quiet and bureaucratic true villain of the piece.
Watching Johnny Depp as Rochester in The Libertine, one can't help but watch him in part *as* Johnny Depp - not least because Rochester is forever being hailed by his associates as 'John' or 'Johnny'. And in part he's Captain Jack* too, our hero the drunken lech, with occasional monkey and Jack Davenport as his sometime rival**. Such metatext aside it starts brilliantly - the prologue had me gripped, and for about a quarter of an hour, so I remained. But then, like so many promising films before it, it stops being an individual story and becomes A Film, following the set lines of Film Stories. Rochester's life, like his poetry, was remarkable - Lives of the English Rakes has a fine account of it. But it's a life which this film treats like Procrustes treated his guests. Rochester mentored Elizabeth Barry - so it must become the Mentor Film for a while, Karate Kid relocated to the Restoration stage (there's a valid point in here about the transition in theatrical styles (and trust me, this is a topic I care about a good deal more than most people), but I remain unconvinced that Rochester was the man through whom to tell it). And of course, Rochester may be cheating on his wife but that's an acceptable part of the template; when he Falls For The Female Lead he must lose interest in whoring! That's how these stories work on screen, you see, regardless of whether that's how it was. Like Quills, having had the Debauchee Finds Love Instead Of Just Lust plot it then goes into Maverick Genius Sticks It To The Man. Never mind that Rochester didn't even officially acknowledge Sodom, much less stage it for the King and the French Ambassador!
Please understand, I am not saying that you must slavishly follow the facts if you tell a story based in history; Marlowe and Shakespeare certainly didn't, and nor need the moderns. But the changes must be those necessary to bring the messiness of fact nearer to the truth of art - eliminate repetitions, meld similar characters, focus and distil. Do not force a remarkable individual into a template, amending the facts only to tell me a story I've seen a hundred times before, with a different name for the lead. Don't do an Opposite of Sex, give me a rebellious voiceover at the start which makes me think I'm going to love the film and then have the speaker undermine it for the next 90 minutes as he conforms to What The Lead Should Be. Don't ever *dare* homogenise while you preach about individuality.
Maddeningly, the film never wholly turns to crap. Throughout, there remain glimmers of insight into Rochester's cynicism, the idea that he uses theatre as a drug to offset his fatalism (and Lords know I can identify with that), that he does not like life so much as he pretends. And in some respects it even resists cliche - Rochester very much dies of syphilis, not with the photogenic symptoms of Hollywood Disease. But on the other hand, even the good scenes are never quite perfect. The colour, for instance - I could understand it being washed out and dissipated towards the end, when the film's feeling like the second half of any junkie movie, but right from the start? Surely the Restoration should look like Douglas Sirk by way of Jan Saudek, colours so bright and vibrant that you know they're not healthy?
A maddening missed opportunity all round.
(Also, stopped it midway to catch Preston making an arse of himself on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and the image on my screen switched quite seamlessly from louche Depp to louche Alex James, as the latter inexplicably took part in Celebrity Rape Trial or whatever it's called. The resemblance was startling)
I do like Skins, but appear to be incapable of giving it my full attention. Is that because it was made for the ADHD generation?
edit: And we all know it's Prom Night at the Buffalo Bar on Saturday, yes?
*Except when he's Father Jack, of course, slumped grubbily in a chair, yelling "DRINK!" and pissing himself.
**Though Richard Coyle aka Jeff confuses matters Davenport with a Coupling cross-current, and Tom Hollander spoils the Pirates correspondences by being a friend, rather than the quiet and bureaucratic true villain of the piece.
