The Libertine – London, the Earl of Rochester

The Libertine (2004) directed by Laurence Dunmore has an incredible cast consisting of Johnny Depp as the Earl of Rochester, John Malkovich as Charles II, Stanley Townsend as Keown, Rosamund Pike as Elizabeth Malet, Tom Hollander as Ethrege, Richard Coyle as Alock and Samantha Morton as Elizabeth Barry and so on and so forth…

The story takes place in an extremely mucky, dirty and smoky 17th century England where John Wilmot, the second earl of Rochester drinks and fornicates his way through a series of women while writing extremely bawdy poetry and hanging around in taverns with this friends and cronies. He is a poet, good friends with the king (when he’s not being banished for his raunchy mouth) and he lives a life of privilege and powdered wigs.

Rochester is a historical figure and he is portrayed here with as a complete and utter scoundrel, which he no doubt was. He died of syphilis and alcoholism at the age of thirty three, something the movie takes it upon itself to show in horrid detail.

Now, Johnny Depp is one of those actors who can scowl with the best of them and he manages to convey Rochesters utter disdain for life with the merest quirk of his brow. The dialogue is witty, fast and true enough to the language of the times. ‘

The movie opens on a prologue in with Rochester says “allow me to be frank at the commencement. You will not like me. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like me now and you will like me a good deal less as we go on.” It is the born cynics way of giving the whole world fair warning. The prologue ends with Rochester proclaiming “I am John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester and I do not want you to like me”.

That’s a lie, of course. The story is an unending seduction in which the viewer is shown again and again, that yes, Rochester is a cad, but he has other qualities. You come away from it thinking there was a man with so much talent and so many opportunities who did nothing good with all the gifts he was given. Of course you get seduced. It’s inevitable. And you may not like Rochester in the end, but he won’t leave you unaffected.

The movie is shot with a very loose and mobile camera and the environment is non stop mud, rain, dog shit and smoke. It has plenty of nudity and sex and … dildos. But… that being said, it also has tenderness, love and brilliant dialogue, philosophy and politics. You can’t help sympathizing with Malkovich’s portrayal of king Charles II who is beleaguered from all sides by political and financial concerns, which he expresses with lines like “I’m being pissed on from half-a-dozen directions at once and it don’t accord with my majestic dignity”, and still manages to care about his friend Rochester and mourn him.

The acting is of stellar quality throughout, no matter what the subject matter is. The emotional value of some of the interactions between Rochester and his theatre prodigy Lizzy Barry is down right chilling.

There is so much in this movie, so many themes and tropes that I can’t do them all justice in a paltry review like this one. I’ve never had any patience with the Ivory Merchant/Jane Austen type films. This is the diametrically opposite version of the costume drama, so of course it’s going to appeal to me. If you want poetry and roses, don’t even think about this one. If you want extremely high quality acting, good dialogue, dirt, soot, fornication, drunken revels and heart stopping cynicisms… this is the movie.

Mule

Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Director Tim Burton has made an impressively gothic and dark version of the Stephen Sondheim/Hugh Wheeler musical from 1979 about Sweeny Todd (2007). The Demon Barber of Fleet Street stars Johnny Depp as the barber himself, Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett and Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin.

Visually Burton is up to all his old tricks, creating a feeling of the surreal. Not that musicals don’t have that as a built-in quality already. Just as you would expect Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter have worked with vocal coaches and that is probably a good idea since they come under heavy scrutiny right from the get go.

The look and feel of the movie is dark and beautiful, the main characters are all as pale as china dolls and dressed in a monochrome. Burton manages to create a look close to black and white, but much richer. The blood, and there is quite a lot of it, is ridiculously red and cartoony which works surprisingly well.

I am not particularily comfortable with musicals. Even when I like the visuals and the theme and the look and feel, like I do here, I still find I cringe at the idea. This is a penny dreadful come to life in all the right ways, but there is still a music hall sentimentality which makes me uneasy. Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin is an excellent villain – and he is not twiddling an imaginary mustasche or anything – but all of a sudden he bursts into song. And I am sorry, that just feels wrong. The scene where Turpin sits sprawled in Todd’s barber chair letting himself be shaved whilst singing about pretty women should have had more of an impact because of his very helplessness and the intimacy of the setting. The song is one of those romantic, sweet and flighty musical numbers that are supposed to enhance and lift the action, but I can’t get past the artificial nature of the beast.

One of the few musicals I have seen and thouroughly enjoyed was The Black Rider where the music was written by Tom Waits and the words by William S. Burroughs. It has the same gothic underpinning – it’s basically a postmodern day mephistopheles – but it manages to keep its menace even in the sweeter passages. And frankly I think that’s what I am missing here. The look of the movie is just right, but the music… They could have done more. The score feels outmoded and overly traditional to my mind. It glimmers and shines on a few occasions, but mostly it feels too close to the singing Von Trapp family for my taste.

Buckets of blood. That’s what you get. The revenge tale gives motive to Todd’s madness, but the action seems foucused a little to the left of where it could have been. The love story between Todd’s estranged daugther Joanna (Jayne Wisener) and the sailor Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) is one of those subplots that seems to have been kept in mainly to justify the sickly sweet songs between the two youngsters. Not much is made of the actual pie shop where Todd and Mrs Lovett serve their customers to their customers… Which is too bad because I would have loved to see what wicked dark humor could have been drawn out of that. If the song “A Little Priest” gives any indication that could have been fun.

Visually I want for nothing. This really is lush and cool and dark and detailed. The cast do an excellent job of bringing this to life and Depps scowl is everything it should be just like Bonham Carters whimsy. You can tell they worked hard at making this work. Actual actors who can act is better than pretty singers who can’t act their way out of a paper bag. On rare occasions you can get both, but it is not common.

I enjoyed the movie, but I willingly confess that the musical in general is not my first choice. Had it not been for the unlikely combination of cast, director and theme I would not have chosen this one.

Mule