Mad, bad, and dangerous to know...
Lady Caroline Lamb speaking of Lord Byron
This 1986 cult psychodrama was directed by Ken Russel and revolves around the lurid tale of Mary Shelley's inspiration for Frankenstein which purportedly happened on June 16th, 1816 at Byron's estate Villa Diodata off the shores of Lake Geneva. Amidst the splendor and excess of this world where Byron is both host and predator, our Romantics tell ghost stories and play hide-and-go-seek in a sexually-charged laudanum dosed frenzy complete with fever-dream madness. The depiction of the tangled relationships of our aesthetes in attendance plays on themes of incest, free love, obsession, sado-masochism, drugs and deep-seated phobias. The line between creative inspiration and madness is danced over repeatedly.
In attendance are
Lord Byron,
Percy Bysse Shelley, Claire Clairmont (Mary Shelley's half-sister, mother of Byron's daughter Allegra),
Mary Shelley and Doctor Polidori (physician, author and great uncle to
Dante Gabriel Rosetti).
The film is pure kitsch with its heavy surrealism. Nightmarish manifestations based on their phobias trip out the guests and we see everything from mechanical stripping belly dancers and orgies to stigmata and ravishing crouching demons... Lord Byron is the erotically dark ringmaster and he appears to be orchestrating these events for the pleasure and torment of his guests. Mary has issues with her stillborn daughter and mother dying in her birth which led to her manifestation of Frankenstein. Percy has a reoccurring water/death connection, some manner of prediction of his death by drowning as a result of a boating accident. Doctor Polidori is obsessed with leeches; he goes on to write The Vampyre.
Visually, this film has Russel's trademark lush viscosity. The villa, the storm, the clothing and the indulgent lifestyle of these intellectual and cultural elite are all very very tasty.
You can either take this movie seriously, appreciate its kitsch, or both. I tended towards the side of appreciating the kitsch, myself... Good parts? Cheesy, over-done nightmares, Gabriel Byrne as Byron (perfect!) Julian Sands naked in the rain on the roof and the well-done sexual tension between Percy and Lord Byron. Bad parts? Claire is rather clingy and annoying and Dr. Polidori I could have done without entirely. I suppose your reaction to this movie will depend on where you lie on the Goth scale...
Rated: R
Director: Ken Russell (also of Tommy)
Natasha Richardson - Mary Shelley
Gabriel Byrne - Lord Byron
Julian Sands -Percy Shelley
Myriam Cyr - Clair Clairmont
Timothy Spall - Dr. Polidori
Screenplay: Stephen Volk
Music: Thomas Dolby
Location: England
Running Time: 87 minutes
Sources
http://www.walrus.com/~gibralto/acorn/germ/Gothic.html