Being Film #23 for Hooptober 2023
Having finally felt like I caught on to Ken Russell’s particular and peculiar wavelength, I called an audible and went back to a film I saw as a teenager and never revisited. Gothic purports to dramatize the night that Lord Byron, Dr. John Polidori, Percy Bysshe Shelley and, of course, Mary Shelley spent on holiday and the events of which formed the basis for Shelly’s writing of Frankenstein. In Russell’s hand it becomes a delirious dog freakout, where breasts grow eyes, imps sit devilishly on a beautiful woman’s chest (that iconic poster and shot in the film) and everyone has their emotions and performance buttons pushed and dialed to 11. And while narratively it might not be as steady as Lair of the White Worm (which is saying something), it’s another dizzying ride that – taken in the right spirit – is a blast to watch.
THE QUICK SUMMARY: Percy, Mary and Mary’s stepsister Claire are looking forward to a getaway at the idyllic country estate of Lord Byron. Along with Dr. Polidori, what’s a bunch of degenerate art types to do? Apparently get wasted on laudanum and indulge in all manner of decadent rituals, including a seance which may have opened a door to haunting evils…and they might not be all in our partygoers’ minds. As things go bump in the night and get progressively weirder and weirder, will Mary Shelley find what she needs to get over the death of her child? Will Polidori get over his vampire fetish and his adoration of Byron? Will Percy be able to choose between two beautiful women? And what about Byron? Is he the Russell stand-in? Who knows and who cares when things get this crazy?
I’ve begun to notice a thread with Russell’s work, and that is that things move along their merry way until the 3rd act, where everything becomes utter mayhem and madness in the best possible way. I think with Gothic it’s a little harder to get through a lot of the film to reach that climax, but it is soooo worth it. It helps enormously that Russell has an incredible cast: Gabriel Byrne, Julien Sands, Natasha Richardson, Miriam Cyr, and holy cow Timothy Spall. The film is really just a loose framework to let these folk run wild – sure, eventually everything turns out to be drug-induced delirium and we end with all our players okay and Mary lounging as she talks about the idea she had for a story.
Taken just as that, Gothic would be a snooze. So thank goodness for Russell to use the concept for more of his provocations. We get some truly weird sequences, including Mary’s glimpse into the future where all her future children die, the afore-mentioned imp coming out of a painting to weigh upon her chest, and all sorts of decadent screaming and religious line crossing from Spall’s delightful Polidori. He might be my MVP for the film, except it is so bizarre to see Gabriel Byrne lap up every ounce of wickedness in his portrayal of Lord Byron. As the master of ceremonies it’s his job to anchor the madness and ensure everyone stays at the same level he’s at, and my brain refuses to reconcile this insanity with his cool as a cucumber Tom Regan he’d become a short time later for the Coen Brothers.
I’m not 100% sure I prefer this over Lair of the White Worm, but once this gets going there’s no stopping it, and I definitely found myself once again under Russell’s special spell. Glad I could revisit it for this marathon.
Cinema Dual 
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