Gothic from 1986.  Ken Russell made a series of very low budget films. They demonstrate the depth of his imagery and vision, and also the desperation of making money by sensation. This period includes a short film, Aria, which is a classic.

Ken Russell was attracted to the story of poets Shelley and Byron in the Villa Diodati overlooking Lake Geneva.

This was the meeting where Byron and Shelley, Mary Godwin (his future wife Mary Shelley), Claire Clement (stepsister of Mary and former lover of Byron), and  Byron's physician Polidori each agree each to write a ghost story.  'We will each write a ghost story,’ said Byron; and his proposition was acceded to. There were four of us. The noble author began a tale... Shelley… commenced one founded on the experiences of his early life. Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through a keyhole- what to see I forget… The illustrious poets [Byron and Shelley] also, annoyed by the platitude of prose, speedily relinquished their ungrateful task. I busied myself to think of a story, a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One that would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror- one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart” (Mary Shelley, letter, Hôtel de Sécheron, Geneva, 17th May 1816).  Mary Shelley's story became the novel Frankenstein.

The film starts with tourists paying to look through telescopes to the Byron residence across the water. Just as Russell did with Liszt, Shelley and Byron were regarded then as pop stars with adoring groupies.  Under the effect of drugs, nightmares start to take over as each character searches for an illusory gratification. Claire however does not need drugs to confront her nightmares.

The poster was banned by London Transport, despite the image being based on a classical painting, Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare.

The film is enjoyable and the first half is vintage Russell but it does deteriorate a bit towards the end.  Ken Russell says "I'd fallen into the trap which has been the undoing of many a... pop-video director- punchy, roller-coaster cutting, short sequences and non-stop action... well nigh unbearable over a hundred minutes or so".

"The long night that ensues- a bedroom farce played for screams- is scored by a lot of old-fashioned thunder and lightning, plus Thomas Dolby's exceptionally evocative soundtrack music.  It makes no more sense than most rock videos, but it's only boring when, every now and then, Mr. Russell and Mr. Volk feel that they have to touch base with the known facts of history" (Vincent Canby, New York Times, 10 April 1987).

Amazingly there is a 3D version of Gothic, not by Ken but digitally created afterwards.  "The original story of Lord Byron and Mary Shelley's crazy supernatural experience" says  the blurb.  It is crudely done and not worth the bother.

People

Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron and Julian Sands as Percy Bysshe Shelley. Natasha Richardson, daughter of The Devil's Vanessa Redgrave, plays Mary Shelley.  Myriam Cyr plays Claire Clairmont and Timothy Spall plays Polidori

"it’s worth noting that this was the late Natasha Richardson’s first theatrical film, though you’d never guess that from her assured performance as Mary Shelley. How assured is that performance? Well, it was the film Richardson’s mother, Vanessa Redgrave, requested be shown at her daughter’s memorial. That’s a pretty good endorsement" (Ken Hanke in Mountain Xpress, 1 Jul 2014 click here).

Timothy Spall (Polidori) says "I had almost forgotten how crazy, crazy and creative the Gothic of 1986 is… Ken Russell were very combined and organized, given that he had a reputation for being an extremely wild man. [Russell said] “This is where we track you dead. Here’s the art director to talk about the cockroaches coming out of your mouth”. I said, “Excuse me, do I get cockroaches out of my mouth?” It is beyond doubt that cockroaches come out of my mouth. They ended up wearing a cast on my face. We also had a leech fighter with this huge leech bucket. Ken panicked and stuffed his jeans into his socks because he thought of… one of them was going to move slowly up to his leg. One minute you have cockroaches coming out of your mouth, the next you’re painting with a bucket of bloodsuckers. That’s when you knew you were in a Ken Russell movie" (Cockroaches in your mouth, Movie News, no date, click here).

At one point a suit or armour seems to come alive- as an actor in theatre Russell once spent the play stationary in a suit of armour only to move as a conclusion of the play.

Music by Thomas Dolby which does not enhance the film- here he is shown above composing the music (from Ken Russell's film ABC of Music).

The traditional song Myriam Cyr sings is A Brisk Young Sailor Courted Me.

Actors in minor roles Andreas Wisniewski, Bella Enahoro, Bunty Mathias and Angela Savy (as Angela Walker) would also appear on Russell's next film Aria.

The Director of Photography was Mike Southon (he also worked on Aria but not Ken Russell's segment) and the Editor was Russell regular Michael Bradsell.  Russell's daughter Victoria Russell was costume designer alongside Kay Gallwey.

The screenplay was by Stephen Volk, he also wrote a novelisation of the film.  The novel does get a bit pretentious, for example on the creature in Fuseli's painting "The artist's name was Fuseli.  Cantankerous, twisted, he was a frequent visitor to my father and mother, before my birth.  We were born together then, I and it.  That was our bond.  We were twins, born of the same Time.  And how was it born? Like me, of pain, greedily clinging to the life shed by another?  In semen of a retort?  Of electrical apparati?  Did the grim satyr of the bed emerge from opium eating- or indigestion?  Fuseli used to eat raw pork and his imagination which (if as Blake says, he was a Jew) explains perhaps his God's anger inspired such a composition" (Stephen Volk, Gothic, 1987, pages 108-109).

On the script Volk says "Lots of things came into the script during filming, though.  It was as if Russell’s rewrites were done with the camera.  I had the robot mannequin at the harpsichord, but he introduced the belly-dancer mannequin.  I had the Henry Fuseli painting of the nightmare, which was my nod to this whole story being a nightmare, and Ken got stuck in and wanted to actually recreate the painting in real time, which is now one of my favourite scenes in the film. " (Stephen Volk interviewed by Adam Scovell, British Film Institute, 1 Sept 2023, click here).

The opening credits with the skull slowly approaching the screen is a homage to the credits in John Carpenter's Halloween.

Best Image

The breasts as eyes-  “the whole took so strong a hold of Mr. Shelly's [sic] mind, that he suddenly started up and ran out of the room.  The physician and Lord Byron followed, and discovered him leaning against a mantle-piece, with cold drops of perspiration trickling down his face.  After having given him something to refresh him, upon enquiring into the cause of his alarm, they found that his wild imagination having pictured to him the bosom of one of the ladies with eyes” (John William Polidori, Extract of a letter from Geneva, 1819)

Scriptwriter Stephen Volk says "Things such as the eyes in the breasts, for example, actually go back to Shelley himself and his diary rather than Russell, as that absolutely happened to him and he wrote about it.  It’s surprising to some that the parts that people did or didn’t like were taken from the real diaries of Byron and Shelley.  Those things crept in from the real sources" (Stephen Volk interviewed by Adam Scovell, British Film Institute, 1 Sept 2023, click here).

The fish drowning in a bowl-  Mary feels she is a fish out of water.

Mary sleeping as the shadow creeps by.

Best Scene

Mary Shelley in the room surrounded by the doors.

Claire on the stairs- Russell uses similar imagery in most of his films.

Themes

The scene on the roof in the lightning is similar to Roger Daltry on the roof in Tommy.  Lightning was also the source of energy for Frankenstein's creature.

Ken's use of mirrors.

The mechanical doll above and a scene from The Devils below.

Snakes on skulls, phallic symbols, leeches abound. First above from Gothic, second from Tommy.

The living doll sequence (above) is also similar to Fellini's Casanova (below) from 1976.

The woman outstreched as a ship's masthead left was used earlier in his Coleridge film from 1978.

The furniture in drapes was also used (below) in Elgar from 1962 and Russell would also later use it in The Lair of the White Worm from 1988.

The knight in armour is similar to the Tina Turner hypodermic knight in Tommy.
The dead baby in the water appears as a doll in Poets London.

Films

Other films released in the same year include Children of a Lesser God, Aliens, Platoon, Pretty in Pink and The Name of the Rose.