Rochester: Well freeze my piss if the royal finger ain't beckoning me. How exciting.
Charles II: I handed you a chance to show your shining talent and what do you give me in return? A pornographic representation of a royal court where the men only deal in buggery and the women's sole object of interest is the dildo!
Rochester: A monument to your reign!
I did not especially enjoy The Libertine, but I guess I didn't expect to after the first few minutes.
I watched it because it is set during the reign of Charles II, who I am reading about right now. John Malkovich plays Charles, and while I enjoy him in some movies, I always feel like I'm watching John Malkovich AS someone, rather than watching a character (so this was like watching John Malkovich as Charles II, not Charles II himself, if that makes sense -there's no illusion). Additionally, he doesn't have any of the liveliness, the charm, or the rakishness that I associate with Charles. Instead, he is serious and stern.
 |
| John Malkovich as Charles II and a portrait of the real Charles II. |
Johnny Depp's talents were wasted on this part, though he seemed to be enjoying himself playing an amoral, disinterested, I'm-better-than-everyone-else libertine.
He tells us right off the bat that we will not like him, in a prologue speech designed specifically to offend and shock. He's right, the character isn't likeable, though his contemporaries seemed to appreciate his dry, vulgar wit. The speech was pointless, as the qualities he describes himself as possessing are obvious throughout the movie; indeed, they are pounded into our heads over and over again. Yes, he doesn't care about anything and is so smart, I get it.
 |
| A portrait of the real Elizabeth Wilmot, Countess of Rochester, Rosamund Pike as Elizabeth with Johnny Depp as Rochester, and a portrait of the real John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester. |
Depp plays John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester, a real playwright and rogue of the 17th century. Rosamund Pike, a likeable actress, is his wife, Elizabeth. More wasted talent. Her character thinks her husband is amazing, in spite of the fact that he's a self-absorbed drunk who treats her like crap when he's not abandoning her in the country. She's a rich, beautiful woman with a bad boy complex. Nothing surprising, but still sad. She laments, "John, I would bear our marriage more easily if there were no pretense. If I were merely a housekeeper and a conduit for the noble line. But when you're away you write so beguilingly of how you love me and -I do not think you mean to torture me, but it is a torture to be informed of passion from a distance and then in the flesh to be so reviled." But he can't offer to change his behavior or offer an explanation -he's going to do what he's going to do, and she can deal with it.
 |
| Samantha Morton as Elizabeth Barry and the real Elizabeth Barry. |
Rochester prefers whoring and womanizing, and the person who strikes his fancy most is an aspiring actress, Elizabeth Barry, in who he sees great potential. She's not particularly beautiful, nice, or interested in him or his help, but she reluctantly agrees to be coached, after he convinces her that his motives are not to take credit for her talent:
Rochester: I wish to be moved. I cannot feel in life. I must have others do it for me here in the theatre.
Elizabeth Barry: You are spoken of as a man with a stomach for life.
Rochester: I am the cynic of our golden age. This bounteous dish, which our great Charles and our great God have more or less in equal measure placed before us, sets my teeth permanently on edge. Life has no purpose. It is everywhere undone by arbitrariness. I do this and it matters not a jot if I do the opposite. But in the playhouse every action, good or bad, has it's consequences.
They begin an affair as his coaching pays off and her star steadily rises.
Meanwhile, Charles is struggling to deal with Parliament and France, and needs a play to impress the French envoys, so he turns to Rochester: "The time has come for you to pay your dues. People listen to you, Johnny. If you took your seat in the Lords, you could make great speeches that would influence events. Anyone can oppose, it's fun to be against things, but there comes a time when you have to start being for things as well."
Rochester pumps out the most crass, sexual material he can manage for his play, as an f-you to everyone, I suppose, and ends up forced into hiding. There is a humerous moment, before Charles puts a stop to the play, when one of the French nobles remarks, "That's very amusing, because in France he would be executed for this." That gave me a giggle.
Later, as he is dying grotesquely from an STD, his body rotting away, he has some sort of religious epiphany:
Rochester: If God wants men to have faith, why does He not make us more disposed to believe?
Priest: Most men are so disposed.
Rochester: But not me.
Priest: Because you set your reason against religion.
Rochester: I despised reason.
Priest: You clung to reason.
I don't know exactly what the epiphany was, or what sparked it, but he decides to go make a speech in Parliament on behalf of the King -he doesn't do it FOR the King's, he is clear on that:
Charles II: Johnny, you finally did something for me.
Rochester: I didn't do it for you, I did it for me.
So what possessed him still eludes me. He doesn't seem to have actually become a devout person, though maybe he had and I'm reading him wrong. Perhaps I just don't care enough. I'm not that interested in trying to analyze his character, or figure out his inner workings -I'll leave that to people like his wife, who saw something in his personality worth exploring.
He also returns to see Elizabeth Barry, who scorns him and wants nothing to do with him, giving him the same flippant consideration he seems to give everyone else, so that's kind of satisfying:
Rochester: Here we have him, your Restoration gent. He's not pissed his breeches today and he can walk in a straight line for two hundred yards without falling on his face and retching. Now, look you upon this picture and on this. He has not washed. He cannot walk. And he most certainly will not be able to raise either the price of his dinner or his own pintle.
Mr. Harris: I must be got into my nightgown.
Rochester: This is what I envy in you stage people. You make time seem so important. I must change my clothes now! I must make my entrance now! But life is not a succession of urgent nows. It is a listless trickle of Why should I's.
Molly: You're on. Five minutes only, Mrs Barry.
Rochester: I never wanted you for a mistress, Lizzie. I wanted you for my wife.
Elizabeth Barry: You have no understanding, do you? It was not being your mistress that I was tired of, John. I was tired of you. I did not wish to be your wife. I do not wish to be anyone's wife. I wish to continue being the creature I am. London walks into this theatre to see me. Not George's play, nor Mr. Betterton. They want me, and they want me over and over again. I will not swap my certain glory for your undependable love.
Rochester: I wanted you to have my child.
Elizabeth Barry: I had your child. A daughter. When the theatres were closed in the summer. By the start of the season I was flat enough to play Desdemona in a nightgown.
Molly: Two minutes, Mrs Barry, please.
Rochester: What is her name?
Elizabeth Barry: Elizabeth.
Rochester: Elizabeth? The child of our passion. When I bred my other children, I placed no value on human life at all, and now you send me away. And I cannot go back to where I was before. I shall never forgive you for teaching me to love life.
Elizabeth Barry: If I taught you that, then our account is settled. Your lesson to me was my livelihood. And mine to you was life itself. We have no need to meet again.
Rochester: Lizzie.
Elizabeth Barry: If you are in London, and you have half a crown in your pocket, you may see me there. For the rest, I hope I shall always be in your heart, sometimes in your thoughts, but never in your debt.
Then he hobbles home to die in the arms of his wife, who still loves him, but is undoubtedly better off without him, despite what she thinks:
Elizabeth Malet: I am ever your last resort. When your mistress has kicked you into the street and the last whore in Covent Garden refuses to attend to you, then and only then do you come to me!
Rochester: I think you will never be a contented woman until you are a much-respected widow. And I am hard at work on doing you that last good service.
Elizabeth Malet: I don't want you to die! I want you to live, and live differently!
Lady, he's not going to change for you. He doesn't care about you, he just cares for himself, get a clue!
Sorry if this is so negative. The movie wasn't completely lacking in value, it was just so full of itself and proud of its own lewdness in an almost childish way (he said erection -teehee!) that it makes me want to roll my eyes.
I leave you with his opening speech:
"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. Ladies, an announcement: I am up for it, all the time. That is not a boast or an opinion, it is bone hard medical fact. I put it round you know. And you will watch me putting it round and sigh for it. Don't. It is a deal of trouble for you and you are better off watching and drawing your conclusions from a distance than you would be if I got my tarse up your petticoats. Gentlemen. Do not despair, I am up for that as well. And the same warning applies. Still your cheesy erections till I have had my say. But later when you shag -and later you will shag, I shall expect it of you and I will know if you have let me down -I wish you to shag with my homuncular image rattling in your gonads. Feel how it was for me, how it is for me and ponder: 'Was that shudder the same shudder he sensed? Did he know something more profound? Or is there some wall of wretchedness that we all batter with our heads at that shining, livelong moment?' That is it. That is my prologue, nothing in rhyme, no protestations of modesty, you were not expecting that I hope. I am John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester and I do not want you to like me."
Message received.
No comments:
Post a Comment