Customer Reviews

The Libertine

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

If you go into THE LIBERTINE envisioning Johnny Depp in his previous role as Captain Jack Sparrow or Willy Wonka, forget it. You won't find a similar persona here.

THE LIBERTINE is a dark film that the studio wisely decided to release only after the Christmas holiday season. In it, Depp plays John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester (b. 1647 - d. 1680), whose life of debauchery was a public scandal even in a society that tolerated the loose morality of King Charles II and his court. Ironically, as the film makes a point of depicting, Charles (John Malkovich) reluctantly, but regularly, banished Rochester from the royal presence for the liberties the latter took in lampooning the former's free-wheeling lifestyle.

THE LIBERTINE is a depressing affair mainly because there's nobody in it to like. Moreover, neither Wilmot nor the viewers' sensitivities are spared the ravages of tertiary syphilis, the disease that ultimately kills the Earl; the film is a great argument for the advent of penicillin. Only Rosamund Pike as Rochester's long-suffering wife may gain audience sympathy. Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton), the struggling actress whose career Rochester takes upon himself to further, apparently for uncharacteristically altruistic reasons, matter-of-factly accepts his help but remained unengaging to this viewer. The gloom is enhanced by a cinematography accomplished in somber, washed-out tones, particularly brown and dark green, with lots of shadows and murky candle light. Even the daylight is muted, as if in winter.

Now having said why THE LIBERTINE isn't light and airy, I have to also say that it's a powerful display of Depp's superlative talent. If the film wasn't so bleak, I'd expect a stampede to nominate Johnny for an Oscar. Rochester's two monologues for the camera, at the beginning and the end, the latter as his face recedes into darkness, are but hints of the excellence in between.

At one point in the movie, Rochester says (if I remember correctly): "Life isn't a sequence of 'urgent nows', but a listless trickle of 'why should I?s'." The tragedy for Rochester is that, at least in this screenplay, answers to the latter are piteously few. However, your answer to the question when contemplating seeing the movie should be: "Because Johnny Depp is as good as you'll ever seem him."

England, 1675. John Wilmot (Johnny Depp), the Earl of Rochester, finds his banishment lifted by King Charles II (John Malkovich). The King banished Wilmot a few months earlier for writing a poem critical of the Monarchy, but now Charles finds himself in a predicament. After fifteen years of increased personal, sexual and artistic freedoms, the British people are now dealing with disease, warfare and natural disaster. They aren't happy and this is testing Charles' reign. Charles decides Wilmot will write a play. However, Wilmot views his return to society as license to drink as much as he wants, sleep with as many people as possible and the King be damned.

"The Libertine", directed by Laurence Dunmore and written by Stephen Jeffreys, based on his own play, is a very good film, for the most part.

The film opens with Depp in darkness and shadow, holding a wine glass, moving towards the candlelight and into our view. Wilmot informs us "You will not like me". As he continues, he announces "Ladies, I am up for it all the time." This scene is already one of the most memorable in recent film. Because it is Johnny Depp, many women (and for that matter, some men) will swoon as soon as he appears onscreen, but as he begins to warn us, he further cements our memory of this character. His frank and open manner is very memorable.

Sure enough, as the film progresses, we don't like Wilmot. It is a testament to Depp's skill as an actor that we don't really care. Depp's portrayal is interesting and challenging, both of which more than make up for the lack of a likable hero in the story. Wilmot enjoys all of the pleasures of living in society and enjoys them well. As he and his wife ride back to London, he fondles her as she recounts how they initially met, a strangely erotic story portrayed in a charged way. In London, he immediately revisits a favorite bordello. Soon, he meets Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton), an actress who attracts his attention and receives his guidance. A good example of his uninhibited nature is displayed when Wilmot meets the man who will eventually become his new valet. After setting a test for the subject, Wilmot is surprised to learn the man's name is Allcock. Very fitting for the playwright. All the while, he drinks, and drinks, and drinks. Depp manages to make all of this carousing and carrying on seem entirely natural.

Later, when Charles calls upon John to write the play, for a visit from the French Ambassador, he pens a work about Charles, as only Wilmot can. But that is best left to your discovery.

What I didn't get from the film, or Depp's performance, was evidence of why Wilmot is remembered today as a good writer. During a few scenes, he creates some interesting verbal word play, but the one play we get a glimpse of is clearly designed to offend the monarch and little else. The work seems amateurish, even childish in execution, so it doesn't work as a testament to his ability as a writer.

"The Libertine" is strangely beautiful to watch. I suspect the movie was filmed using high definition video and available light. As all lighting during this period is provided by candle, light sources are inconsistent, flickering, allowing more dark to seep into the frame. Because of this same lack of light, the film has a very grainy look and all objects are drained of color imbuing a sepia tone throughout. As you watch the story, you get the sense of reading an old book, or looking at old drawings torn from a 17th Century manuscript. The look of the film is further enhanced by attention to detail in both costumes (suitably elaborate) and scenery (suitably muddy and dark). The look of the film is entirely successful, capturing details of London during the Seventeenth Century.

Samantha Morton and John Malkovich are both good, restrained and believable, providing a nice counterpoint to Depp's more theatrical performance. Malkovich doesn't scream or rant, as you might expect, giving his portrayal of Charles II more believability, more vulnerability. Charles II was vulnerable during this period, so it works. Morton brings a quiet power to her performance. Manipulated by Wilmot and Charles, she seems a pawn throughout. But as we watch her performance, we begin to question that, and realize perhaps she is stronger than we initially thought.

"The Libertine" is a very good film, featuring a memorable, uninhibited performance by Depp. But it doesn't fulfill its initial promise to convince us of why Wilmot is still remembered to this day. A late scene in the film shows a number of his writings and drawings being destroyed by a family member. Why was he remembered as a great writer? How was he remembered? Through word of mouth? How were his writings remembered?

Hopefully, the film will not suffer the same fate as its `hero'.

Johnny Depp's performance in this stunning film is beyond anything he has done before. You will see dimensions of his talent that will only become deeper and richer with time.

This movie casts it's spell and is difficult to leave behind. Against the Earl's best advice, I cannot help but like him.

Do not let the critics influence you about this film. See it for yourself and decide. Your time will not be wasted.

In the Libertine, Johnny Depp plays John Wilmot Earl of Rochester a charismatic literary man on a course towards self-destruction while struggling to live within a hierarchal society trapped in the trappings of 1675 England.

I saw this in the theater, and I thought it was brilliant. Johnny Depp's characterization of John Wilmot was amazing. I would like to add, unlike most, that I found this a tightly crafted work that is a beautifully balanced ensemble. The criticisms I read in reviews elsewhere about the lighting and color are the ramblings of idiots. This film revealed the unromanticized squalor of the period.

If you have ever been at a party where there is one guy who says what everyone thinks but fears to say in case of social reprisal, you have an idea how captivating someone walking on the edge can be. You watch them like you would a train wreck. --and yes they generally are outside the box--yet still feel boxed in and the drinking and carousing or excesses are just the symptomatic combination of being utterly stiffled by hipocrisy, and repulsed by the whitewash encrusting the truth, and living in a decadent jaded age.

Don't watch the libertine if you are hoping to feel uplifted and happy. It is powerful and seductive, dark and heavy, thought provoking and disturbing, painful and hypnotic, horrifying and humanizing. You watch a man at the height of his social power lose everything. Picasso said that art is a lie that reveals the truth. I found this to be just such a work.--Maybe so was John Wilmot.

The Restoration was one of the most exciting and decadent periods in English history, marked by great debauchery, great artistic achievement, and great fun. Films covering this period tend to do very well with the first two parts of this but weakly on the third: there seems to be instead an imperative to moralize about the Restoration, to suggest that all this extramarital sex and boozing and cursing had to come at a great price to the human soul. THE LIBERTINE is one of the most insistent films on this moralistic equation, focusing as it does on the last years of the Earl of Rochester, one of the greatest Restoration poets and wits who died at age 33 of alcoholism and syphilis. (The film emphasizes this decay, showing Rochester at the end with a rotting nose and supporating scabs, balancing awkwardly on two canes.) Although Rochester and his friends were dubbed "The Merry Gang" by Andrew Marvell, they show about as little merriness as possible in director Laurence Dunmore's vision: as the DVD's highly intriguing and innovatively edited documentary "Capturing the Libertine" shows, several of the film's best jokes were left out altogether, presumably because they would alter too much the overall dark tone Dunmore adopts. (The best of these jokes, by the way, involves Rochester's servant and a pineapple.)

The film has a very distinctive look to it: partly to emphasize the aura of menace and decay, but also as a cost-cutting measure, all of the outdoor scenes are obscured by thick dark smog and all of the indoor scenes are candlelit. Johnny Depp does terrific things as Rochester, although the screenplay requires him to be constantly foul-tempered and temperamentally anhedonic. Oddly, his foils of Charles II and the playwright George Etheredge are played by two actors who usually play Rochester-types on film, John Malkovich and Tom Hollander. Malkovich shines playing what is for him a very different type, the willful but somewhat dull-witted Stuart king. Samantha Morton acts superbly as Rochester's actress protegé Elizabeth Barry, but unfortunately is not very charismatic; Rosamund Pike, ideally cast as a Restoration beauty, is much more appealing as Rochester's heiress wife Elizabeth Malet. The film is intelligently directed, but the screenplay just doesn't hang together. It's often hard to know what kind of point there is to all this other than that things fall apart and the center cannot hold, especially since several characters (such as Rochester's friend? lover? Billy Downs) are left underwritten and underexplained.

Like any other movie he is in Johnny Depp puts forth an amazing performance. His transformation from a young, healthy, well respected yet hated writer to a decaying, dying, loathed creature is true brilliance. This movie is definitely worthy of being in anyone's movie library.

I'm a Johnny Depp fan. He did a great job at playing John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. But, the movie wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I knew the subject matter going in. That wasn't the problem. To me, the movie wasn't dark enough. There wasn't any motivation as to why John Wilmot was so obsessed with sex and drinking to the point of self-destruction. Johnny Depp did a great job of letting us know something was rattling around in his head. But the dialogue and visual images weren't there to back it up and left a lot open for guessing.

But, thanks to the magic of DVD, people can figure out that internal motivation by watching the deleted scenes and comments. I think the director should have left in the flashbacks from early in John Wilmot's life. The dark subject matter doesn't bother me or I wouldn't have been watching a movie like this. The decision to leave them out struck me as an interesting edit because one of the players in the special features segment of the DVD described how John Wilmot was a brilliant writer, and ahead of his time. If that is part of the reason they're making the movie, to showcase an artist that wasn't afraid to write the King of England a pornographic play, then why was the director was afraid of being honest to the character?

I enjoyed this movie more after I watched the special features. Because of the thought process I went through, I think this is a great DVD for writers and artists to watch.

If you are a Johnny Depp fan, this work of art is by far at the top of the list. It is thrilling to see an actor so very talented and it is my opinion that there is no one in the field today that could have pulled this role off. It is indeed no comedy, and as dark as the night but to come away from the theatre unable to stop raving about his performance puts this movie on my list of viewing over and over again. It should have been an oscar for Depp. You may have never heard of the poet or of his short and sordid life but you WILL remember Depps protrayal of this man. True to life in costumes, scenery, props, conditions of the time and even down to the lighting. They may not be pretty or to our liking but the morals and lives in that period of time have been documented in history. Have an open mind, concentrate on Depp, his talent, go back in time with him in this period film and you will find out your answer to his question, "How do you like me now?" Yeah, he's got my vote.

Depp is a fine actor at almost anything, but so are many of the others in this film, e.g. the great John Malkovich. You'll either hate it or love it. In that sense, and only that sense, it is akin to Moulin Rouge. No one was lukewarm about it. Depp is developing of range that exceeds even his early promise.

What makes this film difficult is that the film begins darkly and it never lets up. Depp's character warns you at the beginning, but is he serious? Yes. The sun doesn't shine every day. Wilmot/Rochester WAS a real libertine, a nihilist who had difficulty understanding what anything meant and understanding it all too well. He was unhappy when he got what he wanted and frustrated because in the end he got almost nothing of what he wanted.

His sexual appetites were voracious in the extreme - women, men and probably anything else that stopped long enough for him to charm for the moment or seize by force.

FWIW, I also admired Restoration. Downey shares with Depp the ability to pull almost anything off. And the period is a rich area to mine. Diffferent films. This is definitely not a comedy.

You can see a stage play as its bones if you choose, but it is a script of the mind rather than of place. As to how closely it follows Wilmot's actual life, it may take liberties, but thematically not many, whether the abduction of his wife or his speaking for Charles II in something of a noble act near the end of it.

Did this lifelong atheist renounce atheism on his deathbed? No one knows (or cares) but his mother harassed him as did the bishop who needed a trophy soul. But there are athiest in foxholes and Wilmot most likely died that as one.

The Restoration was among other thjings a turn against the religious extremism of the Dissenters, AKA Puritans, Parliamentarians. But Wilmot's mother was by family a Puritan and parliamentarian; his father was a Royalist and military commander who spent much of he last years of his life out of the country. Was Rochester a great writer or a hack? Probably some of both. He wrote in a period that does not readily carry over to a popular audience. Shakespeare was as great as they come, but no ones queues up to see films of his plays.

There is in any event, no place in the film where you are likely to find Depp's character appealing, except that Depp has the ability to extend himself such that you can glimpse the charm and wit of Rochester. His life makes all the more remarkable and appealing, for a moment, his courageous speaking for his friend and king.

Was it wise in the end? Perhaps not. But it was wise for Wilmot himself. To do what you think right is never a bad thing, when you have spent your life living as though there is nlothing bad in doing whatever your wish.

Again, not for everyone. Don'tt be depressed when you see it. Don't take a shrieker.

I'm still reeling from the magnificence of The Libertine. This is an extraordinarily brave, intense, inspired movie with brilliant performances, exquisite writing, real ambiance and understanding of the dangerous, ambiguous, eloquent yet foggy, muddy world of 17th Century England. To write it off because of hand-held camera work, graininess, natural lighting, and scene-orientated storyline, is to miss the attraction and power in its raw dark corners, creativity, intelligence, wit and provoking theme of reason versus redemption. Through the sincerity of its cinematography it takes a chance on starkly displaying the world, history, love, religion, good and evil, self-destruction and the will to live, a real experience of reaching, listening, squinting, opening the eyes and breathing deeper. This film version of a play isn't on a proscenium stage, or theater in the round, but insists we're extras without lines other than the beating of our hearts and bewilderment of our souls.

The whole cast, the soundtrack, the settings and costumes are superb. But the master of its brilliance is Johnny Depp, watching him like being him, caught in his beauty, sublimity, courage and dedication. For all that this part must've taken of his physical, emotional, mental even spiritual strength he is unconscious in his delivery of 17th century poetry and dialogue with a flawless accent, winding his way with grace and truth through the layers, struggles, degradation and transformation of such a complex character. I'm so glad to be out of the mainstream, able to recognize and savor what it will take years for the award and media machines to--their mistake and loss. As the Libertine said himself: "Those who do not like you fall into 2 categories: the stupid and the envious. The stupid will like you in 5 years, the envious never will."