There are basically twelve volumes in the Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell (i.e., the Trade Edition; listed on Wikipedia here).** Of these it is—surprisingly—possible to download the text of six from the Internet Archive (IA). Surprisingly, because the Journals were published between 1950 and 1989 and I would have thought they were covered by copyright.
It is, however, quite difficult to find the six journals available on IA. The Journals appear under a variety of authors (James Boswell; Boswell; Belle de Zuylen; Pottle; and Doubleday and Company) and the eBooks are not listed on Open Library—which only lists (encrypted) DAISY editions—or LibraryThing. Indeed, I can find few links to any of the texts, though they have been downloaded many times.
And so I thought it might be useful to post a list of the journals here and update it as more etexts become available.
Boswell's London Journal, 1762–1763, ed. F.A. Pottle (1950). Not on IA, but searchable on Google Books here.
Boswell in Holland, 1763–1764, ed. F.A. Pottle (1952). On IA here.
Boswell on the Grand Tour: Germany and Switzerland, 1764, ed. F.A. Pottle (1953). On IA here.
Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica, and France, 1765–1766, ed. F. Brady and F.A. Pottle (1955). On IA here.
Boswell in Search of a Wife, 1766–1769, ed. F. Brady and F.A. Pottle (1956). On IA here.
Boswell for the Defence, 1769–1774, ed. W.K. Wimsatt Jr. and F.A. Pottle (1959). On IA here.
Boswell: The Ominous Years, 1774–1776, ed. C. Ryskamp and F.A. Pottle (1963). On IA here.
Boswell in Extremes, 1776–1778, ed. C.McC. Weis and F.A. Pottle (1970).
Boswell: Laird of Auchinleck, 1778–1782, ed. J.W. Reed and F.A. Pottle (1977).
Boswell: The Applause of the Jury, 1782–1785, ed. I.S. Lustig and F.A. Pottle (1981).
Boswell: The English Experiment, 1785–1789, ed. I.S. Lustig and F.A. Pottle (1986).
Boswell: The Great Biographer, 1789–1795, ed. M.K. Danziger and F. Brady (1989).
** I exclude Joshua Reynolds, Portraits, ed. F.W. Hilles (1952) and Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 1773, ed. F.A. Pottle and C.H. Bennett (1961). Another ten volumes appeared in the Research Edition and there are three Independent Volumes (for a full list, see here).
Sunday, 10 March 2013
Thursday, 7 March 2013
Frankenbook Returns!
I mentioned in my last post that I wasn’t about to stop buying copies of the works in my Haywood Bibliography, “unless it be to withstand the malice of the seller or to await a more favourable opportunity of buying.” This is because, for a bibliographer, it is important to see multiple copies of a book: each copy being an independent witness to a printing. So, even a frankenbook can be a valuable as a witness. And, as it happens, my frankenbook is a perfect example of this.
In my entry for Ab.57.1 Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Gentleman I listed three variants: my frankenbook contains a fourth. A rather interesting one. It appears that, during printing, N9r and N10v were mis-imposed in the outer forme, transposing pages [4] and [7] of the advertisements. Each of these pages start with a “the” ([4]: “The Plain Truth …”; [7]: “the Author of …”), which means each of the catchwords are both "the" (actually, “The” and “the”)—so it is easy to see how this error might have occurred. Especially since N9r and N10v are side-by-side in the outer forme.
What is puzzling, is why, when the error in imposition was corrected, that the ornament on N10v was changed from a pair of heart-shaped ornaments to a pair of acorn-shaped ornaments.** At first I thought this might be evidence of printing from more than one setting of type, possibly on more than one press, but N10v (and the other pages in the gathering) are exactly the same setting of type in both states.
This can be confirmed by looking at the images above and below. (Note that the damaged “o” in “Dialogue” in the forth line, and the damaged “4” in “1742.”) Another possibility is that the advertisements were printed from standing type, but the fact that these pages were mis-imposed and then corrected suggests otherwise.
Whatever the explanation, it is a good demonstration that a badly damaged copy—as well as being a witness to its own unique history (as a schoolboy’s companion, for example)—is also an important witness to the edition of which it is a part.
** I cannot find a comprehensive list online of names for Caslon type ornaments and terminals—such as arabesque, rosette, acorn, etc—to properly describe the ornaments above, but I trust the pictures make up for the lack of an accurate terminology.
In my entry for Ab.57.1 Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Gentleman I listed three variants: my frankenbook contains a fourth. A rather interesting one. It appears that, during printing, N9r and N10v were mis-imposed in the outer forme, transposing pages [4] and [7] of the advertisements. Each of these pages start with a “the” ([4]: “The Plain Truth …”; [7]: “the Author of …”), which means each of the catchwords are both "the" (actually, “The” and “the”)—so it is easy to see how this error might have occurred. Especially since N9r and N10v are side-by-side in the outer forme.
What is puzzling, is why, when the error in imposition was corrected, that the ornament on N10v was changed from a pair of heart-shaped ornaments to a pair of acorn-shaped ornaments.** At first I thought this might be evidence of printing from more than one setting of type, possibly on more than one press, but N10v (and the other pages in the gathering) are exactly the same setting of type in both states.
This can be confirmed by looking at the images above and below. (Note that the damaged “o” in “Dialogue” in the forth line, and the damaged “4” in “1742.”) Another possibility is that the advertisements were printed from standing type, but the fact that these pages were mis-imposed and then corrected suggests otherwise.
Whatever the explanation, it is a good demonstration that a badly damaged copy—as well as being a witness to its own unique history (as a schoolboy’s companion, for example)—is also an important witness to the edition of which it is a part.
** I cannot find a comprehensive list online of names for Caslon type ornaments and terminals—such as arabesque, rosette, acorn, etc—to properly describe the ornaments above, but I trust the pictures make up for the lack of an accurate terminology.
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Frankenbook; Or, What Goes Around, Comes Around
As you can see, this copy of Eliza Haywood’s Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Gentleman has had a hard life. Verryyy hard.
At some point in the eighteenth century this book was the treasured possession of a schoolboy who used the blank pages at the back of the book to record the cost of his education (see below).
Did his rough handling detach the boards and break the spine? Did he sew the detached boards back on? It seems unlikely, but I guess it is possible. Was this caring act driven by love or frugality? And what of the missing pages? Were they still closed into the book when it was pushed to the back of a shelf and forgotten? And then what?
[...] payd to Mr Johnson
[...] for blotting paper £287-19-9
payd to Mr [F]illis for quils
and everything proper 1986-18-85
Total £2073-18-5
thus nothing farther payd
for my education.
[...] for blotting paper £287-19-9
payd to Mr [F]illis for quils
and everything proper 1986-18-85
Total £2073-18-5
thus nothing farther payd
for my education.
* * * * *
This book’s early, turbulent history has marked it heavily. It’s recent, turbulent history, hardly at all. I bought this “Internally clean” book in 2001 for GBP250 (at the time, about A$600) from Dead Mens Minds in Wales, even though it was described as “split in half at page 123.”For me, a PhD student at the time, this was an eye-watering sum. But this was one of the few important Haywood books I could get at a reasonable price: because only I knew it was by Haywood. (I think this is called insider-trading.) And I knew that, after I published my Bibliography—and the world knew that Eliza Haywood was the author of Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Gentleman—prices would rise.
(As it happens, it took ten years before a bookseller listed a copy under Haywood’s name, and that one listing is still the only listing for Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Gentleman under Haywood’s name. So no price rise and—happily, I guess—it is still possible to buy copies of this book at reasonable prices.)
Anyway, when the book arrived I realised that it was not just split in half, but missing five leaves (A1, E11, E12, H12, I1). I mentioned this to the bookseller, expecting him to offer to discount the book. No such luck. He was extremely sceptical and demanded that I return the book. And so I very reluctantly posted this six hundered dollar Frankenbook back to Wales.
Since 2001 I have bought for myself five more copies of the first volume, two copies of the second and a copy of the not-by-Haywood third volume. I have also helped three local libraries obtain sets. One of my five copies arrived missing a few leaves and when I mentioned this to the bookseller, he reacted in exactly the way I had expected the proprietor of Dead Mens Minds to react: he reduced the priced from USD500 to USD35.
(I wish I could remember who the bookseller was so I could memorialise their kindness, but they probably wouldn’t want me to publicise the fact that they had sold a defective copy anyway, so perhaps it is just as well I didn’t record it.)
You might think I had grown tired of this book, or that the eight volumes on my shelf would have lessened my appetite for more. No chance. So when a particularly ugly copy turned up on eBay recently I made sure to buy it. And, after I bought it, I was informed by the vendor that, by accident, the fact that this copy was missing pages was not mentioned. But that the missing pages had been taken into account when pricing the book.
After a few emails we agreed on a reduced price (GBP75), the book was sent and I got to inspect my purchase. And when I inspected it I noticed a small pencil notation of the date: “11.12.1”—in my handwriting! Only then did the penny drop. This was the same book I had bought from Dead Mens Minds, and returned to them eleven years earlier! My Frankenbook has travelled from Wales to Melbourne to Wales (again) to Melbourne (again).
And so I have been wondering again, as I did in 2001—what was the proprietor going to do/what did the proprietor do with this book? Did he sell it as an incomplete book, or try to pass it off as complete again? Did it go into his “hospital” (which all decent bookshops have) and, if so, how came it to be sold off by someone else on eBay eleven years later. (I have asked the vendor but, alas, no answers are forthcoming!)
I have also been wondering, as I have done many times since 2001, how large a percentage of the Haywood books sold in the last decade have come to me. What percentage of the market do I occupy? Have I driven up prices? I seem to have bought most of the copies of Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Gentleman, so I guess it is inevitable that I would get this one back. But in book collecting the accepted wisdom is You. Do. Not. Get. Second. Chances.
And so I have tried not to let any chance pass me buy. As the great Richard de Bury wrote concerning “What we are to think of the price in the buying of books” in Chapter 3 of his Philobiblon:
From what has been said we draw this corollary welcome to us, but (as we believe) acceptable to few: namely, that no dearness of price ought to hinder a man from the buying of books, if he has the money that is demanded for them, unless it be to withstand the malice of the seller or to await a more favourable opportunity of buying.
So, um, disregard dearness of price (check), but beware the malice of sellers (check), await favourable opportunity of buying (check). Thanks Rick.
The other moral to this story it is in the subtitle above. If you try to charge a small fortune for a frankenbook, you get nothing, and the buyer gets the book (eventually) for a pittance. Or, what goes round (the world), comes round (the world—again)!
PS: This machine-stitched frankenbook has nothing on my beauty!
Friday, 1 February 2013
Home Decorating and Library interior design
There is a bit in Arlo Guthrie’s Vietnam-war-era, draft-dodging-spoken-word song, "Alice's Restaurant" which comes to mind almost every time I happen across an article about home decorating with books.
I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604." And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL."
So I can’t resist saying something about How to create a library in your home by Georgia Madden (“words” — i.e., written by), Jo Carmichael (styling) and Scott Hawkins (photography) on Homelife.com.au. This article on “Library interior design” doesn’t start well:
Few of us today have the luxury of a dedicated library. All too often, our beloved books are stacked in a corner or crammed onto overloaded shelves, creating messy hotspots that tend to be ignored. But when properly organised and neatly displayed, books can add a lived-in feel to your home, and give your guests insight into the real you.
Hmm … “messy hotspots”? And, really, in what world is it necessary to add a lived-in feel to your home?** Is it one in which you and your architect and stylist are so utterly devoid of character that your house always looks like a vacant hotel room or a blank interior space that builders have just departed from? Is this not an estate-agent’s trick to dress your manakin-house?
Of course not! Books can “give your guests insight into the real you”—the real you that you must carefully construct with the aid of a stylist and advice from Homelife.com.au. As Christian Lander explains in Stuff White People Like (2008):
white people need to show off the books that they have read. Just as hunters will mount the heads of their kills, white people need to let people know that they have made their way through hundreds or even thousands of books. After all, what’s the point of reading a book if people don’t know you’ve read it? It’s like a tree falling in the forest. As much as white people do not want you rifling through their medicine cabinet, they are desperate for you to examine their bookshelves.
This is #138 in his book, but if you are interested and like this sort of thing you will find blog entries online for #34 Architecture, #37 Renovations, #49 Vintage and #79 Modern Furniture which are all amazingly relevant.
Passing by the horror vacui which afflicts our imagined interior decorator for a moment (covering both physical and psychological emptiness), I should mention that if you follow the link to the word “library” in this article you will discover an image depicting all of 74 books scattered across four shelves and a table. (Gallery here.)
The coffee-table book on the, err, coffee table is open. If it stays like that for more than a few hours the book will be ruined. No matter, it is serving an important purpose, vide Lander:
But there are times when your visit to a white person’s house is not long enough for a full inspection of their bookshelves. How then can one gauge their taste? Simple, just look at the coffee table. You see, white people like to purchase very expensive, very large books that they can put on their coffee tables for other people to see and then use to make value judgments. If the coffee table book is about art, then the white person wants you to ask them about their trip to the Tate Modern. If it’s about photography, they want you to ask them about their new camera. If it’s about football or bikinis, you should politely ask to leave.
(The book is on interior design, so perhaps this white person wants you to make a value judgment about their taste in interior design and ask about their visit to Homelife.com.au. And NB again Lander’s #142 hardwood floors, only in the book).
Georgia Madden’s “words” of advice continue: a well-proportioned bookcase can store “a large quantity of books” (about 105 in the image above), lining a wall with bookshelves “will allow you to store a huge number of books” and “if you have an enormous amount of books, you may need to store them in several different spots”: A lot less than “large” is still, as we have seen, a library.
I could spend just as much time on the arrangement of books (we have Shakespeare’s works and To Kill a Mockingbird salted among volumes of Reader’s Digest condensed novels—good work Jo) but since one of the captions is “utilise bookends for visual appeal as well as practical” [sic] it does seem a little cruel to continue. As for the follow-up article How to make a faux bookshelf from old book spines, the less said the better.
**Someone recently stuck their head into my office to say a cheery hello, congratulating me on almost having finished unpacking (many staff members in our building had to move offices in January). Of course, I was one of the staff members who didn't move. I guess that makes my whole office a messy hotspot.
I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604." And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL."
So I can’t resist saying something about How to create a library in your home by Georgia Madden (“words” — i.e., written by), Jo Carmichael (styling) and Scott Hawkins (photography) on Homelife.com.au. This article on “Library interior design” doesn’t start well:
Few of us today have the luxury of a dedicated library. All too often, our beloved books are stacked in a corner or crammed onto overloaded shelves, creating messy hotspots that tend to be ignored. But when properly organised and neatly displayed, books can add a lived-in feel to your home, and give your guests insight into the real you.
Hmm … “messy hotspots”? And, really, in what world is it necessary to add a lived-in feel to your home?** Is it one in which you and your architect and stylist are so utterly devoid of character that your house always looks like a vacant hotel room or a blank interior space that builders have just departed from? Is this not an estate-agent’s trick to dress your manakin-house?
Of course not! Books can “give your guests insight into the real you”—the real you that you must carefully construct with the aid of a stylist and advice from Homelife.com.au. As Christian Lander explains in Stuff White People Like (2008):
white people need to show off the books that they have read. Just as hunters will mount the heads of their kills, white people need to let people know that they have made their way through hundreds or even thousands of books. After all, what’s the point of reading a book if people don’t know you’ve read it? It’s like a tree falling in the forest. As much as white people do not want you rifling through their medicine cabinet, they are desperate for you to examine their bookshelves.
This is #138 in his book, but if you are interested and like this sort of thing you will find blog entries online for #34 Architecture, #37 Renovations, #49 Vintage and #79 Modern Furniture which are all amazingly relevant.
Passing by the horror vacui which afflicts our imagined interior decorator for a moment (covering both physical and psychological emptiness), I should mention that if you follow the link to the word “library” in this article you will discover an image depicting all of 74 books scattered across four shelves and a table. (Gallery here.)
The coffee-table book on the, err, coffee table is open. If it stays like that for more than a few hours the book will be ruined. No matter, it is serving an important purpose, vide Lander:
But there are times when your visit to a white person’s house is not long enough for a full inspection of their bookshelves. How then can one gauge their taste? Simple, just look at the coffee table. You see, white people like to purchase very expensive, very large books that they can put on their coffee tables for other people to see and then use to make value judgments. If the coffee table book is about art, then the white person wants you to ask them about their trip to the Tate Modern. If it’s about photography, they want you to ask them about their new camera. If it’s about football or bikinis, you should politely ask to leave.
(The book is on interior design, so perhaps this white person wants you to make a value judgment about their taste in interior design and ask about their visit to Homelife.com.au. And NB again Lander’s #142 hardwood floors, only in the book).
Georgia Madden’s “words” of advice continue: a well-proportioned bookcase can store “a large quantity of books” (about 105 in the image above), lining a wall with bookshelves “will allow you to store a huge number of books” and “if you have an enormous amount of books, you may need to store them in several different spots”: A lot less than “large” is still, as we have seen, a library.
I could spend just as much time on the arrangement of books (we have Shakespeare’s works and To Kill a Mockingbird salted among volumes of Reader’s Digest condensed novels—good work Jo) but since one of the captions is “utilise bookends for visual appeal as well as practical” [sic] it does seem a little cruel to continue. As for the follow-up article How to make a faux bookshelf from old book spines, the less said the better.
**Someone recently stuck their head into my office to say a cheery hello, congratulating me on almost having finished unpacking (many staff members in our building had to move offices in January). Of course, I was one of the staff members who didn't move. I guess that makes my whole office a messy hotspot.
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
The Monk [aka Le moine] (2011)
When I was preparing my Dark Hero unit (here) in 2010 I went looking for film versions of the books I included, like Christopher Marlowe’s Faustus, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Matthew Lewis's The Monk (1796). I found a few versions of Faustus (I review one here) and The Monk, and lots of Wuthering Heights.
Unfortunately, none of the film versions of The Monk were available in 2010. The 1972 version directed by Ado Kyrou (Le Moine, aka The Monk) was issued on DVD in Spain in 2005 (here), but is "Currently unavailable" on Amazon. While the 1990 version directed by Francisco Lara Polop, The Monk, aka The Final Temptation or The Seduction of a Priest, is not on DVD at all. VHS tapes are “mega rarität” and expensive (see here for £46.25 and here for 36.99 Euros—in German).
Having another look now, I see that there are few vendors of the 1972 film on eBay, so I have just ordered one. According to "housefulofpaper" here, the 1972 film "was shown on UK terrestrial TV some time in the last ten years … whilst the 1990 version starring Paul McGann was on satellite TV (Rupert Murdoch's Sky) around 2005"—so it is surprising, and a bit disappointing, that neither are available on DVD-R from archival film services like Videoscreams.com.
Anyway, as soon as I discovered that a new film version of The Monk was available, I bought it (along with another film version of Wuthering Heights—the first to represent Heathcliffe as dark-skinned, as he is described in the book). I watched the film last week and loved it.
Dominik Moll is credited with the direction, screenplay, adaptation and dialogue. According to Rottentomatoes.com, reviews have been mixed, but average 5.6/10.
The Guardian: "this feverishly intense movie has a tablespoon of 1970s art-porn … not a story of great depth or passion, but there are intriguing and unsettling moments"; The Financial Times: a "super-fruity adaptation … a silly film—1970s soft-porny—but not without a certain ominousness."
I am not sure how a feverishly intense movie can not be a story of great depth or passion… and I didn’t get the 1970s "art-porn" or "soft-porny" vibe that Peter Bradshaw and Antonia Quirke detected. At all. And I have to admit to watching a lot of dodgy 70s films (including, I think, everything made in 1972), so I am a bit of an expert on the subject!
The Daily Mail is closer to the mark, but still exaggerates by describing it as "a lethally slow, stylistically confused tale … negligible character development means he fails to hold our interest." Better still, on the merits of the film, is the review of Matthew Turner for ViewLondon (here)
Vincent Cassel is perfectly cast and delivers a superb performance … Deborah Francois is equally good as Valerio (her intriguingly blank face is endlessly fascinating) and there's strong support from both Mouchet and Japy.
The film is strikingly shot, with gorgeous, sun-bleached photography by Patrick Blossier and some stunning location work, particularly in the dream like final act. Moll also makes strong use of the colour red and creates an intense, cloying atmosphere that's highly effective.
Many of the reviewers are unfamiliar with the book, and offer either misguided or absurd criticisms of the film. The most idiotic review has to be that of Henry Fitzherbert in The Daily Express: "a dull B-movie with ideas above its station."
Dominik Moll has simplified the story—as a film must—focussing on Ambrosio, and attempting to build sympathy for him. Moll does this by spending time on Ambrosio’s back-story (abandoned, raised as an orphan), his intelligence, his development into a skilled preacher, his suffering (blinding headaches) and his isolation in the monastery, his close friendship with the abbot of his order and grief over his death. Rather than being proud, austere and judgemental, Ambrosio is devout and sincere.
More importantly, Moll mitigates or removes Ambrosio’s responsibility for his "fall." When Valerio/Matilda sucks the poison from his wound, she rapes him—he is barely conscious at the time—and there is only the briefest montage to suggest that the sexual relationship continues. The audience does not see anything to suggest the extent of Ambrosio’s libidinous urges or that he takes an interest in Antonia only when he has tired of constant sex with Matilda. Ambrosio (and the audience) does not see any of Matilda’s dealings with infernal powers, eliding his indirect dealings with the devil. And the audience does not see how long he plots to abduct and rape Antonia.
Also, rather than murder Elvire, then abduct her grieving daughter (Antonia), rape her (while she is wide awake) in a crypt, and subsequently murder her to escape capture (as occurs in the book), Ambrosio rapes the sleeping Antonia, then murders her mother (Elvire) when she finds him. He is identified by Elvire as her son as he is stabbing her, and is paralysed with remorse and horror immediately afterward, allowing himself to be captured by Antonia’s fiancé. Finally, when Matilda and the devil confront Ambrosio in prison (and offer him a pact), he sacrifices his soul to restore Antonia to sanity and health, rather than (as occurs in the book) selling his soul to evade punishment.
Moll seems to think that, shorn of his pride, lust and violence, Ambrosio can be a sympathetic character. But to build sympathy for Ambrosio as a latter-day St Anthony tempted by the devil, we need to see more of the devil and his agent, more of Ambrosio’s temptation and fall into lust, and more of his descent from lust into every other species of sin if his "fall" is going to have any meaning.
There are a number of ways Moll could have done this: he makes nothing of the resemblance of Valerio/Matilda to Ambrosio’s beloved Virgin Mary (specifically her portrait, which he adores), and by hiding the face of Valerio/Matilda—and by eliding the growing companionship, friendship and open adoration of Valerio/Matilda—there is no chance for his/her disturbing beauty and emotional bond to begin the work of seduction.
(A low-brow comparison would be Zapp Brannigan, who becomes increasingly infatuated with "Leela Man" when Leela disguises herself as a man to join the military in Futurama (season 2, ep.17: War Is the H-Word). When the big reveal comes Zapp exclaims: "So it's you I've been attracted to! Oh, God, I've never been so happy to be beaten up by a woman!")
He also does not suggest how trapped Ambrosio is once his senses and his passions have woken.
What Moll does do—or rather, what Emmanuelle Prévost does, who deserves full credit for the casting—is make Ambrosio’s two female temptations (Deborah Francois as Valerio/Matilda and Josephine Japy as Antonia) gorgeous enough to truly test the celibacy of a saint (as Chris Tookey observes). Superb acting, fabulous costumes, sets, lighting and photography combine to accentuate the beauty of Japy, but the same could be said of a number of actors and the presentation of the film as a whole.
So, while the film is a little slow to get started, and it is a little confused in its presentation of Ambrosio, whose character does not "develop" (descend into debauchery as we might expect) it is not "soft-porny" or "stylistically confused"!
Unfortunately, none of the film versions of The Monk were available in 2010. The 1972 version directed by Ado Kyrou (Le Moine, aka The Monk) was issued on DVD in Spain in 2005 (here), but is "Currently unavailable" on Amazon. While the 1990 version directed by Francisco Lara Polop, The Monk, aka The Final Temptation or The Seduction of a Priest, is not on DVD at all. VHS tapes are “mega rarität” and expensive (see here for £46.25 and here for 36.99 Euros—in German).
Having another look now, I see that there are few vendors of the 1972 film on eBay, so I have just ordered one. According to "housefulofpaper" here, the 1972 film "was shown on UK terrestrial TV some time in the last ten years … whilst the 1990 version starring Paul McGann was on satellite TV (Rupert Murdoch's Sky) around 2005"—so it is surprising, and a bit disappointing, that neither are available on DVD-R from archival film services like Videoscreams.com.
Anyway, as soon as I discovered that a new film version of The Monk was available, I bought it (along with another film version of Wuthering Heights—the first to represent Heathcliffe as dark-skinned, as he is described in the book). I watched the film last week and loved it.
* * * * *
Dominik Moll is credited with the direction, screenplay, adaptation and dialogue. According to Rottentomatoes.com, reviews have been mixed, but average 5.6/10.
The Guardian: "this feverishly intense movie has a tablespoon of 1970s art-porn … not a story of great depth or passion, but there are intriguing and unsettling moments"; The Financial Times: a "super-fruity adaptation … a silly film—1970s soft-porny—but not without a certain ominousness."
I am not sure how a feverishly intense movie can not be a story of great depth or passion… and I didn’t get the 1970s "art-porn" or "soft-porny" vibe that Peter Bradshaw and Antonia Quirke detected. At all. And I have to admit to watching a lot of dodgy 70s films (including, I think, everything made in 1972), so I am a bit of an expert on the subject!
The Daily Mail is closer to the mark, but still exaggerates by describing it as "a lethally slow, stylistically confused tale … negligible character development means he fails to hold our interest." Better still, on the merits of the film, is the review of Matthew Turner for ViewLondon (here)
Vincent Cassel is perfectly cast and delivers a superb performance … Deborah Francois is equally good as Valerio (her intriguingly blank face is endlessly fascinating) and there's strong support from both Mouchet and Japy.
The film is strikingly shot, with gorgeous, sun-bleached photography by Patrick Blossier and some stunning location work, particularly in the dream like final act. Moll also makes strong use of the colour red and creates an intense, cloying atmosphere that's highly effective.
Many of the reviewers are unfamiliar with the book, and offer either misguided or absurd criticisms of the film. The most idiotic review has to be that of Henry Fitzherbert in The Daily Express: "a dull B-movie with ideas above its station."
* * * * *
Dominik Moll has simplified the story—as a film must—focussing on Ambrosio, and attempting to build sympathy for him. Moll does this by spending time on Ambrosio’s back-story (abandoned, raised as an orphan), his intelligence, his development into a skilled preacher, his suffering (blinding headaches) and his isolation in the monastery, his close friendship with the abbot of his order and grief over his death. Rather than being proud, austere and judgemental, Ambrosio is devout and sincere.
More importantly, Moll mitigates or removes Ambrosio’s responsibility for his "fall." When Valerio/Matilda sucks the poison from his wound, she rapes him—he is barely conscious at the time—and there is only the briefest montage to suggest that the sexual relationship continues. The audience does not see anything to suggest the extent of Ambrosio’s libidinous urges or that he takes an interest in Antonia only when he has tired of constant sex with Matilda. Ambrosio (and the audience) does not see any of Matilda’s dealings with infernal powers, eliding his indirect dealings with the devil. And the audience does not see how long he plots to abduct and rape Antonia.
Also, rather than murder Elvire, then abduct her grieving daughter (Antonia), rape her (while she is wide awake) in a crypt, and subsequently murder her to escape capture (as occurs in the book), Ambrosio rapes the sleeping Antonia, then murders her mother (Elvire) when she finds him. He is identified by Elvire as her son as he is stabbing her, and is paralysed with remorse and horror immediately afterward, allowing himself to be captured by Antonia’s fiancé. Finally, when Matilda and the devil confront Ambrosio in prison (and offer him a pact), he sacrifices his soul to restore Antonia to sanity and health, rather than (as occurs in the book) selling his soul to evade punishment.
Moll seems to think that, shorn of his pride, lust and violence, Ambrosio can be a sympathetic character. But to build sympathy for Ambrosio as a latter-day St Anthony tempted by the devil, we need to see more of the devil and his agent, more of Ambrosio’s temptation and fall into lust, and more of his descent from lust into every other species of sin if his "fall" is going to have any meaning.
There are a number of ways Moll could have done this: he makes nothing of the resemblance of Valerio/Matilda to Ambrosio’s beloved Virgin Mary (specifically her portrait, which he adores), and by hiding the face of Valerio/Matilda—and by eliding the growing companionship, friendship and open adoration of Valerio/Matilda—there is no chance for his/her disturbing beauty and emotional bond to begin the work of seduction.
(A low-brow comparison would be Zapp Brannigan, who becomes increasingly infatuated with "Leela Man" when Leela disguises herself as a man to join the military in Futurama (season 2, ep.17: War Is the H-Word). When the big reveal comes Zapp exclaims: "So it's you I've been attracted to! Oh, God, I've never been so happy to be beaten up by a woman!")
He also does not suggest how trapped Ambrosio is once his senses and his passions have woken.
What Moll does do—or rather, what Emmanuelle Prévost does, who deserves full credit for the casting—is make Ambrosio’s two female temptations (Deborah Francois as Valerio/Matilda and Josephine Japy as Antonia) gorgeous enough to truly test the celibacy of a saint (as Chris Tookey observes). Superb acting, fabulous costumes, sets, lighting and photography combine to accentuate the beauty of Japy, but the same could be said of a number of actors and the presentation of the film as a whole.
So, while the film is a little slow to get started, and it is a little confused in its presentation of Ambrosio, whose character does not "develop" (descend into debauchery as we might expect) it is not "soft-porny" or "stylistically confused"!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
