Even so, I was entirely unprepared for this:
No! NO! Not showing you any more. Go outside. Get some air. Walk to the shop. Talk to some real life people. Buy the movie. But I will say this: I think I understand now why Julian Sands says of Gabriel, "He's a king! He's the embodiment of heroic integrity with all the serious Celtic allure and sparkling wit to go with it. He's a marvelous creature!"
Oh, Julian. Methinks I detect a wee small little bit of a man-crush there.
Now it has to be said that Gabriel didn't really enter into the spirit of his bi-sexual love scene with quite the same gusto as, say, did Vincent D'Onofrio in "The Velocity Of Gary" but then again Gabriel's character, Lord Byron, was supposed to be in a dead faint at this point. I've watched this scene repeatedly in slow motion (what? WHAT?!) and I swear, Gabriel Byrne is trying not to laugh. Poor Julian Sands. NOT the accolade one expects from one's fellow thespians.
"Who dear, me dear? Gay dear? No dear. How VERY dare you!"
Now, look at the picture hanging behind Gabriel. what do you think happened to that painting of Gabriel as Byron, as put together by artist Paul Dufficey? What would you give for that, if it turned up on eBay?
So many people slag this film off and honestly, I don't understand why. Yes, I agree, it's blatant over-wrought melodrama - but isn't that the whole point? I mean, DUH, the title of the film is in fact ... "Gothic"! Does that not give you a clue as to its content?
Actually, if you are already acquainted with the stories behind the five main characters in the film, then the whole thing makes a great deal more sense. Especially the visions that Mary Shelley has at the ending, where she foresees herself writing a book, losing her husband in a boating accident, and watching his body being cremated on a beach -
(Though in fact Byron wasn't with her. He came over all bilious and had to retire elsewhere.) In that respect the film is a bit like a piece of fan-fiction - it supposes that the reader/viewer has an existing knowledge of the subject matter.
Oh, all right then. It was a very silly film. I laughed like a drain from Gabriel's very first appearance at the top of the stairs.
Can you blame me?
But therein lies the answer, I think; the film was not intrinsically terrible, it was simply MIS-CLASSIFIED. Go into any branch of Tower Records or HMV and see it there, nestling in amongst the other Horror Films. No, no no nononononono. It should be in the Comedy section! Gabriel's performance was easily comparable to Peter Sellers in "The Pink Panther" films - he too played the character completely straight from the hip.
Zere's a minky in ma rheum, I tell you. You fewl! A minky! In my RHEUM!
To his credit, Ken Russell manages to avoid too much gratuitous female nudity in the film. But we get lots of Julian Sands in the nuddy, which is ENTIRELY gratuitous.
And then we get ... Gabriel. Did he piss his director off, or something?
I can imagine the Irishman saying something unguarded and being overheard by Russell. Who promptly turned round and ripped up the costume sheet for the final scene, saying,, "Right, mush! Just for that - shirts OFF for this one!"
"Feck. 'Shirts off'? At moy age? Feck. Feckfeckfeckedeefeck!"
Oh yes, I can see it in my mind's eye. Gabriel has been in training for this part. He's been working out hard, trying to achieve the physique of a 19th Century romantic poet. As such, he's been sitting about the place for some time now, drinking red wine and eating spaghetti, tinkling away on the ol' harpsichord, reading lots of books, writing journal entries. That kind of thing.
Actor Gabriel Byrne pictured hard at work, in training for the role of Lord Byron.
But he's just not quite there yet. His worst nightmare is coming true.
Shirts off? I am so, so doomed now. Me and moi big gob.
And so we get the utterly daft final sequence where Lord Byron, a man of very evident wealth and prosperity, who lives in a most well-appointed mansion on the banks of a Swiss lake, is reduced to peeling off his own shirt, wrapping it round a stick and setting light to it in order to shed some light on the muddy crypt where they are about to try and reverse the curse that is plaguing his lover.
BYRNE: Awl roight, Oi'll byrne me feckin' shoirt. But what's me motivAAAAYshun fer this scene, eh?
For some reason these pictures makes me think of the Greek god Hephaestus - blacksmith to the Gods on Mount Olympus. Byron had a deformed right foot - a physical element of the story that Gabriel portrayed very cleverly, I thought. Hephaestos was also lame.
And then I lost the plot at this point, rather; there's lots of shouting and rolling about in the mud and stuff, and a skull, and some incantAAAAAAAAAYshun (which, incidentally, I think might actually be Gabriel reciting some poetry in Irish.)
But seriously. What a terrible waste of a white shirt! (Regular readers will attest to my utter defenselessness when presented with a photograph of Gabriel Byrne in a white shirt.) It's just criminal, no matter how much mud he subsequently gets smeared all over his torso.
WHITE SHIRT ALERT!
Modesty forbids the author from making a comment about the angle of this photograph. Suffice to say that if you can guess what she's thinking then you need to go wash your brain out with soap.
Gabriel's beautiful natural pallor and wealth of dark curly hair made him perfect for the role of Byron, in my humble opinion. He was supposed to be vampiric. He saved the makeup department a veritable fortune. I'm actually quite surprised to read that it was Julian Sands who was considered for the role of Lestat it "Interview With The Vampire".
Vampoire fillum? No, tankyou. Oi'll go make "Little Women" and "The Usual Suspects" that year, instead.
This was the late Natasha Richardson's very first film. And much as I like Julian Sands, and Timothy Spall (who was fantastic), I have to say that it is pretty evident right from the very beginning which two actors were going to go on to greater and better things ...
