The Libertine
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Movie Reviews of The Libertine
Movie Review: Well, Lord Rochester,
Summary: 5 Stars
I do NOT like you. I did not like you at all during this film, and firmly believe that the way you lived your life and the things that you did to other people, the games that were played with others emotions, and your handling of your personal affairs, all of this lead directly to your personal downfall. but you already knew that didn't you, and therefore tried to redeem yourself by the end of your life. What many people don't realize is that you get exactally what you have coming to you in the long run.
I would also like you to remember, Lord Rochester, that your legitimate child deserved a father while you were living. Your wife loved you unconditionally during all the good and bad times that you put her through. And throughout your life you had many mistresses, which she knew about, but she stayed true to her love and your love and tried to make herself better and work on things between the two of you so that her life would be better.
But you didn't care for her enough to let her go, and you allowed your pride to waste over a decade of both your lives while you sunk deeper and deeper into depression and "found yourself" and took a mistress. And your mistress, Lord Rochester, gave you what you deserved. She used you the way you used so many other women in your life, to gain influence and a better life, and threw you away without a second thought.
How did that feel? Did it hurt? Did you realize what you made your favorite whore feel, poor Jane, when you walked away from her and rejected her love so many times? Did you understand the pain that others felt toward you? Did you think that being with your mistress would dull all the years that you threw away?
Or, did you think your speech for the King would redeem you in the afterlife enough to escape the pits of hell?
No, Lord rochester, I did not like you. I did not empathise with you. And I did not pity you.
You got what you deserved.
Movie Review: Let the Libertine Cast its Spell
Summary: 5 Stars
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."
Movie Review: Beautiful movie about pain and decay
Summary: 5 Stars
When I read the reviews for this movie, almost all of them lined up to state that the whole movie is Johnny Depp dying of syphilis. He's a little witty, sure, but then he gets syphilis and man does the pretty fade fase. So it's the Johnny Depp with Syphilis movie.
When I borrowed it from my library, I discovered that I loved it. Depp is a 17th century poet who is part of King Charles II's court but an annoying part - the part of the court that Charles would just assume kill as make into the Shakespeare of Restoration. Call it Restoration without the main character becoming a Puritan and saving his baby from the Fire of London.
Depp's Lord Rochester is a talented poet with a bigger talent for sex and shenanigans. His life is a party and he's enjoying it to the fullest. He has a wife with whom he recites fond stories of kidnapping her. He gets involved with Samantha Morton's actress and trains her how to act while falling in love with her. Eventually he has to flee London but it doesn't help him. When he returns his body is wracked with diseases and his nose is falling off.
That is a terrible way of describing the movie. The storyline is one thing as it discusses the limits of what you can do when you have a lifestyle that cannot support your health and well being. His venom spewed attempts at reconciliation and redemption toward the end are sad because he has become a man who needs people long after those people even wanted him around.
The best part of the movie is the set - both elegant and dirty. It shows the beauty of the 17th century without shying away from its ugliness. Completely enthralling movie. HIghly recommended.
Movie Review: Nothing Less, Nothing More, let it be a WORK OF ART.
Summary: 5 Stars
I had the honor in seeing this film by accident when it was first released, not that that's important but this small accident lead me to the libertine and one of Johnny Dep's phenomenal acing parts. Let alone John Malkovich, Samantha Morton, and Alcock played by Richard Coyle"" The dark hummer is un-doubtfully some that will make you wet your self. Other Reviewers either love it or hate it and some go as far to say it's to dark and perverse "please" In the beginning there is a huge blinking neon sign "Johnny's characters monolog" Saying: YOU WILL NOT LIKE ME!!! He basically sets the stage and if you whinny critics and closed minded Cunnys can't see this from this monologue then rent a film that's more on your intellectual level! ""Maybe' Bring it On Again ` is more your IQ echelon""
Excuse the tangent, but it is what it is, a period piece about the Earl of Rodchester, about a most masterful man at words, Theater, Wine, paying for company of the Women, STDs, Love Lust Homosexuality loss, Catholics and Protestants, an actress fighting her way to the top , the battle of will, pride, lust addiction, Drink addiction, Ego addiction, a man so beyond perverse that his servants' name Is Alcock AND don't forget the Monkey!!!
All this must be contained, followed, thus told, and it is by this cast, and with one of the most brilliant performances of his life J. Dep holds this movie and your attention with a script most beautifully written in his words and expressions and delivers what I fell is nothing less, then a masterpiece.
Jacob
Movie Review: I did like the Earl
Summary: 5 Stars
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.