Directed By: Laurence Dunmore
Written By: Stephen Jeffreys
Starring: Johnny Depp, Samantha Morton, John Malkovich
In The Libertine, first-time director Laurence Dunmore created an almost pornographic look at 17th century England and one of its main poets: John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester. It is a story of debauchery, drunkenness, and aspirations. It is over the top, excessive, and after a certain point, unnecessarily filled with crude images and uninteresting information.
In reality, Wilmot was a primarily satirical writer, though The Libertine portrays him as a sexaholic who wrote obscene poems and plays. The movie stays true to some parts of his life: it is assumed that Rochester died of syphilis, it is known that the actress Elizabeth Barry was his lover, and many anecdotes told in the movie are common within small biographies of him. Like many biopics, liberties are taken in an effort to make the film more interesting. The Libertine feels exaggerated, and Johnny Depp’s acting furthers that.
While this movie is officially rated R, it watches at a more extreme level. This is not for the mainstream, the young, nor the sexually uptight. It is borderline pornography, and Dunmore emphasizes that aspect of the Earl’s work instead of the satire. Orgies, flaunting women, phallic and sexual plays all appear at least once in the movie, and some several times. While Rochester’s body of work provides that background for an intelligent, satirical movie, the possible “smart” movie is lost within vulgarity.
The cinematography of The Libertine is fairly nauseating. Expect some of the scenes to cause dizziness as the focus shifts from the front to back of a shot multiple times. Shaky shots abound, making it difficult to focus on the content of the movie at certain points. Alexander Melman, the cinematographer, is a still a rookie, and it shows throughout the entire two and a half hours.
Yet Stephen Jeffreys, who wrote the play first and then the movie script, is talented. It is his script that is the saving grace of The Libertine. It is rich with intelligent lines, moving thoughts, and complex characters. Gems of dialogue are dropped effortlessly, and grand thoughts are fairly common. The greatest achievement of The Libertine is that the Earl of Rochester’s dialogue feels as if a great poet would actually speak that way.
There are moments when The Libertine is beautiful and touching; yet these moments are often overshadowed by virtually pornographic nature and style of cinematography. Depp has played this character before as Captain Jack Sparrow, albeit a bit less cynically, and the story is such that the audience cannot walk away from the theatre happy, even if the execution of it was without flaw. An intelligent script is a rare occurrence, and it goes far towards improving this film, but it does not go quite far enough.
Cari Kilbride is currently a student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn studying writing and living the New York City lifestyle. She lives and breathes anime and manga, though also finds time for movies, books, comics, and the occasional piece of homework. A Florida native, she almost constantly pines for the beach.