Directed by Bill Condon
Showing at the 46th Sydney Film Festival
Hmmm...I liked this film a lot, but something was lacking, some part of my brain that was not
massaged, a little bastard problem that is never pleased by wonderful performances and an
excellent script. What? McKellen is wonderful, all queer delight and wickedness tempered by a
genuine sense of loss and despair. We do not get coherent flashbacks immaculately styled by
the eager director. Rather we experience the fragments of memory and desire so close to the
experience of passing away into that other world of very dark light with few creature comforts
but a german nanny and Fraser as a support not worth the effort but prose-wise mirroring the
inevitable disintegration. It's not contempt sonny boy. He still hasn?t convinced me that
Brendan. Still, if you want ever so thick then Fraser's yer man. But so is Sasha Mitchell. Who?
Exactly. And I loved Encino Man. Masterpieces written in a private language. I empathise, I
really do. As a member of the crowd asked before the film began, will I need tissues for this?
Not really a yes or no thing. Maybe? Respectable, solid biography. Nasty twists that we all
kinda suspected.
What can you write about a film like this? Plot description is good. Let me blubber about the acting. Searing expose? Affectionate tribute to a time long past? This film was designed for Oscar consumption, for a sustained run at the Paddington Box Office. Stately and sombre, a few laughs and a few cries and just maybe a few beers. I think about it and it seems quite well made and intelligent...but as Elvis says at the beginning of Milk Cow Blues: "That don't move me ... Let's get real real gone." Indeed.
Adam Rivett
comments? email the author
How did you get access to Whale's original set-designs?
Where did the idea for the film come from?
Which parts of the film were fictional?
How did you get Ian McKellan?
I heard on Radio National that you rejected the original music score. Why was that?
What bits were left out of the film?
toto cinema matters return to Sydney Film Festival 1999 index
14/6/99 State Theatre
46th Sydney Film Festival
Australian Premiere of Gods and Monsters
Question & Answer time with director Bill Condon
I had a friend at Universial who gave us the rights to use the original designs from Frankenstein, which later got him into a lot of trouble, because the studio decided this information was still a valuable property right. Anyhow, the sets were rebuilt on a smaller stage, which happened to be same stage as where Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? was made.
The film is based on the book by Christopher Bram, who was originally contracted by the BBC to make a documentary about James Whale. The doco was canned when they found out there was no existing footage of Whale. But having done a lot of research, Bram asked for permission to use the material for a book - which became Gods and Monsters.
Both Hannah (the nanny) and Clay Boone (the lawnsman) were creations of the writer, Chris Bram, but everything about Whale is faithful. Its always hard to bring a famous figure to life in a movie, and we thought creating the Clay Boone character and his relationship with Whale was the best way to bring out Whale's personality. We thought it would be interesting if he was given a chance to create a second monster, a parallel to Frankenstein. And he actually had two servants in real life, so Hannah was a composite of both of them.
I had Ian in mind from the beginning of the project, especially after seeing Richard III. I knew the movie [Gods and Monsters] would live or die according to whether the lead actor could invite you into his head. So I sent the script to Ian, then we met in California and discussed it. Ian had recently decided he wanted to become a major force in cinema, because he isn't anywhere as nearly well known in film as he is in the theatre. Anyhow he liked the script, except he had just agreed to be in Apt Pupil where he plays a 60-something year old, and he was worried about playing another elderly character for fear that people would typecast him at death's door. But he thought Whale was "rather dishy" and he liked the gay themes so he agreed to do it anyway.
I was quite pleased with the original score, except for one wartime scene where the music was very percussive and agitated... We approached the composer Burnett to alter that part of it, but he gently made it clear that it was a take it or leave it situation, so we agreed to use a different score.
There were some flashbacks of the horrific factory where Whales was forced to work as a teenager, but they had to be cut from the shooting script because of budget constraints. The idea was to make the plant machinery suggestive of Frankenstein's monster lab, so as to hint that the two years Whales spent in that hellhole influenced his horror creations. And there was another scene at the beginning at the movie, just after Whale is released from hospital, where Hannah drives him to a cinema where his old beau Peter is having an opening night, and Whale walks up the red carpet, inducing another flashback. It was a beautiful scene but it didn't add much to the plot.
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What's our favourite film of the festival so far? The Shoe