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August? Where did you go? Come on this isn't funny!
Did you know we've shot nearly 100 hours of tape for the making of The Libertine? It didn't sound like that much to me when we started editing. But it is. Joes Girlfriend, Heather, came over and spent a few weeks in august just helping us log and capture some of the footage we need to use...That basically entails going through hours and hours of tape until finding the 30 second clip we wanted and capturing it to disc for us.
(Joe and Heather went to see the new Eddie Izzard workshop)
She saved us a lot of time. Thanks Heather. It is shaping up to be a cool little 'making of'. There's a lot of comedy coming out of it too (that doesn't surprise me though. Being on set of the Libertine was like being back at band camp...Ok I never went to band camp...But I bet those would've been fun times right? Oh the laughter of band camp 1984 would've been off the Richter-scale I tell you).
I should get back to work. As well as editing, we've been writing some
music that we're going to use a sound track...and we'll have time to put
that in when exactly?
Contents
1 A Christian Upbringing (1647-1655)
2 A Classical Education (1656-1659)
3 Growing Debauched at Oxford (1660-1661)
4 The Grand Tour (1662-1664)
5 Campaigns and Engagements (1665)
6 Pursuits and Conquests (1666)
7 Man's Estate (1667)
8 The King's Pimp (1668-1669)
9 Love Raised to Extremes (1669-1670)
10 The Quintessence of Debauchery (1671)
11 Sallies in the Country (1671-1672)
12 Sodom (1673)
13 New Scenes of Foppery (January-June 1674)
14 Dog Days and Masques (July-December 1674)
15 Reversals and Recognitions (1675)
16 Livy and Sickness (January-April 1676)
17 Flights and Disguises (May-December 1676)
18 Sessions Poetical and Political (1677)
19 Scurvy Alarums (1678)
20 Extremity: on All Sides (1678-1679)
21 An End of Communion (1679-1680)
22 Sapience Angelical (May-July 1680)
20 b/w illustrations
320 pages
Size: 9 x 6 in
ISBN: 1580461700
Binding: Hardback
Publication date: 01/Nov/2004
Price: 34.95 USD / 25.00 GBP
Imprint: University of Rochester Press
"In 1996, the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Group performed The Libertine by Stephen Jeffreys, a play that so fascinated its lead actor, John Malkovich, that he became determined to bring the story to the big screen. It was to be nearly a decade before he succeeded in producing The Libertine and, in the meantime, he gave his original role – that of the scandalously decadent John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester – to the charismatic Johnny Depp. It is an inspired choice; Depp’s portrayal adroitly combines an unabashed lust for life and sheer drunken hedonism with a deep sense of sorrow, loss and regret.
In fact, the profound sense of internal conflict and wistfulness that Depp brings to his best roles is strongly mirrored in Laurence Dunmore’s vision for the film. The director uses low-level candlelight to give the film both a period feel and a dark, brooding atmosphere. His debauched society borders on the bloated and coarse and London has never looked so simultaneously filthy and glamorous.
The Libertine follows the Earl’s adventures in London, from his passionate romance with a young actress, Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton), to the writing of a scurrilous and scandalous play – which resulted in his banishment for lampooning the monarch, Charles II (Malkovich, in a particularly menacing and effective performance.) We follow the Earl’s inexorable downward spiral as he drinks himself to death – aided greatly by a raging case of syphilis.
Dunmore allows Rochester’s rapier-sharp maxims to drive straight to
the heart of hypocritical bourgeois respectability. The Earl is not particularly
likeable and is a figure of both our contempt and envy, yet it is the very
complexity of his character that allows Depp to move beyond proto-rock
star swaggering and endear himself to us. His outward brilliance conceals
a deep melancholic understanding that he is an earthy man living in an
age devoted to enlightenment. This irony is reflected in the film’s blend
of sophisticated scripting and sheer delight in the Earl’s depravity, making
The Libertine an irresistible mixture of wit, vulgarity, romance and tragedy."
MANX movie The Libertine will receive its world premiere at the prestigious
Toronto Film Festival this month.
The period drama, which stars Johnny Depp and John Malkovich, was shot
here earlier this year when Isle of Man Film stepped in to save the project
after the UK Government's closure of a tax loophole plunged the £13
million production into jeopardy.
The move raised the Island's international profile in the movie world
and The Libertine will line up alongside 100 films to be give
The period drama, which stars Johnny Depp and John Malkovich, was shot here earlier this year when Isle of Man Film stepped in to save the project after the UK Government's closure of a tax loophole plunged the £13 million production into jeopardy.
The move raised the Island's international profile in the movie world and The Libertine will line up alongside 100 films to be given their premieres at the festival which runs from September 9 to September 18.
Full story in today's Isle of Man Examiner, out this afternoon.
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Back in February Arran and I were doing some storyboards for a cool movie called The Libertine. A couple weeks into it we made a pitch to the director and the producer to shoot a documentary about the making of the libertine, and they went for it! Since then we've been on location shooting hours and hours of tape and meeting the most amazing professionals in the business. The cast are all wonderful people on and off camera. And the crew is one of the best we've worked with (and partied with). They wrapped yesterday and we just got back from the Isle Of Man to start our editing and documenting the post production end of things (we flew our friend Joe over to help us edit...Because he rules). The reason why we didn't say anything before was because we weren't allowed to say anything. But now we're back in london and some new doors are opening for the Brownlee brothers. we'll let you know more when there is more.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
We've been editing maniacs these days. I don't know what we would've done without Joe Howes. We'd still be staring at the 80 hours worth of tape saying "Um...Where do you think that shot of Johnny in the rain is?". Things are running super smooth like.
Friday, July 23, 2004
We did get to see a screening of the 'almost-locked' cut of The Libertine. It's a cool movie. Thank you Laurence John and Russ for inviting us!
Monday, August 09, 2004
Joe's back and we're spending august editing the rest our film.We went to angel studios where they're recording the soundtrack to the Libertine to shoot Michael Nyman doing what he's best at.
James:
I went to a preview of this film last night and it certainly looks
to be an 18 to me, for both sexual content and language. I can also
confirm that Johnny Depp has no nude scenes in the film. I
did enjoy it, but I think it needs quite a lot of editing before release.
The first half hour or so was quite confusing and it didn't feel like the
story actually started until about half an hour in. After that it was very
good, the acting was excellent all round and it looked very accomplished
as a film.
(answering questions from here on)
I can't really remember there being a 'gay scene', I remember a kiss
between Johnny Depp and another male character, but that's about it.
It wasn't a french kiss. I don't remember whether it was on the cheek or
the lips - it wasn't something I was looking for! The sex scenes
in the film are mostly comprised of extras and didn't really seem to fit
in with the rest of the film and were overly explicit when they didn't
really need to be - it just seemed out of context with the rest of the
content of the film.
The camera work wasn't distracting at all, I didn't realise it was all shot hand-held until you mentioned it. We had to fill in a questionnaire at the end of the film - my response was basically that I liked it, but the first half hour was confusing and the ending was a little drawn out, but other than that it was very good. It was 2 hours 15 minutes or there abouts.
also from Kitty220
She checked with the Film Distributers Association and they reported
the release date would be Oct 22, 2004 in the UK.
Johnny Depp rests from his louche labors as the Earl of Rochester. In this c. 1665 painting of the Earl himself, the Earl is mischievously removing the laureate’s crown from a monkey – a symbol of his rival, the poet John Dryden.
Dangerous Liaisons
When he began to deteriorate, Rochester was widely thought to be both
mad and drinking himself to death, but his symptoms – blindness, early
arthritis, muscle damage, hallucinations – were probably syphilis.
He was mad, bad and dangerous to know – several people involved in his
brawls got killed, and he was a suspect when John Dryden was nearly bludgeoned
to death. He once duped Charles II into turning up at a brothel in
disguise, and left him, with no money and no identification, at the mercy
of the madam. He defamed Charles’ mistresses, and – in print- teased
the King for impotence. Yet Voltaire dubbed Rochester ‘a man of genius.’
Four words make most women go weak at the knees. Unfortunately for most men, those words are Colin Firth and Johnny Depp. Firth has made bosoms heave at many a Trust property, but until now Mr. Depp has been conspicuous by his failure to rip bodices on our turf. He has finally put things right with the lead role in his forthcoming film, The Libertine.
The libertine of the title refers to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, a leading member of the ‘Merry Gang’ at the court of Charles II. The gang in question took fornication, drinking, gambling and general depravity to heights that have rarely been reached at any other time, and no woman was safe when they were around. Invariably pardoned, gang members were not above robbery with violence, and some went so far as to commit murder.
A waspish satirist and poet, he was one of only two couriers who could drag Charless II out of his depressions. Yet Rochester’s cutting way with words saw him banned from court on a regular basis – something he took in pretty good part, passing the time in further relentless wenching, drinking and the penning of no-holds-barred pornography.
Johnny Depp is transferring Rochester’s unbridled lust for life on to the screen this autumn with the help of actor and producer John Malkovich, who has played the part on stage.
The hunt was on for seventeenth-century England. Hardwick Hall, the first choice, has too many delicate and unique furnishings. In the end, Montacute in Somerset got the makeover, complete with saucy statues and a small dam so that Johnny can save the peasants - who look suspiciously like Trust gardening staff - from drowning when it bursts.
To simulate a London street, riggers also built a huge set across the staff car-park at Charlecote, with the house in the background completing the vista. Charlecote's tackroom was also used as a shop and the brew-house as a seventeenth-century jacuzzi. (There's a rumour Johnny's bathwater was bottled for posterity.)
Rochester took the 'die early with a good-looking corpse' route, expiring from booze, syphilis and general self-abuse at the age of 33. Clearly hedging his bets, he converted to Christianity shortly before his death.
Rochester believed in the new-fangled, Hobbesian idea that only the
present existed. It was perfectly all right - in fact, imperative
- to get the most out of every moment. Brilliant, charming and bisexual
- with a wit that won many hearts - if the reports from staff on set are
right, Rochester certainly did just that.
A visitor's guide to rakes and libertines.
Montacute (above-left) was once valued at 4,882 Pounds, 'for scrap.'
The beautiful H-plan Somerset house was probably designed by William Arnold,
the architect of Wadham College, Oxford. As Wadham happens to have
been Rochester's college that may have affected the producer's choice of
loaction for The Libertine, where it became Adderbury, Rochster's
country seat. The Crimson Bedroom was used bot for a love scene and
for Rochester's death; the landscaped park is the centre of a scene where
Rochester saves a boy from drowning.
Charlecote
in Warwickshire, used for the soon-to-be-famous 'Johnny in the bath' scene,
was once home to Catherine Lucy, a gambler who had a clandestine marriage
with Charles II's bastard son George Fitzroy. Many a Trust house
has been home to a notorious real rake, and here's a quick guide...
Bibside, Northumberlnad
Andrew Robinson Stoney was a model for Thackeray's anti-hero Barry
Lyndon. The Irish adventurer married Mary Eleanor Bowes, widowed
Countess of Strathmore and mistress of Gibside, in 1776. 'His speech
was soft, his wit ready,' but Stoney's only interest was in Mary's money.
(It turned out he was already married). When he found that his new
wife's fortune was tied up in an 'Ante-Nuptial Trust,' he became violent
and Mary was forced to flee. When she sued for divorce, he abducted
her at gunpoint. He was finally arrested, brought to trial and imprisoned.
So notorious was he that he gave rise to the phrase 'stony broke.'
Cliveden, Buckinghamsire
One of Rochester's chief companions in debauchery was George Villiers,
Duke of Buckingham,
'the most depraved and extravagant rake in Europe.' Samuel Pepys
records in his diary the tale of a duel fought over Anna Brudenell, Countess
of Shrewsbury, 'who...hat for a great while been a whore to the Duke of
Buckingham.' In the duel with her husband, Lord Shrewsbury, Buckingham
ignored etiquette by running him through the body. Anna, dressed
as a pageboy, held his horse for him and watched. It was for his
mistress that Buckingham began building at Cliveden.
Ickworth, Suffolk
John, Lord Hervey, was a favourite of Queen Caroline and King George
II. Bisexual, he was as much a fop as a rake, scourged by Pope as
a 'painted child of dirt that stinks and stings.' His most notorious
affair was with the young lady-in-waiting Anne Vane. Hervey, trying
to reconcile George and Caroline with their estranged son, Frederick, encouraged
Frederick's interest in Anne, hoping to gain his favour. But Frederick
took the lovely Anne as his own, and Hervey was obliged to retire to his
country seat at Ickworth. Amid all the scheming, however, there seems
to have been real feeling: Anne kept up her affair with Hervey, meeting
him in conditions of secrecy and great risk.
The Libertine Wallpaper 
From Elizabeth Jordanand 1400 X 1050 HERE
Rochester and the Monkey
Click ot see full-size
Portrait of the Earl of Rochester
John Wilmot aka Johnny to his friends
click to see full size
Learn more about Johnny Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester HERE
Really found this article about John Wilmot's life at Blithe House Quarterly
In this piece, Amy Farmer discusses Rochster's sexual life, and her closing paragraph sums up her opinion:
"Rochester's poems participate in the libertine ethic of bisexuality so prevalent during the Restoration. Being part of the court culture not only gave Rochester his infamous reputation but also access to the aristocratic privilege of sexual liberty and experimentation. His poetic persona explores all the available avenues of sexual activity open to men of his class in the Restoration."
From Emma
The UK release date has been brought up to October 29, 2004 - this is the same date as Finding Neverland's release in the UK.
New photo found by Elizabeth
Someone emailed me this new picture - I have no idea where it is from.
From the Film Distributor's Association
Libertine is scheduled for release in the UK Friday November 26, 2004
From Nitro-Movies
Historical romp with the Deppmeister playing the Earl of Rochester, famed for drinking and whoring, and Mr Malkovich donning the wig of King Charles II (he also produces, and was set to direct at one point). Based on a play which in turn is based on a true story, the first time film director (previously an ads and promos guy) has decided to shoot the whole thing with hand held cameras.
Article thanks to Emma, Photos thanks to JohnnyLubberFEAR AND LOATHING AT THE COURT OF KING CHARLES
click thumbnail for full size photo
The debaunched Earl of Rochester was a 17th-century poet and essayist. But the way he is portrayed in The Libertine makes it a role that could have been written for either of the film’s two stars, John Malkovich and Johnny Depp, say Max Lavant, in fact, in the case of the former, it probably was.Samuel Johnson’s epitaph for John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, is a classic. Delivering the required stinging rebuke for Rochester’s scandalous life, the good Doctor manages to wax so eloquent about the level of Rochester’s debauchery that you can’t help but like the man.
“In a course of drunken gaiety and gross sensuality,” wrote Johnson, “with an avowed contempt of decency and order, a total disregard to every moral, and a resolute denial of every religious observation, he lived worthless and useless, and blazed out his youth and health in lavish voluptuousness.”
That last phrase, with its implication of ‘live fast, die young’, could come from an obituary of Jimi Hendrix or Keith Moon: how could anyone resist such a character? Certainly not John Malkovich who, in February 1996, returned to Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre to star in a new play by Stephen Jeffreys.
The play was called The Libertine, and its production marked something of a departure for Steppenwolf - a Windy City institution founded in 1974 by a group of idealistic young actors, among them Gary Sinise. The new production was a period piece without any of the obvious realistic trappings which had become the company’s trademark. But it contained a perfect part for Malkovich - a man with the same kind of moral ambiguity that characterised one of the actor’s most memorable roles: that of the Vicomte de Valmont in the Oscar-winning 1988 movie Dangerous Liaisons.
“The play is about the 17th century, Restoration-era Earl of Rochester (Malkovich) drinking himself to death,” wrote USA Today’s David Patrick Stearns of that original production. “It could’ve been an exercise in loutishness, or Leaving Las Vegas in period wigs. But Malkovich’s veneer of cultivation drives home the paradoxes of a man who was Christian and atheist, poet and pornographer. Periodically he addresses the audience, daring us to like him. Thanks to his perverse charisma, we do.”
In the intervening years, the play has continued to fascinate Malkovich, who was all set to star in a movie version shortly after his stage performance. It was to be one of two films which he would also direct because they were both, he said at the time (the time being the 1996 Cannes Film Festival), “things I could happily spend two years of my life on”. In the end, though, it would be five years before he would direct the first of the two projects, The Dancer Upstairs, and two more before production started on the screen version of The Libertine.
It doesn’t often happen in the movie business that delayed projects mature with age. But that definitely seems to have been the case with The Libertine, which finally began filming eight years after the original Steppenwolf production. And, although Malkovich stars in the film, it is no longer as the Earl of Rochester. He plays Rochester’s patron Charles II, who ended up banishing the profligate aristocrat from his court after the latter published a scurrilous lampoon about him. Malkovich also produces the film through Mr Mudd, the production company he runs with Lianne Halfon and Russ Smith. But the part of Rochester is played by an actor whose whole career could almost be seen as a long, slow preparation for the role: Johnny Depp.
Fresh from the success (and multiple nominations) of last year’s Pirates of the Caribbean, Depp is a lot closer than Malkovich to Rochester’s age (although at 41, he has already survived eight years longer than the aristocrat did). And he combines the ability to make us like someone who could otherwise be a highly unsympathetic character (much as he did with Hunter S Thompson in Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) with a sense of the irresistible charm which enabled Rochester to get away with all the things he got away with.
The real-life Rochester was born in 1647, the son of a notorious rake, poet, soldier and courtier whose loyalty to the King during his exile brought him the title. His father died in exile, but the young John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, returned to England when the monarchy was restored in 1660, already showing signs of precocious genius. He was admitted to Wadham College, Oxford, at the age of 12, graduating two years later. He set off on the obligatory Grand Tour of France and Italy, and also made a brief foray into a career as a naval officer, in the course of which he achieved heroic things fighting against the Dutch.
By the time he returned to England, the Restoration was in full flower, and the general atmosphere of sexual permissiveness and anything-goes liberalism (provided, that is, you were an aristocrat) suited him perfectly. Those years in London were like the ‘swinging sixties’ some 300 years before their time, and Rochester took full advantage of them.
After trying to elope with a beautiful heiress called Elizabeth Malet at the age of 18, Rochester finally married her two years later, setting her up in a country house near Oxford. He then escaped to London, taking full advantage of all that the city had to offer in terms of sex, drink and the 17th-century equivalent of rock ‘n’ roll: the theatre.
Rochester then became fascinated with a young actress called Elizabeth Barry, whom he had just seen booed off the stage in an indifferent production. Betting that he could make her the toast of London, he did just that within months: no less an authority than Thomas Dryden, who had seen her in many of the 100 roles she allegedly played on the London stage, described the young actress as “always excellent”. The Earl; also, perhaps inevitably, made Barry his mistress.
By then, however, his troubles were beginning to outweigh his successes. Banished from the court for lampooning the King, Rochester devoted his time to a series of scurrilous poems, songs and satires, among whose admirers was that mainstay of the French philosophe movement in the next century, Voltaire. Rochester also professed himself to be an atheist but, dying of syphilis at the age of 33, famously renounced this on his deathbed.
Malkovich set up Mr Mudd in 1998 with Smith and Halfon, whom he had originally met when they mounted a stage production of Don DeLillo’s novel, Libra. Since then, the company has been responsible for - in addition to The Dancer Upstairs - the Oscar-nominated Ghost World and the Sundance award-winning documentary, How to Draw a Bunny.
To produce The Libertine, Mr Mudd teamed up with sales agent Odyssey Entertainment, UK fund First Choice and Isle of Man Film, a private company set up to promote film-making in a place where no one would ever have expected to see it. The island - where the studio shoot of The Libertine took place - is a small, verdant rock in the Irish Sea, midway between Liverpool and Dublin. And, thanks to a series of tax incentives and equity investments, it has, in the seven short years since hit comedy Waking Ned launched it as a haven for film-makers, seen around 70 features shoot there.
Immediately before starting work on The Libertine, Malkovich had been on the Isle of Man making Colour Me Kubrick. And, when one of the UK government’s periodic adjustments of the tax laws briefly looked to threaten production on the new movie, he took advantage of a dinner invitation to sort things out. Sitting next to him (it would be nice to say ‘by chance’, but I suspect that this was not the case) was Steve Christian, chief executive of Isle of Man Film. Malkovich explained his dilemma and, within a few days, rules had been tweaked and The Libertine was back in pre-production.
Filming began on March 3, with Depp joined by Samantha Morton - one of Britain’s fastest rising young actresses since her appearances in Minority Report and In America - as Elizabeth Barry. Rosamund Pike - who has divided her time between a highly successful stage career (including the female lead in Hitchcock Blonde, written by Terry Johnson who directed the original Chicago production of The Libertine) and playing Bond’s rapier-wielding opponent in Die Another Day - plays Rochester’s wife, Elizabeth Malet. Tom Hollander, Jack Davenport and Francesca Annis round out the cast, with cameos by two of Depp’s favourite performers: comedian Johnny Vegas and former Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan.
The film marks the directorial debut of Laurence Dunmore, a top commercials director with RSA, the company run by Ridley and Tony Scott. He resisted all attempts to relocate the film even further offshore, using locations in Wales, Somerset, Oxfordshire and at Hampton Court Palace. “It’s a British story and, selfishly, I wanted to make my first movie here,” says Dunmore. “I think it’s really important to utilise our great historic architecture and countryside. It’s something I’m really passionate about: it’s under my skin
It doesn’t often happen in the movie business that delayed projects mature with age. But that definitely seems to have been the case with The Libertine, which finally began filming eight years after the original Steppenwolf production. And, although Malkovich stars in the film, it is no longer as the Earl of Rochester. He plays Rochester’s patron Charles II, who ended up banishing the profligate aristocrat from his court after the latter published a scurrilous lampoon about him. Malkovich also produces the film through Mr Mudd, the production company he runs with Lianne Halfon and Russ Smith. But the part of Rochester is played by an actor whose whole career could almost be seen as a long, slow preparation for the role: Johnny Depp.
Fresh from the success (and multiple nominations) of last year’s Pirates of the Caribbean, Depp is a lot closer than Malkovich to Rochester’s age (although at 41, he has already survived eight years longer than the aristocrat did). And he combines the ability to make us like someone who could otherwise be a highly unsympathetic character (much as he did with Hunter S Thompson in Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) with a sense of the irresistible charm which enabled Rochester to get away with all the things he got away with.
The real-life Rochester was born in 1647, the son of a notorious rake, poet, soldier and courtier whose loyalty to the King during his exile brought him the title. His father died in exile, but the young John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, returned to England when the monarchy was restored in 1660, already showing signs of precocious genius. He was admitted to Wadham College, Oxford, at the age of 12, graduating two years later. He set off on the obligatory Grand Tour of France and Italy, and also made a brief foray into a career as a naval officer, in the course of which he achieved heroic things fighting against the Dutch.
By the time he returned to England, the Restoration was in full flower, and the general atmosphere of sexual permissiveness and anything-goes liberalism (provided, that is, you were an aristocrat) suited him perfectly. Those years in London were like the ‘swinging sixties’ some 300 years before their time, and Rochester took full advantage of them.
After trying to elope with a beautiful heiress called Elizabeth Malet at the age of 18, Rochester finally married her two years later, setting her up in a country house near Oxford. He then escaped to London, taking full advantage of all that the city had to offer in terms of sex, drink and the 17th-century equivalent of rock ‘n’ roll: the theatre.
Rochester then became fascinated with a young actress called Elizabeth Barry, whom he had just seen booed off the stage in an indifferent production. Betting that he could make her the toast of London, he did just that within months: no less an authority than Thomas Dryden, who had seen her in many of the 100 roles she allegedly played on the London stage, described the young actress as “always excellent”. The Earl; also, perhaps inevitably, made Barry his mistress.
By then, however, his troubles were beginning to outweigh his successes. Banished from the court for lampooning the King, Rochester devoted his time to a series of scurrilous poems, songs and satires, among whose admirers was that mainstay of the French philosophe movement in the next century, Voltaire. Rochester also professed himself to be an atheist but, dying of syphilis at the age of 33, famously renounced this on his deathbed.
Malkovich set up Mr Mudd in 1998 with Smith and Halfon, whom he had originally met when they mounted a stage production of Don DeLillo’s novel, Libra. Since then, the company has been responsible for - in addition to The Dancer Upstairs - the Oscar-nominated Ghost World and the Sundance award-winning documentary, How to Draw a Bunny.
To produce The Libertine, Mr Mudd teamed up with sales agent Odyssey Entertainment, UK fund First Choice and Isle of Man Film, a private company set up to promote film-making in a place where no one would ever have expected to see it. The island - where the studio shoot of The Libertine took place - is a small, verdant rock in the Irish Sea, midway between Liverpool and Dublin. And, thanks to a series of tax incentives and equity investments, it has, in the seven short years since hit comedy Waking Ned launched it as a haven for film-makers, seen around 70 features shoot there.
Dreemskerry started a site with pictures of the extras and crew is HERE
Another Libertine extra, Andy, has posted photos of himself in costume & make-up here
Andy talks about his adventures at theimdb forum.
The extra, "Chief Geezer" has given me permission to post a few spoilers here from Libertine:
SPOILER - DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT THE MOVIE TO SURPRISE YOU
1
When Rochester enters the House of Lords, one Lord shouts 'Coward!' really loudly at him, to which Depp pauses, turns to the Lord and move up really close to him before saying "My Lord, you cut me down I must confess, but in your mouth, my balls must rest," all the while running one of his two canes up the inside of his thigh. Tasteful.But even for this bit, Johnny was pretty fantastic at it, we were all pretty enthralled by his acting, which showed on our faces, which was just what they needed, as we were meant to look shocked by Rochester's arrival.
2
What did scare me however was whilst in Wells, i was leaving the Chapter house with all the other extras, turned to look for my friend and instead had a Johnny staring at me whilst he was adjusting his tights. Normally this wouldn't have been such a problem, but in this scene his face is coated in ripped latex to emulate the skin of people with Syphilis, a nose plate made of silver, and one eye with a milky-coloured contact lense. IT SCARED THE BEEJESUS OUT OF ME.3
And now for the funny bit...my man (his friend)Paul, another extra, is the fellow who opens the carriage doors for Rochester at Montacute, nice bloke, told me that on the last scene of the 19th March, Richard Coyle's character is responsible for carrying an ill Rochester out of his coach to the house...but thats not quite how it happend. A few feet from the coach, Coyle loses his footing and yes, they both end up a writhing period-costumed mess in the mud:) hurrah!Paul then picked up johnny's shoe and passed it back to him totally not knowing how a potentially primadona actor would take it, but he took it pretty well by all accounts, the production team wastes ages rolling about laughing:)
4
Anyone who knows the story of Wilmot will be aware of the painting he had commissioned in which he is seen posing with a monkey (see http://www.kipar.org/resources/resources-images/paintings/1670/rochester_70.jpg) which served to infuriate Elizabeth Malet, well the painting has been re-done in the image of our Johnny, and I managed to get some time to look at the new painting and it's pretty stunning! It's Johnny alright, but it looks authentic enough to be a period painting with all the cracks, scratches and sheen that you see in old paintings. He does look good with a monkey, I must say.
Spoilers are being given away (along with opinion) over at the forum at IMDH by one of the extras from the film. Instead of posting them here, I'm going to ask you who are interested to go to the forum there and find them for yourselves. The poster is under the name "chief geezer." This is the link.
More on the Earl, his poetry and his sex life HERE
Well, I had these photos of Johnny Depp & Johnny Vegas and forgot to post them. They were taken in February, before Johnny cut his hair and shaved for the Libertine. So here they are.
Studio Magazine - France
Interview transalted by Alison, scan by Coline Click on thumbnail to see very large jpg of photo
From Alison :
Here's my go. Perhaps if any French people read this they might be able to explain the difficult bits!Johnny Depp
Immoral EarlJohn Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, a courtier in demand for his high spirits, but dreaded for his witticisms, intimate companion of Charles II until being banned from the Court, is remembered for posterity as a poet of subtlety and a notorious debauchee. One of those raw and complex marginal characters whose foibles Johnny Depp is so good at portraying. ”I was flabbergasted when I found out about his life,” acknowledges the actor. “Upset by this mixture of hypersensitivity and extreme provocativeness.”
Assailed by tourists who set up camp around the plateau, hassled by the paparazzi who trail him every day, the actor prefers to converse in his dressing room, a gypsy-style caravan. Around a good Bordeaux wine, he passionately details the myriad facets of this dandy, libertine and free thinker, who died, destitute, at 33 years of age, of syphilis.After Wales and the Isle of Man, filming has continued at the park of Blenheim Palace, in Oxfordshire where the poet was born. [Literal translation: “town of birth” I think – but Oxfordshire's a county, not a town. Blenheim is not a town in Oxfordshire – it's where the Duke of Marlborough won the battle that resulted in his money to build the palace. Blenheim Palace wasn't built till the early 1700s.].
"I like the idea to see what he saw and walk where he walked"(this translated by Frenchy for us)
The day before,the actor went to absorb the atmosphere at the residence of the author, visible on the neighbouring hill. Just as, before the filming started, he went to touch some of the manuscripts. His own way of slipping into the real life of this rowdy character who, in the era of Charles II (played by John Malkovich), overlooked no abuse.
Lord Rochester (1647-1680) – was he the punk of his time? “Probably the first of them. But contrary to punks to whom nothing and nobody are important, he had many considerations, was very sensitive towards his fellow human beings. Perhaps too much so...”
Empire UK
April 28, 2004
New Libertine Picture-
this scan by LindaB. The explanation is that Empire offered to donate to Make a Wish Foundation, so Johnny gave them the photo. A better scan is going to be released tomorrow.From Poppet:
The June edition of Empire magazine has an exlusive pic from The Libertine and the following story:"The Isle of Man and Johnny Deep seem unlikely bedfellows, yet the Oscar-nominated actor has indeed been in Manx-land (and Wales) recently to shoot this 17th Century drama, an adaptation of Stephen Jeffrey's stage play. Following in the wake of Jack Sparrow, Depp plays John Wilmot, the hellraising Earl of Rochester, whose womanising resulted in his death at 33 from syphilis. "It seems that Johnny was born to play it" says Russ Smith, who's producing, along with Depp's co-star Malkovich. "He's smart and he's very funny. Rochester was very much the rock star of his day".
Certainly our exclusive pic, for which we've made a donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation UK, at Depp's request - suggest that Rochester's excesses will definitely be addressed. "He was provocative so we have to make the film provocative," says Smith. "Clearly, we're not trying to make Caligula here! But we want it to be sexy. It's a sexy story in dirty London".(The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a charity for terminally ill children)
MACGOWAN TO NEW DEPP'S
6 April 2004The Pogues' hard-wearing frontman Shane MacGowan has a real friend in Johnny Depp. The Hollywood actor apparently thinks it's important to keen the recovering heroin addict busy, so has awarded him a role in his new film, The Libertine. It's a movie made for wildman MacGowan, which follows the story of John Wilmot, otherwise known as the second Earl of Rochester, a real-life 17th-century rake, soldier and poet (played by Depp) who debauched his way to an early grave, only winning critical acclaim after dying of syphilis at the age of 33. An example of his lyricism:
Cupid and Bacchus my saints are
May drink and love still reign
With wine I wash away my cares
And then to cunt againAt his funeral in 1680, Robert Parsons preached: "Nay so confirm'd was he in Sin, that he lived, and oftentimes almost died, a martyr for it." In the film of his life and untimely death, directed by writer Stephen Jeffreys, MacGowan, 46, plays another bard. He shot his scenes at Hampton Court, just outside London, last week along with Depp, John Malkovich, who plays Charles II, and Samantha Morton, who plays Rochester's mistress, the actress Elizabeth Barry.
Found by neophyte - a link to photos of the extras filming on LibertineFound by Reemi
From The Sun
This set of Photos found by Emma
Photos from the set at The Z Review
Please email me any missing links you find
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