The Libertine

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Hazlitt on The Earl of Rochester

The 2nd Earl of Rochester’s story unfolds smack in the middle of The Restoration, a time of radical new ideas, heightened sexual permissiveness and a joyful lavishness in theatre, parties and lifestyles – a kind of precursor to the 20th century’s “Swinging 60s,” albeit 300 years earlier. But it was also a society just emerging from the Middle Ages, still ravaged by rampant disease, superstition, poverty and urban squalor.

In THE LIBERTINE, director Laurence Dunmore set out to capture the wildly shifting moods of Rochester’s times with a gritty, in-your-face realism that hasn’t been brought to the period before. He did so by focusing not only on the opulence and splendor of the court but the dingy, rank dynamism of the city streets. “I was looking to create a film where you could practically smell the atmosphere,” he notes. “I wanted to forge a very real 17th century look that didn’t feel like it was created in the 21st century. I wanted to use as much natural light as possible and to swamp the screen with mud, mist, rain and smoke. I wanted there to be a big contrast between Rochester’s stately home life and the tremendous energy, excitement and movement of his life in London.”

Dunmore’s decision to highlight both the elaborate decadence and the seedier sides of the Restoration meant he would need an extremely skilled and creative design team. At the center of it was cinematographer Alex Melman who collaborated closely with Dunmore in developing a unique look for the film. “Rochester is a man who drank and loved his way to an early grave so we wanted to give THE LIBERTINE a kind of darkness and rawness not usually associated with period movies,” he explains. “We didn’t want a clean, pretty look. We wanted the grungiest, dirtiest look we could find! But even though there’s a lot of mud and smoke in the film, at the same time there’s a beauty that comes out of all the dirt and haze. The film is very beautiful in its own way.”

To further draw a stark contrast between Rochester’s two worlds – both inside the aristocratic realm and out on the streets of London – the filmmakers used a variety of photographic techniques. “We use a lot of rich colors that convey the magic of the theatrical world– and then contrast that with a much more grainy realism whenever Rochester goes out into the ordinary outside world,” explains Melman.

Melman also worked with two Academy Award nominees -- production designer Ben Van Os and costume designer Dien Van Straalen -- to come up with a very detailed color palette that is woven throughout the film’s entire design and enhanced with primarily natural light. “Everything was in a muted, dirty zone,” he says of the film’s hues. “We worked with a combination of filters in antique suede, jade green and storm blue. We lit pretty much everything with candles and we even used green filters to take away any warmth from the candles and put a kind of green pallor into all the flesh tones.”

In an unusual move, director Dunmore operated the camera for the film’s largely hand-held photographic work himself. “I decided very early on, as I’d done with a lot of commercials, that I’d put the camera on my shoulder and operate it myself, rather than the more traditional way or putting it onto a dolly or a crane,” he explains. “Partly I did it in order to be able to move fast. It also meant we didn’t waste time trying to work out tricky moves. The important thing for me was to create a very fluid style to capture the action. Putting the camera on my shoulder and making it hand-held meant I could spend time with the actors and sit next to them while they were performing, allowing the scenes to unfold in front of me. I found it immensely liberating and think the performances benefited from it. I rarely had ear phones on for the dialogue because I was sitting right next to them – I could hear them breathing. This created a lot of intimacy.”

Also essential to the film was getting the locations right. Dunmore logged a remarkable 8,000 miles on his car roaming Britain in search of authentic-feeling castles and estates. Eventually, the film’s locations included Tretower Court in Wales -- one of the best surviving examples of a medieval gentleman’s mansion; a number of National Trust properties in Somerset such as Montecute near Yeovil and Charlecute in Oxfordshire; Hampton Court Palace in Surrey; and the magnificent Wells Cathedral. For the interiors, the production traveled to the Isle of Man, an up and coming bastion for filmmakers on the Irish Sea, where the film’s sets were built by Ben Van
Os (Academy Award nominee for “Girl With a Pearl Earring” and “Orlando”).

Some of the most complex design work on THE LIBERTINE came in the area of makeup and hair design – owing to the flamboyant fashions of the 17th century. Academy Award-winning hair and make-up designer Peter Owen (who oversaw the imaginative designs for the Lord of the Rings trilogy) had promised John Malkovich back in the early days of the play’s life in Chicago that if it was ever adapted for the big screen, he would want to be a part of the project. “I loved the story and the period,” says Owen.

Once the production was in motion, Owen was even more inspired. “Laurence and I seemed immediately on the same wavelength,” comments Owen. “He thought the flamboyant artifice of the period should be seen in close-up, and this idea had to pervade everything in front of the camera – not just the hair and make-up, everything. Laurence gave me a free reign largely. It was great to be trusted by the director like that, so I just had fun with everything that I did.”

One of Owen’s greatest challenges was taking Johnny Depp through an astonishing range of physical dissolutions, despite the fact that Rochester died in his early 30s. “Rochester’s progression of looks had to be planned in great detail, advancing his blindness, toothlessness and decrepitude. Laurence and I drew up maps for this independently and when we compared them, they almost exactly matched, which meant neither of us felt we had to battle for anything.”

Owen especially had a grand time turning John Malkovich into King Charles II. “I gave him a few very prominent features of Charles II, such as eyebrows, a prosthetic nose and an enormous blanket of a wig,” he says. “Then, I reddened his eyes and gave him pale make-up to make him look care-worn.”

Throughout the production, Owen was impressed with the creative atmosphere on the set. “The whole project was enormously rewarding,” he concludes. “Everyone was so committed to it. It had the same atmosphere that I remember in theatre – long hours, lots of enthusiasm and great performances that came out of all that.”

Although Laurence Dunmore makes his directorial debut with THE LIBERTINE, any qualms he may have had were quickly set aside. “Our first day of shooting was amazing and it had double impact as it was also my birthday,” he recalls. “It was phenomenal starting my first feature film on my birthday – almost surreal. There were some serious pressures during the shoot at times, but I consider myself to have been incredibly lucky. Being surrounded by the actors, sets, costumes, props and make-up, feeling the sensations, the smell and taste of the whole process - and then looking through the camera and seeing the first trace of it coming to life -- was akin toseeing my kids for the first time on an ultrasound scan.”

The 16th century bed was among real antiques used in new movie The Libertine.

But staff at the National Trust’s Montacute House, in Somerset, demanded to be on the set of the bawdy drama to guard against damage.

House steward Sharon Masters said: “It is a beautiful oak carved bed and is priceless in the sense that it couldn’t be replaced. I was one of a small number on set for the love scenes — an unusual environment to be giving conservation advice.”

Sharon is a big fan of Johnny, 42 — who was playing randy 17th century poet John Wilmot.

She added: “Watching him filming a love scene is an experience I will never forget. Thankfully nothing was damaged.”

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