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Dunmore revels
in his Libertine
 | | One of the only actors who could pull off the part... Johnny Depp as Rochester in The Libertine. |
Bridget Galton
NOVICE film director Laurence Dunmore was in downtown Los Angeles when Johnny Depp called to say: "Count me in". The 40-year-old earned strange looks from
passers-by as he punched the air, yelling "yes! yes! yes!".
He knew the precarious funding and casting of his first feature The Libertine relied on a big star taking a punt on working with him.
"It was like pinch yourself and see if this is one of those big long dreams that you are sad to wake up from," says the dad-of-three from St John's Wood.
Depp's involvement in the Restoration-set drama meant a gifted cast including Rosamund Pike, Samantha Morton, Tom Hollander and Johnny Vegas also came on board.
"It was a courtship over a year. Johnny already loved the play and wanted to do it, but any actor, however exciting the project, has to trust the people who are making it. It was amazing how willing he and everyone has been to trust and believe in my vision for this film."
It helped that Dunmore, an experienced director of music videos and commercials, was championed by Hollywood heavyweight John Malkovich.
The pair hit it off when Dunmore worked with Malkovich on a Eurostar advert.
Malkovich was so impressed with Dunmore's working style that he handed him the script for The Libertine, based on an acclaimed play by Stephen Jeffreys.
As producer, Malkovich, who previously played the lead part on stage, had spent five years trying to get the project to fly.
It was Dunmore who persuaded him to act in the film as an ageing King Charles II, insecure about his international alliances and divine right to rule.
"John Malkovich said 'I want you to make the film'. I said 'it's a period costume drama' and he said 'read it again'. He didn't want to act in it but I told him he would help me by being in the soup as an actor," says Dunmore.
Malkovich was not disappointed with the experience and says of Dunmore: "You can work with people who have done 25 films and still don't know what day it is, and you can work with a first-time director who has a terrifically specific idea about exactly what they want to achieve and how to achieve it - that was the case with Laurence."
Now Dunmore has been nominated as best director - alongside Stephen Frears - for the British Independent Film Awards on November 30, one of eight nominations garnered by his film.
The Libertine, with its gorgeous Michael Nyman score, is based on the scandalous life and early death of John Wilmot the 2nd Earl of Rochester - the inspiration for George Etherege's play The Man of Mode.
Despite wealth, charisma, intelligence and writing talent, the self-destructive poet pursued notions of individual freedom to the debauched limit.
The film shows his rebellious, boozy, sexual exploits alienating his King, his friends and the women who love him.
Dunmore, who lives off Abbey Road, says Depp was one of few actors who could pull off such an unsympathetic character.
"Rochester was 'a cynic of our golden age', a man who betrayed an incredible talent and ability because he didn't have a desire to realise it. He wanted to lampoon, throw his anger out there to see how it could hurt people. He was funny, outrageous, could drink and tell jokes, a man sensitive enough to understand people but insensitive enough to follow through. Johnny Depp was one of very few actors who could realise those contradictions and still let us feel a degree of sympathy for him."
In his artistic genius, nihilism and lust for self-destruction, Rochester is kind of Restoration punk, frantically sowing the seeds of his death in his lifestyle.
"It's that urge to know you are alive by burning yourself," says Dunmore.
"The demons he is fighting are of his own making."
His profane, edgy work wasn't recognised during his lifetime but Dunmore says he had an impressive wit, humour and turn of phrase that could have created a masterpiece if he had set his mind to it.
"Etherege makes his name out of telling his best friend's story. He was someone who watched life while Rochester lived it."
Dunmore achieved the seemingly impossible task of making Depp look ugly as the booze and syphilis eat away at Rochester.
"Johnny relished the physical destruction of him most of all. There is not a vanity in him that I can see. People love to play against what they are. It fascinated him, portraying a life that decayed morally and physically. It's very easy to play good looking, it's harder to show someone's destruction - by the time Rochester is a human scab he is at his most vulnerable."
Dunmore also says of Depp that he is an "intuitive, generous actor" able to dip in and out of his character at will.
"He researches an awful lot to find that character and bring it alive, then it comes through whenever he wants it to - he can play a compelling and believable session and at the end make a silly joke. It sits just below the surface. It's amazing to watch."
Dunmore admits it was "quite intimidating initially" to switch from 30-second commercials to a two-hour film.
But despite having little experience of directing actors in roles, he has succeeded in eliciting fine performances by letting his actors have their heads.
"I learned that people are there because they are good and you can trust them. I saw I was dealing with some of the best actors and let them do what they have been noted for - I gave them a vision and allowed them to find their characters."
Dunmore's film is a highly theatrical, atmospheric immersion in squalid 17th century life, including several memorable scenes in a Restoration-era playhouse where Wilmot repeatedly returns to experience the emotion he cannot feel in life.
He falls in love with the actress Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton) and helps her realise her talent.
"I saw how empowered John Wilmot was by the theatre and it was a conscious decision to have a theatrical aspect to the film," says Dunmore.
"Theatre is the only place where he can feel intimacy. I have always found the power of the naked actor on stage compelling. It takes you to places without need of $60million backdrops."
To capture the raw immediacy of a stage performance, Dunmore shouldered a hand-held camera and allowed Morton and Depp to play an 11-page scene in one take on the darkened, empty stage of a reconstructed 17th century theatre.
Where conventional directors might have blocked out moves or set up close-up shots, Dunmore told them to find their own space and he would follow them - even though it meant Depp frequently having to haul him out of the way as various candles threatened to set fire to him.
"You have a space with two formidable actors and they are empowered to take that space and breathe life into the scene. It was amazing just the three of us alone on that stage. You can capture the intake of breath or the intimacy of a whisper. The actors liked the freedom that gave them and the film audience feel like the third person," says Dunmore.
Exploring the dark side of a man's soul, Dunmore didn't compromise on explicit language or sex - earning the film an 18 rating.
He says it would have been "pointless" to bring such an unconventional life to film and sanitise it.
"I didn't want to make a crowd-pleaser. This is not a film about redemption," he says. "I want to allow the audience to walk away from it and ask questions about themselves. Part of the fascination is not to resolve it or offer answers to all the questions."
Dunmore also refused to pander to the costume drama staple of elegant National Trust Britain - in his film, the sun never shines on London streets, which are swathed in mud and excrement.
"I didn't want to make a film that had been seen before with beautiful landscapes and backlit romantic walks in long grass," says Dunmore, whose pallet was the muddy tones of the damp British sky and earth.
"One of the most time-consuming parts of filming was making hundreds of tonnes of mud and slapping it onto beautiful National Trust properties. Every day you were covered head to toe in it - we told the costume department not to spend time cleaning stuff every night."
Dunmore now has several other feature projects on the go but was nervously awaiting the film's opening today.
"The passion and excitement of The Libertine was an incredible experience with so much hard work packed into so little time. We had some of the funniest people in the country on set and had a great laugh. I would love to spend the rest of my life making feature films. Whatever happens with The Libertine I hope it will not determine my future - I hope that is in my own hands.
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