I have a love/hate relationship with this Ken Russell film (really it's probably more like a "like/hate" relationship)--truthfully I have a love/hate relationship with Ken Russell's work in general. On the side of wondering why people wonder why Russell made this film, I have to question what there is to question. It may be a lot things: boring, pretentious, surreal, over-the-top and erring more on the side of the ridiculous....but, to question why Russell would want to tackle the subject of Byron's famous "meeting" of the minds (which is by no means a proven to begin with) seems strange to me. Ken Russell is a strange man!!
I agree with people who think the performances leave a lot to be desired. These are a talented group of thespians to be sure. Again, I have to remind--this is a Ken Russell film--he directs them badly or loosely. A great deal of his direction in the film has the cast running around the huge "villa," and trying to capture that in dizzying ways with camera work that...well, doesn't work. Of course, the likes of Agrippa comes up, he can't keep himself from having Julian Sands "raving" about the "modern Prometheus"--and more importantly, it's basically a hallucination about what someone thinks happened to bring about the writing of one the most famous horror stories of all time...certainly the most famous written by a woman! At a time when women writers wrote almost exclusively about what can only be described as "feminist" issues (like Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley's own mother). I don't know....Russell seems to be exploring what made a young woman write about a man "giving birth to life"--his over the top surrealism just doesn't quite work for that endeavour however. Anyway...RIP Natashia Richardson!
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