Yesterday, with a clutch of fellow mathematicians, I watched Gormenghast, the BBC's miniseries adaptation of Mervyn Peake's novels Titus Groan and Gormenghast. Now, I've never read the books yet, to my shame, but they've been on my To-Do list for years; or they would have been, if I were the sort of person who kept a To-Do list, or was anything other than terminally absent-minded. I have a great and abiding love for the BBC's ventures into the fantastical, and the prospect of Gormenghast excited me greatly. Though, being a base and lowly American, it did not come to a television near me. But we live in an age of wonders, of miracles, and also of DVDs, and I very conveniently live about two blocks from that cathedral of cinema, On 15th Video. I was browsing around on a hunt for more Buffy when I spotted Gormenghast lurking baroquely upon a shelf, and I knew the time had come to see it.
It's fabulous! One of my fellows called it one of the best pieces of television he'd seen. The look of the thing alone...The costuming, the set design, fantastic and baroque and decayed, decadent, grotesque even. An archaic look powerfully laced with the Twentieth Century...The castle guards manage to look simultaneously very in keeping with a moldy old castle, and much like infantrymen of the World Wars. And what's done to the Secretarial offices in the fourth episode, with electric lights, a wall of grey filing cabinets, chittering typewriters, is positively shocking in contrast to the rest of Gormenghast, and helps convey the sense of dislocation felt by its inhabitants. (Not a design matter, but when clowning for Fuchsia near the very beginning, Steerpike pulls a Basil Fawlty and imitates Hitler.) Keep a close eye on the Bright Carvings, too, and other art-objects. Fun fact: the model shots of Gormenghast have a dreamy, weighty look because they were filmed underwater. It is indeed a taste sensation, for the eyes. Put all thoughts of wobbly cardboard from your head.
Wonderful acting. Only in Britain, I say. Only in Britain. My particular favourite--and this should come as no surprise to anyone--was John Sessions as Dr Prunesquallor, that delightful braying hot-bloodedly bisexual fop with a brain as yet unburnt. It'd be dreadfully easy for such a character, so full of off-putting tics, to come across on screen as, well, Jim Carrey. Sessions, however, while conveying countless nuances of Prunesquallor's grotesquerie, keeps him from charicaturedom: he's a weird, unnatural, fabulous monstrosity in his way, but one gets the impression that, cooped up in Gormenghast, he couldn't very well be anything else, that there are human dimensions to his weirdness. I found him quite likeable, even, and sympathetic. Sessions himself is said to be a great fan of Peake's work.
Sessions's love for Peake's work is so great he would probably have considered reconstructive surgery to play Prunesquallor. "I read it when I was a teenager," he recalls. "It fell into my generation's 'books you have to read' category. It is quite miraculous and utterly unique. It is like Dickens on crack. It touches on two plays of Shakespeare, Dickens, Balzac, and Tolstoy, and it is brought together in a way that is utterly original, that is not derivative of any of them."
He has endeared himself to me forever with the phrase 'Dickens on crack'.
Which is not to say that the other performances aren't equally stellar. Every actor and actress in it seemed almost unnaturally suited to their roles. Ian Richardson does a stunning turn as an owl. Warren Mitchell as Barquentine can shout with the best of them; watch his bit in the Making Of feature, to hear him describe Barquentine as a fundamentalist, who, if transposed into the real world, would probably be some kind of right-wing fundamentalist, mullah, or Pope. Speaking of shouting, the League of Gentlemen's Steve Pemberton turns up as Professor Mule, alongside Stephen Fry as Professor Bellgrove; Professor Mule gets to do some of the very best shouting, mostly 'Bastard' and 'Bugger', capping it off with a magnificent spasm. Such frothing would do any professor proud. And Stephen Fry, oh how he warms my heart!
Jonathan Rhys Meyers...What can one say? He is sex on wheels. Which brings me to relevance, actually! One of the pervasive themes seems to be frustrated sexuality. Poor Irma Prunesquallor, the Doctor's sister, is so pent-up she'll burst. The professors haven't seen women in 37 years. Fuchsia and Steerpike have chemistry, but never seem to consummate. Lord and Lady Groan in all probability have had sex exactly twice, the minimum required to produce their two children. Dr Prunesquallor flutters at Steerpike here, offers his anatomy to Fuchsia there, but gets, as they say, no play. Titus almost scores with the Wild Thing, and look what happens to her. People just don't get to fuck. The stifling atmosphere of Gormenghast, its changelessness and timelessness, is a denial of sexuality, and Steerpike's rebellion is in part a sexual rebellion, an offer of what is forbidden. Which is to say, he's hot. Very, very hot.
Definitely, Gormenghast is worth four hours of your precious life. I enjoyed it so thoroughly that immediately afterwards I leapt up and marched off to Twice-Sold Tales, which is overrun by indolent kitties acting as if they own the place (because they do), and bought the books, which I shall read now. This very moment. Just you watch.
Posted by aloysius at September 24, 2003 05:55 PM | TrackBack |