Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5380 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-05-08
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 114 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The beautifully sculpted face of Johnny Depp fits right in with this masterpiece of design. The Libertine--filmed in a grainy, color-muted chiaroscuro--captures the lush costumes, extravagant decor, and remarkable filth of Restoration England. John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester (Depp), warns the audience at the very beginning of the film that they will not like him. From there, he treats his wife cruelly, drinks to relentless excess, abuses his friendships, and generally wallows in dissipation, much to the dismay of King Charles II (John Malkovich, Dangerous Liaisons), who hopes that Rochester will write a play glorifying his reign.

But Rochester finds his true inspiration (and the movie comes to life) when he sees a young actress named Lizzie Barry (Samantha Morton, Minority Report, Morvern Callar). Rochester sets out to make her the greatest actress of their time--and she, with some reluctance, submits to his teaching. The weakness of The Libertine is not that Rochester is unlikable; it's that he doesn't want to do anything. Barry galvanizes the movie because she burns with ambition, but Rochester's only apparent aim in life is an agonizingly slow self-destruction.

Still, The Libertine has lurid Saturnalian visions, Morton is superb, Malkovich gives a typically insidious turn, and Depp, as always, finds moments of sad poetry in the bitterest of speeches. --Bret Fetzer

Synopsis
An antidote to the sunny period pieces adopted from Jane Austen, which feature impeccably coifed aristocrats engaging in the witty banter of drawing room dramas and culminating in most delightful denouements, THE LIBERTINE highlights the underbelly of the British aristocracy of centuries past. Adapted from the play by Stephen Jeffreys, the plot follows the dastardly debauchery of the Earl of Rochester (a mischievous Johnny Depp), a hedonist who makes Oscar Wilde seem moralistic. The Earl spends his days and nights in beds, brothels, and bars, awakening from drunken blackouts only to stumble to the nearest whorehouse. Yet this ravishing rake also possesses a talent for poetry, and turns his escapades into acid-tongued witticisms that pepper this frisky film. Directed by first-timer Laurence Dunmore, the historical film picks up in 1678, when the Earl returns to London at the behest of King Charles II (magnetically played by John Malkovich, who starred in the play when it was staged at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre). With his young wife in tow, the Earl immediately immerses himself into a litany of transgressions. When he meets a prostitute and burgeoning actress named Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton), he obsessively takes her under his wing, crafting her into an acclaimed stage starlet and eventually bedding her. What follows is a spiral upward, downward, and sideways through the city's pleasure palaces, culminating in a quasi-tragic, quasi-relieving denouement. Melding the naughty energy of his 'Pirates Of The Caribbean' character with the brooding darkness of his wearied detective in 'From Hell', Depp gives a pitch-perfect performance that carries the film, eliciting strange sympathy for such a despicable devil. The score, by the award-winning composer Michael Nyman, adds even further moodiness and dramatic edge to the story.

Customer Reviews

Depp Shines Again!
The film is based on the life of John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester and friend of King Charles 11. Wilmot was befriended by Charles because Wilmot's father had assisted Charles whilst in exile. Friend or not Wilmot truly was a libertine. He delighted and revelled in sex be it heterosexual or homosexual, he wrote extremely bawdy poems and plays and drank to excess once boasting that he had not been sober for five years. His long suffering wife had to put up with his behaviour until she could take no more. He eventually did truly fall in love with a woman and helped her to become a famous actress on the London stage at a time when women were just entering the acting profession but she did not want him as he wanted her - not only to be his wife but also the mother of his child.

Charles banished him from court many times because of his behaviour but always forgave him. Commissioned to write a play by Charles because "Elizabeth 1 had her Shakespeare" and Charles wanted his, Wilmot came up with the most obscene play that he could write. Not only was it obscene but was aimed directly at Charles 11 himself. The King attended along with the French Ambassador and was obviously appalled. Although himself known as "The Merry Monarch" who had many mistresses, this was a step too far. Wilmot was disgraced and had to flee. The film then goes on to chronicle his descent even further into drink and venereal disease. Wilmot was obviously a man with great talent but with a "self-destruct" button that he could not or would not turn off. He died in his early thirties having finally done something to redeem himself in his own eyes.

The settings and make-up are superb. The directing is excellent although the film is shot darkly and can be a little murky at time. The language is somewhat flowery as it would have been then. It perfectly captures the time of the Restoration period when after years of Puritan rule, anything went, literally anything, as people gave free rein to their desires.

A truly stunning performance by Johnny Depp proving what a remarkably fine and rather under-rated actor he is. He can tackle any role and make it truly and utterly believable John Malkovitch makes a subtle Charles 11 and with a very strong supporting cast it is worth watching for the acting alone.

The film opens with a prologue where John Wilmot says "You will not like me, I do not want you to like me". In the end you cannot help liking him a little and also feeling sorry for him - sorry that he threw his life away, a life that held such promise if only he had channelled his abilities in the right direction.

If you like true stories, if you like a film that makes you think, a film you have to concentrate on, if you enjoy history and are not shocked by explicit sexual references and images then this is the film for you.

A piercing study in loneliness and the loss of the self.
I hardly know where to begin talking about this maginificent film. It's certainly not the sort of thing that I could reccommend to everyone, since its difficult and bleak subject-matter would probably benefit from an audience's basic prior knowledge both of the mentality of the Restoration era and of the life of John Wilmot himself. I suppose with that in mind it's a little easier to at least understand why The Libertine was not treated as favourably as it deserved by the critics on its release into cinemas; for people to come unsuspectingly to a film that portrays a period in history in all its painful, cruel ugliness is asking a lot, particularly when most people have been raised on a diet of the more chocolate-box, Merchant Ivory style of costume dramas.

That said, I cannot praise The Libertine highly enough. Having never really paid a great deal of attention to Johnny Depp's career in the past, I had very few preconceptions about what he might bring to the role of the Earl of Rochester, that troubled, unhappy, fiercely contradictory man. But Depp surely surpasses himself in a performance that is intelligent, judged with astonishing sensitivity and demonstrating a depth and range of emotion that brings precisely the sort of conflicted pain, anger, bitter humour, cruelty, cynicism and, yes, tenderness to this difficult role that was endemic in the real John Wilmot, a man who could barely stand the reality of life as the person he was, particularly as his outer shell is stripped away and his inner torment is given a physical manifestation. It also goes without saying that the film is breathtakingly beautifully written, at once smart, sexy, poetic, very amusing and finely judged. I would actually say that its stage origins, instead of hampering its transfer to the screen, serve to highlight the theatrical quality of people's lives in Charles II's England, when much of the behaviour of the elite classes was purely defined by performance, lives led on a gaudy, superficial knife-edge. First-term director Laurence Dunmore adds an appropriately modern, unsentimental aspect to the film, with the use of natural lighting and an almost documentary-style of filming. Amongst the supporting players, performances by Samantha Morton and Rosamund Pike stand out, deftly seeming to portray the two opposing sides of Wilmot's nature.

So all I can really offer as advice to people approaching this film for the first time is: hold your nerven, toughen up your stomach and, most importantly, open up your mind. If you try to see The Libertine in the way it was intended, I guarantee the experience will be a rewarding and, ultimately, beautiful one. I will be proud to own this film when it is released on DVD.

Fabulous and entertaining - Depp is a delight
This is a delight to watch and Depp again surpasses himself with a thoroughly absorbing and heartfelt performance. An excellent film with an excellent supporting cast - in particular, for me, Rosamund Pike and John Malkovich - that you cannot take your eyes away from. I'm sad to see the DVD has been delayed but I'm looking forward to experiencing this gem again very soon - Depp should surely have a been a shoe-in for this season of awards ceremonies - Hollywood again shooting themselves in the foot!!!