Herostratus review by Drewe Shimon
Jan. 1st, 1970 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
michael_gothard_archiveThis review has been given a separate entry, because it raises several points of particular interest.
From a review on Britmovie: 20 January 2010 by Drewe Shimon:
As a shrieking, bellowing Beethoven movement plays on reel-to-reel cassette, a fair-haired, handsome young man lies on a bed cackling insanely, ignoring his neighbour’s entreaties to “turn that bloody row down.” Soon, he will snap and destroy with his bare hands practically everything of substance within his room- smashing bedsteads, windows, walls, bookcases and paintings, and making more noise than recorded music ever could.
As the actor - Michael Gothard in his first major role - embarks upon this odyssey of wanton destruction, we are dragged into his psychosis in a way we wouldn’t have imagined when, five minutes earlier, proceedings commenced in an admittedly abstract but comparatively restrained manner.
To be fair though, I knew from the off that Don Levy’s Herostratus - the film in question - was never going to be an easy ride. Even for someone who likes his films served with a generous side-order of weird, it doesn’t make easy viewing- or indeed reviewing- material. But I had to see it …
… this film, regarded by those lucky enough to have seen it first time round as a masterpiece on the level of A Clockwork Orange, O Lucky Man!, Performance and suchlike, was, until its acquisition by BFI Flipside in 2009, considered “missing”, or “lost.” No-one of my personal acquaintance had ever seen it, and the majority of internet discussions seemed to be concerned with whether or not it was a horror movie (it isn’t, although its subject matter is undoubtedly dark and macabre, and much of the imagery was disturbing enough to encourage several members of the crew to walk out during filming and have to be persuaded back).
…
Levy’s 142-minute odyssey, which took seven years to complete, is as difficult as one would imagine - an art piece designed to unnerve, shock and provoke the viewer into at least some form of reaction, although exactly which viewers the Australian director was aiming at remains unclear, for, as the audio interview for American radio included among the extras explains, he had little or no time for conventional film-making or narrative structure whatsoever.
Indeed, it seems he only gave Herostratus what linear narrative it has to “throw people a thread.” This attitude demonstrates not only a contempt for cinema audiences (and a feeling of intellectual superiority to them), but cinema itself, and possibly even humanity in general: it is this utter disgust, scornful and borne of hatred, which resonates more than anything else throughout.
…
It is therefore understandable why the world was not ready, even in liberated 1960s London, for such a film: it’s also easy to see why some have chosen to castigate its perceived “pretentiousness.” After all, Max (Gothard), its principal character, is the archetypal “angry young man” (there were plenty of them around in the early 60s), and not a particularly likeable one either: while sympathetic and handsome enough to court both the ladies and the gay audience, delivering several lines of caustic wit along the way, the overall impression that remains is of someone you wouldn’t want to be friends with, and indeed, in an eerie reflection of how the actor saw himself, he seemingly has none, [NB: the creators of this archive have found no evidence that Michael Gothard took this view of himself; why Drewe Shimon makes this assumption is uncear] taking ontological opposition to practically everyone that comes into contact with him.
His seething anger and resentment toward “modern day life” leads him to enter the advertising offices of Farson (played convincingly by respected character actor Peter Stephens, who eerily resembles a heterosexual John Savident) and his under-occupied secretary Clio (Gabriella Licudi) and offer to commit suicide in public: a dramatic gambit for sure, but one which seems vague, having little basis in his background (which we never know anyway). Rather than targeting one particular facet of society he finds reprehensible, he directs his broadside first at capitalism via the ad-man himself, before confessing to being “so bored with it all.”
Farson, acting as his nemesis, will later take him squarely to task, sensing that under such nihilism lurks a simple desire for fame, luxury and recognition (not to mention a case of sour grapes at not having yet achieved it) and several of Max’s actions, such as agreeing to be housed in an elaborate studio belonging to Farson, his castigation of the executives on set (a re-enactment of Levy’s own discussions with the film’s financiers?) and his final knowing “wink” at salesman Pointer atop the roof from which it has been designated the act will take place, seem to confirm this.
Therefore, not only does Levy urge us to understand his cry of vitriol (with Max representing his own alter-ego), but to view that as shallow and narcissistic. Talk about asking a lot of your public!! Then again, as pointed out earlier, he loathed and detested us.
…
The question that keeps recurring is why? Brought up in considerable comfort in one a prestigious (if culturally empty) New South Wales suburb, he possessed a prestigious talent he was allowed to develop where so many are not. This in turn won him a scholarship to Cambridge University (which he also apparently despised …): not bad going considering the poverty many lived in back then.
Admittedly, as a depressive, I’d be foolish to suggest that privilege alone automatically makes you happy, but one can’t help thinking what other, less fortunate individuals would have made of the chances Levy was seemingly handed on a plate.
...
Yet somehow, out of all this negativity emerges a work of great beauty. Gothard’s performance (though playing a fundamentally unlikeable person) is a revelation, a spitting, snarling yet suave diatribe on legs, and proof of what a performer can achieve when stretched to his outer limits (Levy would later admit Michael had at least “two breakdowns” during filming). [NB. A reference for this was requested, but not forthcoming.]
Although I remain an avowed fan and devotee of his subsequent horror and fantasy career, it is unfortunate that the actor was never again gifted such a demanding role, although the greatest tragedy remains undoubtedly his real-life suicide by hanging in 1993, some seven years after Levy took the same path.
…
True to form, Max ekes out a lone existence in a rented “pad” (although it’s never explained how, or indeed if, he pays for it) in a block of villas on Harrow Road, which look ripe for demolition and whose only other apparent occupants are the aforementioned nosey neighbour and a downtrodden Afro-Asian prostitute called Sandy.
The newspaper-decorated walls and crumbling staircases of this abode, and the decaying, greying London it comprises part of, reflect neither the “respectable” vision of the capital presented by Butchers and the Danziger Brothers, the “kitchen sink” approach of the social realists or the “swinging” metropolis so vividly depicted by Levy’s countercultural contemporaries: in this spartan, moribund wasteland, there is no kitchen sink, and even if there was, it would be malfunctioning or hanging from the wall.
Max is similarly unreconstituted: he dresses sparsely (if stylishly, befitting the day’s fashions) in white v-neck, jeans and slip-ons, looking as if he might have once belonged to some social “movement”, but offering no other evidence of affiliation with anyone or anything.
Some might see this as a failing in the film, and yes, it would have helped if we saw more of a public reaction to the chief protagonist’s actions (without which, surely, we are viewing little more than the delusions of a nutter) - but on the other hand, to involve the populace at large (and thus negate the film’s inherent solipsism) would render it null and void.
… I personally find it disheartening to see a film, albeit a great one, portraying the era as so stultifyingly dull, bland and unforgiving that the only way its “hero” (and I use the term loosely) feels he can gain recognition is to commit suicide, without even (as if that alone weren’t bad enough) the right to choose his own method, time and place of death, and with his last words written for him by advertising executives who read only commercial potential rather human issues into the event.
Putting things into context, this was a time when London, rather than decaying, was believed to be the centre of the known universe: when the Beatles were shortly to release Sergeant Pepper, and the British film industry was at an all-time high. The idea, therefore, that a gifted filmmaker such as Levy saw only “nothingness” within is too much for some of us to contemplate, and both viewings have left me with a growing awareness of the Max that potentially exists within us all.
…
Furthermore, there are minor stabs at humour: references to “soap detergent”, a very deadpan delivery of the phrase “piss off” and a completely unexpected “duckie” all somehow find their way into the mix, while the “bad guys” (Farson and Pointer) are quite sympathetic, presented as officious and cynical rather than evil. Also, remember, Max approaches them in the first place, not the other way round: the downside is to this knowledge is that it gives us cause to ponder whether the artist is as shallow and dishonest as “the man”, thus inviting further feelings of despair.
Does Max make his offer in the hope that his televised act will “shake people up” and force society to reconsider its attitudes? It’s easy … to start off thinking so, but halfway through, by which time he has the spoils and attention (not to mention the girl) he so obviously craves, and his regret visually grows before us with each passing hour, you realise there may be less to him than meets the eye.
Thus, the revelation that Clio’s affections … are no more than a sales pitch instigated by her employer, who is technically pimping her out, crushes him and returns him once again to genuine suicidal status, but will this be a permanent state? I shall reveal no more, save to say that the ending, whilst carrying a certain degree of predictability, is none the less effective for it.
…
It’s pretty safe to say that the everyday film viewer, even an everyday art film viewer, will never see another film quite like Herostratus: it stands alone in a field of one, the mission of an individual possessed by demons and motivations we shall never fully understand. Its construction, atmosphere, and ability, if only within its latter moments, to successfully capture the “poetry of London”, make it the epitome of a flawed masterwork- yet possibly one best viewed irregularly in order that it may be fully appreciated. And if at times its power becomes too much for you, remember- as Peter Stephens yells off-camera to Gabriella Licudi after her final, cataclysmic scream of anguish - “You can get out.”
From a review on Britmovie: 20 January 2010 by Drewe Shimon:
As a shrieking, bellowing Beethoven movement plays on reel-to-reel cassette, a fair-haired, handsome young man lies on a bed cackling insanely, ignoring his neighbour’s entreaties to “turn that bloody row down.” Soon, he will snap and destroy with his bare hands practically everything of substance within his room- smashing bedsteads, windows, walls, bookcases and paintings, and making more noise than recorded music ever could.
As the actor - Michael Gothard in his first major role - embarks upon this odyssey of wanton destruction, we are dragged into his psychosis in a way we wouldn’t have imagined when, five minutes earlier, proceedings commenced in an admittedly abstract but comparatively restrained manner.
To be fair though, I knew from the off that Don Levy’s Herostratus - the film in question - was never going to be an easy ride. Even for someone who likes his films served with a generous side-order of weird, it doesn’t make easy viewing- or indeed reviewing- material. But I had to see it …
… this film, regarded by those lucky enough to have seen it first time round as a masterpiece on the level of A Clockwork Orange, O Lucky Man!, Performance and suchlike, was, until its acquisition by BFI Flipside in 2009, considered “missing”, or “lost.” No-one of my personal acquaintance had ever seen it, and the majority of internet discussions seemed to be concerned with whether or not it was a horror movie (it isn’t, although its subject matter is undoubtedly dark and macabre, and much of the imagery was disturbing enough to encourage several members of the crew to walk out during filming and have to be persuaded back).
…
Levy’s 142-minute odyssey, which took seven years to complete, is as difficult as one would imagine - an art piece designed to unnerve, shock and provoke the viewer into at least some form of reaction, although exactly which viewers the Australian director was aiming at remains unclear, for, as the audio interview for American radio included among the extras explains, he had little or no time for conventional film-making or narrative structure whatsoever.
Indeed, it seems he only gave Herostratus what linear narrative it has to “throw people a thread.” This attitude demonstrates not only a contempt for cinema audiences (and a feeling of intellectual superiority to them), but cinema itself, and possibly even humanity in general: it is this utter disgust, scornful and borne of hatred, which resonates more than anything else throughout.
…
It is therefore understandable why the world was not ready, even in liberated 1960s London, for such a film: it’s also easy to see why some have chosen to castigate its perceived “pretentiousness.” After all, Max (Gothard), its principal character, is the archetypal “angry young man” (there were plenty of them around in the early 60s), and not a particularly likeable one either: while sympathetic and handsome enough to court both the ladies and the gay audience, delivering several lines of caustic wit along the way, the overall impression that remains is of someone you wouldn’t want to be friends with, and indeed, in an eerie reflection of how the actor saw himself, he seemingly has none, [NB: the creators of this archive have found no evidence that Michael Gothard took this view of himself; why Drewe Shimon makes this assumption is uncear] taking ontological opposition to practically everyone that comes into contact with him.
His seething anger and resentment toward “modern day life” leads him to enter the advertising offices of Farson (played convincingly by respected character actor Peter Stephens, who eerily resembles a heterosexual John Savident) and his under-occupied secretary Clio (Gabriella Licudi) and offer to commit suicide in public: a dramatic gambit for sure, but one which seems vague, having little basis in his background (which we never know anyway). Rather than targeting one particular facet of society he finds reprehensible, he directs his broadside first at capitalism via the ad-man himself, before confessing to being “so bored with it all.”
Farson, acting as his nemesis, will later take him squarely to task, sensing that under such nihilism lurks a simple desire for fame, luxury and recognition (not to mention a case of sour grapes at not having yet achieved it) and several of Max’s actions, such as agreeing to be housed in an elaborate studio belonging to Farson, his castigation of the executives on set (a re-enactment of Levy’s own discussions with the film’s financiers?) and his final knowing “wink” at salesman Pointer atop the roof from which it has been designated the act will take place, seem to confirm this.
Therefore, not only does Levy urge us to understand his cry of vitriol (with Max representing his own alter-ego), but to view that as shallow and narcissistic. Talk about asking a lot of your public!! Then again, as pointed out earlier, he loathed and detested us.
…
The question that keeps recurring is why? Brought up in considerable comfort in one a prestigious (if culturally empty) New South Wales suburb, he possessed a prestigious talent he was allowed to develop where so many are not. This in turn won him a scholarship to Cambridge University (which he also apparently despised …): not bad going considering the poverty many lived in back then.
Admittedly, as a depressive, I’d be foolish to suggest that privilege alone automatically makes you happy, but one can’t help thinking what other, less fortunate individuals would have made of the chances Levy was seemingly handed on a plate.
...
Yet somehow, out of all this negativity emerges a work of great beauty. Gothard’s performance (though playing a fundamentally unlikeable person) is a revelation, a spitting, snarling yet suave diatribe on legs, and proof of what a performer can achieve when stretched to his outer limits (Levy would later admit Michael had at least “two breakdowns” during filming). [NB. A reference for this was requested, but not forthcoming.]
Although I remain an avowed fan and devotee of his subsequent horror and fantasy career, it is unfortunate that the actor was never again gifted such a demanding role, although the greatest tragedy remains undoubtedly his real-life suicide by hanging in 1993, some seven years after Levy took the same path.
…
True to form, Max ekes out a lone existence in a rented “pad” (although it’s never explained how, or indeed if, he pays for it) in a block of villas on Harrow Road, which look ripe for demolition and whose only other apparent occupants are the aforementioned nosey neighbour and a downtrodden Afro-Asian prostitute called Sandy.
The newspaper-decorated walls and crumbling staircases of this abode, and the decaying, greying London it comprises part of, reflect neither the “respectable” vision of the capital presented by Butchers and the Danziger Brothers, the “kitchen sink” approach of the social realists or the “swinging” metropolis so vividly depicted by Levy’s countercultural contemporaries: in this spartan, moribund wasteland, there is no kitchen sink, and even if there was, it would be malfunctioning or hanging from the wall.
Max is similarly unreconstituted: he dresses sparsely (if stylishly, befitting the day’s fashions) in white v-neck, jeans and slip-ons, looking as if he might have once belonged to some social “movement”, but offering no other evidence of affiliation with anyone or anything.
Some might see this as a failing in the film, and yes, it would have helped if we saw more of a public reaction to the chief protagonist’s actions (without which, surely, we are viewing little more than the delusions of a nutter) - but on the other hand, to involve the populace at large (and thus negate the film’s inherent solipsism) would render it null and void.
… I personally find it disheartening to see a film, albeit a great one, portraying the era as so stultifyingly dull, bland and unforgiving that the only way its “hero” (and I use the term loosely) feels he can gain recognition is to commit suicide, without even (as if that alone weren’t bad enough) the right to choose his own method, time and place of death, and with his last words written for him by advertising executives who read only commercial potential rather human issues into the event.
Putting things into context, this was a time when London, rather than decaying, was believed to be the centre of the known universe: when the Beatles were shortly to release Sergeant Pepper, and the British film industry was at an all-time high. The idea, therefore, that a gifted filmmaker such as Levy saw only “nothingness” within is too much for some of us to contemplate, and both viewings have left me with a growing awareness of the Max that potentially exists within us all.
…
Furthermore, there are minor stabs at humour: references to “soap detergent”, a very deadpan delivery of the phrase “piss off” and a completely unexpected “duckie” all somehow find their way into the mix, while the “bad guys” (Farson and Pointer) are quite sympathetic, presented as officious and cynical rather than evil. Also, remember, Max approaches them in the first place, not the other way round: the downside is to this knowledge is that it gives us cause to ponder whether the artist is as shallow and dishonest as “the man”, thus inviting further feelings of despair.
Does Max make his offer in the hope that his televised act will “shake people up” and force society to reconsider its attitudes? It’s easy … to start off thinking so, but halfway through, by which time he has the spoils and attention (not to mention the girl) he so obviously craves, and his regret visually grows before us with each passing hour, you realise there may be less to him than meets the eye.
Thus, the revelation that Clio’s affections … are no more than a sales pitch instigated by her employer, who is technically pimping her out, crushes him and returns him once again to genuine suicidal status, but will this be a permanent state? I shall reveal no more, save to say that the ending, whilst carrying a certain degree of predictability, is none the less effective for it.
…
It’s pretty safe to say that the everyday film viewer, even an everyday art film viewer, will never see another film quite like Herostratus: it stands alone in a field of one, the mission of an individual possessed by demons and motivations we shall never fully understand. Its construction, atmosphere, and ability, if only within its latter moments, to successfully capture the “poetry of London”, make it the epitome of a flawed masterwork- yet possibly one best viewed irregularly in order that it may be fully appreciated. And if at times its power becomes too much for you, remember- as Peter Stephens yells off-camera to Gabriella Licudi after her final, cataclysmic scream of anguish - “You can get out.”
