Gods and monsters

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	Title	Gods and monsters
	Originaltitle:	Gods and Monsters
	Regie:	Bill Condon
	Darsteller:	Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave
	Erscheinungsjahr:	1998
	Land:	UK
	Stichwort:	Epilepsie, Anfälle, epileptischer Anfall
	Release:	21.01.1998

Handlung

Der homosexuelle britische Regisseur James Whale (Frankenstein, Frankensteins Braut) lebt zurückgezogen mit seiner Haushälterin Hanna. Nach einem Gehirnschlag verschlechtert sich sein Gesundheitszustand. Er beginnt, seinen Tod zu planen und zu inszenieren. Seinem Gärtner Clayton, der ihn sexuell anzieht, will er dabei eine besondere Aufgabe zukommen lassen.

Weitere Info

In Schwaber Kerson, Toba: ""Epilepsy and Media"" (Manuskript) im Zusammenhang mit epileptischen Anfällen genannt. ""Symptoms include olfactory and visual hallucinations which allow the protagonist to experience himself at different times of his life and bring people who had been important to him into his present. In one scene, when as an old man he is being photographed with the equally old stars of his Frankenstein films, the camera’s flash causes Whale to have a seizure in which he is simultaneously with the actors at their ages when they played the characters, at their present ages and with the monsters."" (Schwaber Kerson, Toba: ""Epilepsy and Media"" (Manuskript, S. 26) from Toba Kerson's notes: Epilepsy: a seizure in ch. 4. James Whale is sitting outside with the young man who is interviewing him. He says, “just outside London . . drops his cigar. Clip runs until the scene at the doctor’s office when he says “my condition will continue to deteriorate for the rest of my life.” Ch. 14 – scene at George Cukor’s home – social secy (same young man) calls photographer over for an historical moment – James Whale and his monsters – the flash of the camera causes him to have a seizure. Subject and object shift here. Very interesting because both are men because it is a gay thing and the young journalist is the vulnerable character willing to strip to get the old guy to tell him about his life. Journalist begins as the object, when he is asked to strip, etc. Then, when Whale has the seizure, he becomes the object. So the seizure switches the power differential. ""Gods and Monsters" was promoted from the outset as an artistic drama, but the publicity tended to play coyly on the possibility of a homosexual romance between the retired film director James_Whale, played by Ian McKellen and his hunky gardener Clayton Boone (Brendan_Fraser). While the film does involve romance, the central relationship between the director and his gardener is about the development of a genuine friendship between two outwardly dissimilar but inwardly kindred spirits. In the story, Whale has been living for many years in peaceful, if not entirely contented retirement, under the loving and watchful eye of his contentious and argumentative Hungarian housekeeper (Lynn_Redgrave). His earlier celebrity as the director of the original Frankenstein movie and its sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, results in his being visited occasionally by disagreeable young men who have come to bask in the reminiscences of this creator of two ""camp"" classics. His reputation as a fairly outrageous homosexual comes into play here, when one particularly unpleasant and effeminate young man comes by seeking cinematic tidbits: the director challenges the boy to a game of stripping off one article of clothing for every revelation he shares about his moviemaking past. He had gotten the boy down to his briefs when he is stricken with one of his ever-recurring bouts of epilepsy, the result of a series of strokes. By way of contrast, while he is clearly interested in his gardener as a sex-object, gradually luring him into ever closer association, the openness and vulnerability of this awkwardly aggressive heterosexual boy inspires him to reveal the history of his heart. It turns out that, like the young man who is modeling for his supposed artworks, he came from a poor and difficult background. By the time naïve gardener learns of the director's homosexuality from the housekeeper, he has been drawn too deeply under the man's spell to stay away from their meetings for long. While the tension between the men never departs, a genuine relationship of caring develops between them. Meanwhile, Whale has been clearly observing the progressive deterioration of his mental faculties, and is increasingly being overwhelmed by vivid memories and visions.""
Clarke Fountain, Rovi : http://www.starpulse.com/Movies/Gods_And_Monsters/Summary/

siehe auch: http://www.jle.com/en/revues/epd/e-docs/implacable_images_why_epileptiform_events_continue_to_be_featured_in_film_and_television_269204/article.phtml?tab=texte

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