Customer Reviews

Pandaemonium

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Actors: Dexter Fletcher, Clive Merrison, John Hannah, Michael Harbour, Linus Roache
Directors: Julien Temple
Format: Region 1

From Amazon.com
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Set in England during the early 19th century, Pandaemonium evokes late-1960s America in its depiction of the relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Linus Roach) and William Wordsworth (John Hannah). Instead of going to Vietnam, Wordsworth goes off to fight against the French while Coleridge stays at home and promotes utopianism. After the war, the poets live and work together with Coleridge's wife, Sara (Samantha Morton), and Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy (Emily Woof). At first this communal arrangement works to the advantage of Coleridge--who does some of his best writing while Wordsworth stagnates--until Coleridge becomes addicted to opium. Wordsworth, meanwhile, doesn't find his voice until he abandons his friend. In 20th-century vernacular, Wordsworth is the yuppie, Coleridge the hippie. Director Julien Temple (Absolute Beginners) even evokes 1960s cinema with this occasionally overwrought--but often visually stunning--essay on the mysteries of creativity. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

On the DVD
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Trailer
Widescreen 1.85:1
Optional French Track
Featurette
Scene Selection
Theatrical Trailer
Trailer Gallery

"Pandaemonium" just might be one of the greatest movies ever made about poets. There are very few that I've seen that haven't been superficial, over the top or boring. This movie is sublime. The story of Samuuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordworth makes grand entertainment and exciting drama. Linus Roche is a bundle of wild energy as Coleridge, with his addiction to opium (laudanum) taking center stage as a symbol of his ups and downs in his creative energy and mental health. John Hannah is very good as Worthsworh, a poet totally different than Coleridge but bound together at first for the common cause of writing great poetry. The cast is uniformly excellent and the story is exciting with great location photography and visionary scenes on how Coleridge composed and got the ideas for his masterpieces, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan," and the moving "Frost at Midnight." It is a great movie and great sadness, showing the arc of the two poet's careers. It avoids the stilted language and imagery of former historical epics and is as fresh as if these poets come alive now in the 21st century. A movie to treasure and share. Highly recommended. May it lead its viewers to appreciate poetry and poets more and elavate them to a high place where great words and visions are created and cherished.

This movie is stunning in its stupidity. The writers are obviously incapable of even the dimmest understanding of the work of either Wordsworth or Coleridge. In their ignorance they must fall back upon a stereotypical pastiche bearing virtually no resemblance to the history or character of either poet. The legacy of these two literary giants offers a rich tapestry to exploit. Yet here we have an offering which might be summed up in one sentence as follows. "Drugs--wow, man cool, no drugs?--bummer."

Pandaemonium is one of the better films I've seen in a long time. Some of its themes are much like the ideas (ala Hassan i Sabbah & assassins & hunger for paradise) that have attracted me lately. It is about the poets Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge (who wrote "Kubla Khan"). The exploration of the creative force, mingled with the seeking to see deep into reality is amazing (Coleridge tried to do it with opium, and both succeeded and kind of destroyed himself in the process). The movie is based on real history but I think it took some liberties to make it a more powerful story. Coleridge also wrote "The Ancient Mariner," and that poem is incredible, I've even more taken by it to see it so lushly explored in a visual sense in how the idea and language came to Coleridge. There's some really funny parts too, like a time when they eat datura and almost fall up off the world (or their perceptions convince them they are about to, and then they start playing with it, realizing the joke, but still pretending that they can fall up.) There's a scholarly literary study on Coleridge published in 1927 called "The Road to Xanadu - A Study in the Ways of the Imagination" by John Livingstone Lowes, a brilliant book, and I wonder if the filmmakers got many of their ideas and details from that book.

"Pandaemonium" is truly a tribute to two of the great geniuses of English Literature--Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. All aspects combine together to create a masterpiece for all lovers of poetry AND Romantic Poets. I teach English 9-12 and a class on the Romantic Poets so I know my stuff and was completely blown away by the beauty and dedication of the movie. It doesn't pull punches with the opium addiction and Coleridge's usually cold marriage to his wife Sarah. Lord Byron makes a cameo. I was slightly disappointed that there was no room for introducing Asra--Mary Wordsworth's sister and Coleridge's obsession--but that side story doesn't detract from the overall experience. I cried at the end because "Kubla Khan" is truly his masterpiece and a beautiful work of literature. I will be showing this movie the first week of school with my Romantic Poet's class. It's a must! I just wish there was something equally brilliant about my true poetic love John Keats!

Attribute #1 is that director Julien Temple shows us rather than tells us his vision of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his creative process, especially given that STC was an obsessive-compulsive, addictive, visionary genius. I liked director Temple's "Absolute Beginners" but I adore this work. Attribute #2 is actor Linus Roache who plays Coleridge. Roache knocked me out before in "Wings of the Dove" and "Priest" and he does it again here. He is an incredible talent and I'm beginning to lose count of how many leading men actors from the UK I can say this about! It seems as if acting talent must move within the populace there like a virulent virus. This is a very artistic film with Temple's and Roache's collaborative efforts. Some viewers are complaining about historical accuracy but all I can say is that I wish this film had been around when I was studying "The Ancient Mariner" in high school. It would have been experienced then as an intense multi media event. I hope some 10th grade English teacher somewhere is using it that way. Everyone else in the film does a very fine job too. The production values are marvelous. It wouldn't be the film it is though without Temple and Roache blasting us within every frame.

I saw the movie on DVD and really enjoyed it. I was reminded of a similar film, _Haunted Summer_, which portrays the meeting of Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. I guess I thought Wordsworth and Coleridge were more friendly than this (and maybe they were) in reality. The film sure is biased towards Coleridge. Wordsworth comes off very badly--he gives up on his revolutionary principles, marries a shrewish wife, and seems only interested in how he will be viewed by posterity. Wordsworth goes to visit Coleridge and to collaborate with him, but can't seem to put a single word to paper. Then, suddenly, _Lyrical Ballads_ is finished and published and filled with Wordsworth's poetry!

The performances are excellent, particularly Linus Roache as Coleridge and Emily Woof as Dorothy Wordsworth. The film is a bit odd at times, with jet trails moving across the skies of the 18th century, but it does a great job of getting at the creative impulse, showing the feverish bouts of imagination that gave rise to Coleridge's _Rime of the Ancient Mariner_ and the fragment _Kubla Khan_ (interesting that it shows an interruption by Wordsworth as the cause of STC losing his train of thought). Also, the scene with frost forming on the window while Coleridge cares for his son Hartley, leading to one of his more memorable early poems, is a standout. This film is well worth your time and isn't the boring, stodgy take on biography that some might be fearing.

Like the last reviewer, I don't know a lot about the personal lives of Wordsworth and Coleridge. But history aside, the film is beautiful. The relationships between the poets, Sara, Dorothy, and other friends - whether completely accurate or not - are very complex and wonderfully written and acted.

The film is thought-provoking and visually stunning. It's a great movie about writing, man's relationship with nature, friendship, and addiction. The poetic references worked into it are great for the poetry buff, even if those who have studied the poets in depth may not agree with the way the characters are portrayed.

Pandaemonium purports to show us the relationship between the early English Romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge, and, as one might expect, it is full of historical inaccuracies. The movie's main thesis seems to be to put down Wordsworth as a scoundrel, thief and underhanded cad, whose main purpose all along was to undermine Coleridge to whom our sympathy is directed. Wordsworth's character is probably the best portrayed character in the movie; it is dour and self-absorbed, but he was not so vindictive and evil as the movie wants us to believe and his poetry had its own originality, not stolen from Coleridge. The character of Coleridge is certainly less believable to anyone who has experienced him through his writings, though within the fictional world of the movie it is very well presented. Dorothy Wordsworth is also well played, but her character seems out of the period. Some sequences, such as the "Frost at Midnight," are so wonderfully presented that they are extremely memorable. Others are less successful: Temple attempts to make some environmental points through the use of anachronisms, such as jet trails and oil spills; these are so simplistically obvious that they are annoying to the extreme. The most stupid part of the movie comes after Southey (Surprise! Surprise!) is appointed Poet Laureate instead of Wordworth . (In reality, it was no surprise; Southey was the most popular poet at the time.) We lose all semblance of complexity when simplistic melodrama takes over, and the mad Dorothy saves "Kubla Khan" for posterity. And on that note, we were released from the movie.

I am not a historian, and have not read either William Wordsworth's accounts of his relationship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, or visa versa. Before going into this film I was vaguely aware of their friendship, turned rivalry. Based on the 2 reviews available on Amazon.com, I almost didn't buy this DVD.

However, I weighed the facts: I love both the poems of Coleridge and of Wordsworth that I have read. They are epic and broad in scope, as well as eloquent and lyrical. I am also an admirer of both Linus Roache and John Hannah's work, and find Julian Temple an interesting director to say the least. I thought: how bad could this combination be? My didactical reasoning won out and I bought and viewed this film, and I'm glad of it. And I can only recommend that others follow my lead.

Is it historically accurate? As far as I know, which is not a lot, in this matter - no! That said, it is trying to make a statement, not be a documentary. Is Wordsworth displayed as an ogre in favor of praising Coleridge's drug-assisted genius? Not really. Wordsworth's opinion - that Coleridge's genius was not worth every price - was fairly portrayed in the film. Coleridge's drug addition is also not prettied up, or made to look romantic. Fair is fair. They were both geniuses in their own right, but - like us all - mortals as well, with all the flaws that go with it. They obviously became rivals, which is also - unfortunately - very human; we the audience have the opportunity to recognize that we don't need to choose between them.

Panning this film for its historical inaccuracies is like the Maritimer shooting the albatross...it goes against the nature of the thing. Experience the film as a poem, and relax about the details. Isn't that what both of their poetry tried to teach us?

Beautifully acted and magnificently filmed. Please give this little gem a chance!