Ni dieux ni démons

Gods and Monsters

This human drama by talented director Bill Condon is an emotional masterpiece! Based from Christopher Bram's novel, Gods and Monsters depicts the last days of famed director James Whales and his flourishing relationship with his gardener Clayton Boone. Ian McKellen plays the ill-fated director haunted by painful memories of the past while Brendan Fraser, in a very serious role, is the man from which Whales finds peace.

Director Bill Condon is especially remarkable with his use of flashbacks to delineate James Whales' haunting past and imageries from the late director's own creations. He makes his audiences feel the growing bond between Whales and Boone, and effectively touches his audiences during the director's tragic end. Though this episode is a predictable story, it makes us explore within ourselves the Gods and Monsters of our lives.

I'm surprised that the Academy ignored Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser for their extremely fine performances. Ian McKellen gives an outstanding performance as the late director while Brendan Fraser fully shines in the film's climax. Lynn Redgrave is also commendable for her light performance as Hanna, the maid.

This is superbly recommended for anyone looking for a film loaded with emotions

Truth be told, it's not easy to write a film review as disconnected as I am from the underlying inspirations and principals of the movie in tow: Gods and Monsters. I knew little about James Whale and the Frankenstein franchise, possessed virtually zilch experience with Bill Condon (aside from the trivial baggage that his previous _and first_ feature film was the Direct-To-Oblivion sequel to the Scariest-Movie-Of-All-Time-When-I-Was-Fourteen, Candyman.), and unceremoniously avoided anything to do with Brendan Fraser. So, there's not much I can say about historical accuracy, era juxtapositions, or tour-de-force performances. All I know comes from the ninety-eight or so minutes I had with the film.

Which were pretty splendid, to say the least. What more, I was pleased by how little the film seemed to hit me over the head. Not with a lengthy diatribe over the political progressions of societal acceptance of diverse sexual orientations, not with any sort of disgusted expose of Hollywood's miscreants. Instead, I found a minimal but simplistically acceptable plot moved along by wonderful acting, vivid portrayals of what it's really like, beneath the typical distractions, gimmicks, and veils, to be a human being. Ian McKellan astounded me. Fact or fiction, he wasn't necessarily James Whale, but a complicated, reserved, and often misunderstood director who found a glimmer of intrigue and desire for his new gardener, Clayton Boone, played impeccably by Brendan Fraser. From their initial meeting with Whale indulging in staring at Boone hard-driving an edger, I was struck by a remarkable sense of kinship between the two, which only got better as the film unfolded. And, with Hanna--the third vertice of the bizarre love triangle--the edgy buffer between the men, I felt incredibly comfortable just watching three very different people open up to each other and to me. The irony of the title, Gods and Monsters, is that whether someone or something is considered a 'God' or 'Monster' is largely due to perception...human perception. We invent our gods and our monsters daily, and they are usually people we know, love, hate, or admire. I spent a very good ninety-eight minutes, mostly from being in the company of those three fellow humans.

"Gods and Monsters" wore me out. It was so uncomfortable watching James Whale, a man of great intellect and pride, facing the hand that the stroke and his developing dementia has dealt him. He is old and is grasping at the disappearing straws of his sexual identity. He's seen as a sinner by his patient, loyal, and harshly loving housekeeper. He is becoming pathetic and he knows it. He minimalizes his accomplishments and really sees only betrayal. Flattery gets no-one anywhere. A man of infinite genius grabs for a platonic sexual encounter. All this does for him is brings up the monsters within himself, memories of war and lost love. Brendan Fraser is quite good and Ian McKellen is superb. His elusive nature and "keep-em-guessing" responses to simple conversation would drive most of us crazy. But we would stay for the stories.

Gods and Monsters is in my opinion one of the cinema treats of the year if not one of the best of this decade. Disappointed by a visit to the Mod Squad, I visited ‘Gods' to cleanse my palate. It was enchanting from it's sensitive commencement to an emotional conclusion. It boasts a resonant story which holds it's audience entranced. The script adaptation left no scene lacking significance. Characters are proficiently crafted. Equally substantial, Bill Condon's perceptive Direction was facile and lucid. A mixture of colour and black and white imagery was deftly handled as was the juxtaposition of time person and place in the remembered and imagined sequences. Ian McKellen was the consummate performer as fading Hollywood screen Director James Whale enfeebled by a succession of strokes. The film is further enhanced by a splendid Award winning portrayal of the loyal house maid Hannah by Lyn Redgrave. I was stunned by 'The Mummy's' and 'Blast from the Past's' Brendan Fraser as the hapless and perplexed yardman Clayton Boone who is befriended by James Whale. Who would have thought that such a sensitive and in touch performance could come from the Encino Man. Both McKellen and Fraser team up in some empowering closing scenes. Here one character sees mirrored in the other character's disposition his own fears and emotions. Every facet of Gods and Monsters is admirable. Miss this and you have neglected a very special motion picture.

Admittedly, I am a sucker for films about Hollywood. From "Sunset Boulevard" to "The Bad and the Beautiful" and even "The Carpetbaggers," watching a film about movies is always a pleasure, guilty or otherwise. "Gods and Monsters" can be added to that short list. The semi-fictionalized story of director James Whale's last days is a melancholy tale of an intelligent, creative mind that is beginning to fail and Whale's desperate fear of that mental failure. He sees in the handsome hulking form of his gardener an individual that reminds him of his most famous film creation, Frankenstein's monster, and he tries to reach out to him and offer the friendship that his film creation was denied. However, his mind is swimming in and out of fantasy, memory, and reality, and his gesture initially confuses the gardener, who sees it only as a sexual advance. In one of the Motion Picture Academy's most bewildering choices, the Best Actor Oscar for 1998 went to an Italian comic who has not been heard from since instead of to the brilliant Ian McKellan in what is arguably his finest film role as James Whale. Lynn Redgrave is funny and touching as his housekeeper, and Brendan Fraser, an adventurous actor who does not shy away from stretching his abilities, has yet to find a better role than that of Clayton Boone, the gardener. Beautifully written and directed by Bill Condon, the film is more than just an homage to old Hollywood. "Gods and Monsters" echoes some of the themes of "Sunset Boulevard" in its portrayal of a Hollywood veteran, who has been banished and forgotten by the industry and has retreated into a private world of his own making where he still directs the scenes.