The Libertine – (2004) A costume drama dramatizing the last five years in the life of poet, courtier, womanizer John Wilmot, the second earl of Rochester, based on the play by Stephen Jeffreys. “His best-known poem is A Satire Against Mankind (1675), a brilliant attack on homo sapiens and his pretensions to rationality,” states William Rose Benét’s The Reader’s Encyclopedia. England in the latter half of the 17^th century was ruled by King Charles II (John Malkovich) who expected much of the very gifted and talented Rochester (Johnny Depp) only to be repeatedly aggravated and angered by his whoring, cynical antics, and composing sexually-explicit verse (matching his wits with tits and slits) and a play commissioned with the intention of impressing the French ambassador. It came to naught for Johnny could not be bought. An embarrassment to King Charles in attendance at its performance, the play featured blatant displays of dildos, shagging on stage, and Rochester parodying the crown. Johnny went into hiding, wearing a beard as Dr Bendo and selling his urine as medicine.

Yet before his demise, Rochester defended Charles in the House of Lords. Married to Elizabeth Milot (Rosamund Pike), whom he abducted when she was a virginal heiress of 18, he fell in love with the actress Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton) since his great love affair was with the theatre. While Rochester’s mistress and close confidant, Barry also agreed to be the king’s intelligence on the poet. (His third Elizabeth was Barry’s daughter of whom she initially hid from him his patrimony.) In the prologue Rochester warns us, “You will not like me.” And yet I did find his honesty and refusal to be anything other than himself admirable. When his ink turned to strong drink, his life began to stink. An atheistic free spirit, he died in 1780, a cripple at 32, of alcoholism and syphilis. The picture has an intentional hazy, gritty texture to the eye, filled with rain, muck, smoke, and candlelit interiors. It ends with the final scene from a play based on Rochester’s life with Barry in the role of his long-suffering wife. The movie was dedicated to the memory of Mary Selway, Marlon Brando, and Hunter S. Thompson.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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