The Ninth Gate is a 1999 film based on the novel The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Spanning several genres, The Ninth Gate is a mix of mystery, horror thriller, and neo-noir, and additionally portrays facets of the rare book business. The film was co-written and directed by Roman Polanski, and stars Johnny Depp as Dean Corso, a rare-book dealer hired by a book collector (Frank Langella) to validate a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, a book by 17th century author Aristide Torchia.
The film premiered in San Sebastián, Spain on August 25, 1999, a month before the 47th San Sebastian International Film Festival and was a critical and commercial failure in North America as most reviewers felt that it fell short of Polanski's best known supernatural thriller, Rosemary's Baby. The Ninth Gate managed to turn a profit with a worldwide box office gross of $58.4 million, well above its $38 million budget.
Plot
Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is a rare-book dealer in New York whose only motivation is financial gain. Wealthy book collector Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) hires Corso to authenticate The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, a book by 17th century author Aristide Torchia, one of only three surviving copies, now in Balkan's possession. The book contains nine engravings which, when correctly deciphered and the interpretations properly spoken, are alleged to raise the Devil. Balkan suspects the book may be a forgery, and hires Corso to travel to Europe, assess the other two known copies, discover whether any are genuine, and if so, acquire them for Balkan at any cost.
Balkan's copy of The Nine Gates had previously belonged to Andrew Telfer, who committed suicide shortly after selling the book to Balkan. Telfer's widow Liana (Lena Olin) wants the book back, as Telfer originally bought the book for her. Liana seduces Corso in a failed attempt to reacquire her book. Corso's business partner and book store owner Bernie (James Russo), whom Corso had asked to hide the book, is murdered in the style of one of the engravings in The Nine Gates. Like The Hanged Man, Bernie is found hanging by one foot upside down.
Corso travels to Toledo, in Spain, and talks to the Ceniza brothers (Jose Lopez Rodero), twin book restorers who show him that some of the book's engravings are signed "LCF." Prompting Corso to guess who the initials refer to, the Cenizas agree when he responds with "Lucifer." Corso next goes by train to Sintra, in Portugal, and visits Victor Fargas (Jack Taylor), whose copy Corso compares with Balkan's, noting several variations in the engravings. The next morning, Corso is awakened by a mysterious young woman (Emmanuelle Seigner) with whom he has been crossing paths; she then leads Corso back to Fargas' home to find him murdered and the engravings ripped out of his copy of The Nine Gates. Later, the unnamed woman displays supernatural ability when she rescues Corso from an attack by Telfer's bodyguard (Tony Amoni).
In Paris, Corso tracks down the third surviving copy owned by Baroness Kessler (Barbara Jefford). He records additional differences in her copy before she is killed and pages from her book are removed. Corso, now believing each copy of The Nine Gates to be genuine, suspects that the secret to opening the nine gates can be found in a combination of all three copies. Telfer steals Balkan's copy out of Corso's hotel room, and he follows her to a mansion to witness her using it to lead a Satanist ceremony. Balkan suddenly interrupts the ceremony, kills Telfer, takes the torn out engravings and his own intact copy, and drives away believing that Corso is correct and all three copies are genuine.
Realizing that Balkan is responsible for the deaths of Victor Fargas and Baroness Kessler, Corso locates Balkan and witnesses him preparing to open the gates himself. However, because one of the engravings he uses is a forgery, Balkan's invocation fails and he is consumed by flames (Corso gives him a mercy killing by shooting him with Telfer's own gun). The mysterious girl has sex with Corso and directs him back to the Ceniza brothers' shop. There he discovers the final authentic engraving, which includes a likeness of the mystery girl herself, thereby allowing Corso to identify the correct location and travel through the ninth portal, to an unestablished fate, at the film's conclusion.
Cast and characters
Production
Roman Polanski received the screenplay by Enrique Urbizu that adapted the book, El Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The filmmaker was so taken by Urbizu's script that he read the novel. He liked the novel because "[he] saw so many elements that seemed good for a movie. It was suspenseful, funny, and there were a great number of secondary characters that are tremendously cinematic".[1] Pérez-Reverte's book featured several intertwined plots and so Polanski decided to write his own draft with long-time screenwriting partner, John Brownjohn (they had collaborated previously on Tess, Pirates and Bitter Moon). The source novel contains numerous literary references and a subplot concerning Corso’s investigation into the original manuscript for a chapter of The Three Musketeers. Polanski and Brownjohn jettisoned these elements and focused on one particular plot line: Corso’s pursuit of the authentic copy of The Nine Gates.[1]
Polanski approached the subject matter with a certain amount of skepticism as he said in an interview, "I don't believe in the occult. I don't believe. Period".[2] He wanted to have fun with the genre. "There [are] a great number of cliches of this type in The Ninth Gate which I tried to turn around a bit. You can make them appear serious on the surface, but you cannot help but laugh at them".[2] For Polanski, the appeal of the film was that it featured "a mystery in which a book is the leading character" and that its illustrations "are also essential clues".[3]
While reading the book, Polanski thought of Johnny Depp as Corso. The actor became attached to the project as early as 1997 when he met Polanski at the Cannes Film Festival promoting his directorial debut The Brave that was in competition.[4] Initially, the veteran filmmaker did not think that Depp was right for the role of Corso because the character was 40-years-old. Polanski was thinking of casting an older actor but Depp was persistent and wanted to work with him.[5] Hints of friction between Depp and Polanski while working on the film surfaced in the press around the time of its North American release. The actor said, "It's the director's job to push, to provoke things out of an actor".[5] Polanski told one interviewer, "He [Depp] decided to play it rather flat which wasn't how I envisioned it. And I didn't tell him it wasn't how I saw it". Corso's disheveled look was modeled after Raymond Chandler's famous sleuth, Philip Marlowe according to the director.[2]
Polanski cast Frank Langella as Balkan after seeing him in Adrian Lyne’s version of Lolita. Barbara Jefford was a last minute casting decision because the German actress originally cast was struck with pneumonia and another actress couldn't learn the lines. Jefford came in with only a few days notice, learned her lines, and affected a German accent.[1] Filming took place in France, Portugal and Spain during the summer of 1998.
Soundtrack
The main theme of the film is based on Camille Saint-Saëns' piece for violin and orchestra, Havanaise. A portion of the film score consists of a vocalise sung by Korean soprano Sumi Jo.[6]
Track listing
- Vocalise: "Theme from the Ninth Gate" – 3:56
- "Opening Titles" – 3:31
- "Corso" – 3:24
- "Bernie Is Dead" – 4:31
- "Liana" – 3:03
- "Plane to Spain" – 4:48
- "The Motorbike" – 1:18
- "Missing Book/Stalking Corso" – 4:41
- "Blood on His Face" – 1:13
- "Chateau Saint Martin" – 4:05
- "Liana's Death" – 2:38
- "Boo! / The Chase" – 4:29
- "Balkan's Death" – 3:52
- "The Ninth Gate" – 1:13
- "Corso and the Girl" – 3:20
- Vocalise: "Theme from the Ninth Gate (Reprise)"
Reaction
The Ninth Gate premiered in San Sebastián, Spain on August 25, 1999. On its opening weekend in North America, the film debuted in 1,586 theaters and grossed $6.6 million. While eventually only making $18.6 million in North America, it went on to make $58.4 million worldwide, well above its budget of $38 million.[7]
Most critics felt that the film fell short of Polanski's best known supernatural thriller, Rosemary's Baby. The Ninth Gate holds a 40% rating at Rotten Tomatoes (and a 26% among the "Cream of the Crop" critics) and a metascore of 44 on Metacritic. Film critic Roger Ebert felt that the film's ending was lackluster; "while at the end I didn't yearn for spectacular special effects, I did wish for spectacular information – something awesome, not just a fade to white".[8] In his review for The New York Times, Elvis Mitchell criticized the film for being "about as scary as a sock-puppet re-enactment of The Blair Witch Project, and not nearly as funny".[9] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "D+" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote that the film had an "aroma of middle-brow, art-house Euro-rot, a whiff of decay and hauteur in a film not even a star as foxed and foxy as Johnny Depp himself could save".[10] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan felt that the film was "too laid-back and unconcerned about the pacing of its story to be satisfying", and that "a thriller that's not high-powered is an intriguing concept, in reality it can hold our attention for only so long".[11] J. Hoberman, in his review for the Village Voice, described the film as "barely releasable hokum, stuffed with cheesy blah-blah".[12]
However, Philip Strick's review in Sight and Sound magazine was more sympathetic, recognizing that it was "not particularly liked at first outing – partly because Johnny Depp, in fake grey temples, personifies the odious Corso of the book a little too accurately – the film is intricately well-made, deserves a second chance despite its disintegrations, and in time will undoubtedly acquire its own coven of heretical fans".[13] Time magazine's Richard Corliss felt that the film was Polanski's most accessible effort "since fleeing the U.S. soon after Chinatown".[14] In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Graham felt that "Depp is the best reason to see Polanski's satanic thriller", and that "Polanski's sly sense of film-noir conventions pokes fun at the genre while at the same time honoring it".[15]
After the film's release, Artisan Entertainment sued Polanski for allegedly taking more than $1 million from the budget, pocketing refunds of France's value-added tax instead of turning them over to Artisan's completion bond company.[16]
References
- ^ a b c Hartl, John (March 5, 2000). "The Ninth Gate Marks Return for Polanski". Seattle Times.
- ^ a b c Howell, Peter (March 3, 2000). "Polanski's Demons". Toronto Star.
- ^ Arnold, Gary (March 11, 2000). "Polanski's Dark Side". Washington Times.
- ^ Archerd, Army (February 10, 1998). "Polanski opens Gate". Variety.
- ^ a b Schaefer, Stephen (March 10, 2000). "The Devil and Roman Polanski". Boston Herald.
- ^ Phares, Heather. "The Ninth Gate". allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:0xfqxqwkldde. Retrieved on 2007-05-18.
- ^ "The Ninth Gate". Box Office Mojo. May 18, 2007. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=ninethgate.htm. Retrieved on 2007-05-18.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (March 10, 2000). "The Ninth Gate". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000310/REVIEWS/3100302/1023. Retrieved on 2007-05-18.
- ^ Mitchell, Elvis (March 10, 2000). "Off to Hell in a Handbasket, Trusty Book in Hand". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05E6D81F38F933A25750C0A9669C8B63. Retrieved on 2007-11-09.
- ^ Schwarzbaum, Lisa (March 17, 2000). "The Ninth Gate". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20176772,00.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-09.
- ^ Turan, Kenneth (March 10, 2000). "The Ninth Gate". Los Angeles Times. http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-movie000309-35,0,1097825.story. Retrieved on 2009-04-09.
- ^ Hoberman, J (March 14, 2000). "Missions Impossible". Village Voice. http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-03-14/film/missions-impossible/2. Retrieved on 2009-04-09.
- ^ Strick, Philip (September 2000). "The Ninth Gate". Sight and Sound. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/544. Retrieved on 2007-05-18.
- ^ Corliss, Richard (March 27, 2000). "The Ninth Gate". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,996488,00.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-09.
- ^ Graham, Bob (March 10, 2000). "Summoning Silliness". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2000/03/10/DD108488.DTL. Retrieved on 2009-04-09.
- ^ Shprintz, Janet (July 18, 2000). "Artisan Sues Polanski, Alleges He Took Money". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117783846.html?categoryid=22&cs=1. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
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