Mary Shelley (2017)

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Movie
German title Mary Shelley
Original title Mary Shelley
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2017
length 120 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Haifaa Al Mansour
script Haifaa Al-Mansour,
Emma Jensen ,
Conor McPherson
production Amy Baer ,
Ruth Coady ,
Alan Moloney
music Amelia Warner
camera David Ungaro
cut Alex Mackie
occupation

Mary Shelley is a biography by Haifaa Al Mansour about the British writer Mary Shelley , who went down in literary history as the author of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus . The film premiered in September 2017 at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released in US cinemas on May 25, 2018.

action

The film tells the story of Mary , who at a young age had a fiery and stormy relationship with the equally creative poet Percy Bysshe Shelley . Mary and Percy announce this love to their family and half-sister Claire. In Lord Byron's house on Lake Geneva, she presented her idea of Frankenstein , but society at the time had little left for a woman trying to become a writer. Nobody realizes that at the tender age of 18 she has already come up with a literary masterpiece. As a woman, Mary has to protect the secret of her identity and forges a plan.

Biographical background

The film tells of a crucial phase in Mary Shelley's life

The film tells of Mary Shelley at a crucial phase in her life. The later world-famous writer was born Mary Godwin in London, her mother was the author and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft . She died eleven days after Mary was born. Mary grew up with her unloved and despised stepmother, against whom she constantly rebelled. Mary lacked the personal reason to continue her mother's commitment to women's rights.

In 1814, the then 16-year-old fell in love with the married, 21-year-old Percy Bysshe Shelley , who was an admirer of her mother's work and a supporter of her father's political ideas. Together with Shelley and her stepsister Claire Clairmont, Mary went on a journey through France, Switzerland, England, Italy and Germany. During the trip, the father blocked the inheritance. In May 1816 the poet Shelley, Mary and their stepsister arrived in Sécheron near Geneva, where the English poet and dandy George Byron and his Italian personal physician and lover Giovanni Polidori, who was the author of the great Dracula and himself, also met a little later was in exile in Switzerland. Together, the five of them moved into Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva, where in the evenings while enjoying wine by the open fire they imagined scary stories, because those days loved the cozy shiver of the Gothic novel. In the same year Mary comes up with an idea for a novel and begins to write it, with Polidori looking over her shoulder. The feelings soon became entangled in the five menage, and Claire in particular was a burden.

In late 1816, a few weeks after Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet, committed suicide, he married Mary. On January 1, 1818, the then 20-year-old published the novel Frankenstein , which initially appeared anonymously. The book has a foreword by Percy Shelley and is dedicated to William Godwin, which is why critics and readers concluded that Percy Shelley was the author. In 1822, Mary's husband drowned while sailing in the Gulf of La Spezia.

With her last born and only surviving child, Mary returned to England, where she successfully continued her writing career. Mary's last decade of life was marked by disease, she probably died of a brain tumor at the age of 53. Her son showed no literary talent.

production

Staff and cast

Directed by Haifaa Al Mansour , who wrote the script together with Emma Jensen and Conor McPherson . The original title of the film was A Storm In the Stars until January 2017 . The score was composed by Amelia Warner . The soundtrack for the film, which includes 19 pieces of music, was released on May 25, 2018 by Universal Music Classics / Decca Gold.

The main role of Mary Shelley , portrayed in the film, was cast by the American actress Elle Fanning , who was 18 years old at the beginning of the shooting and whose real first name is also Mary. Douglas Booth took on the role of the poet and Mary's first great love Percy Bysshe Shelley .

Filming

In Dublin one shot among other things at the Collins Barracks

Filming began on February 20, 2016 in Dublin and took place there at the Irish National Museum, the Collins Barracks, and on Upper Mount Street, among others. From March 7, 2016, filming continued in Luxembourg. David Ungaro acted as cameraman .

Marketing and Publishing

HanWay Films holds the international rights. In January 2017, the title of the film was changed from A Storm In the Stars to Mary Shelley . During the Berlinale 2017 , details of the film's content were announced.

The film premiered on September 9, 2017 at the Toronto International Film Festival . In April 2018, the film was presented in the Spotlight section at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released in French cinemas on April 25, 2018. The film was released in US cinemas on May 25, 2018 and is due to be released in the UK on July 6, 2018. In July 2018, the film will also be shown at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival . It started in Germany on December 27, 2018. It was shown at the Hof Film Festival in October 2018 .

reception

Age rating

In Germany, the film was approved for ages 12 and up . The reason for this says: "Some depictions of quarrels, intoxication and despair as well as nightmares can emotionally overwhelm children under the age of 12 because they cannot adequately classify them."

Reviews

Variety's Andrew Barker says Haifaa Al Mansour takes a bold left-hand turn with Mary Shelley when she delves into contemporary British biography compared to her first film , but many of her attempts fell by the wayside. Although the footage is impressive and the film is filled with an appropriate feminist fire, the script is confused and has a fundamental flaw in that it loses its thematic focus and thus turns an extraordinary story into a didactic and incoherent melodrama. In the film, no suitable arc is spanned over individual storylines, and the script has the strange habit of delivering important information only one or two scenes after the point in time when it would have made most sense to know about it: “a stormy love story who never cooks with the right passion, and an account of the artistic awakening that comes too late. "

Margret Köhler writes in the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung that it is hardly surprising that Haifaa Al-Mansour dares to tackle this topic, since her heroine in Das Mädchen Wadjda had to defend herself against male prejudice and pressure from a misogynistic society, albeit in the 21st century . Both Wadjda and Mary approach them from a feminist perspective, Köhler continues. Even if the desire for heartbreak occasionally goes through with her, the author Mary Shelley received the deserved cinematic monument with the biopic.

Gunda Bartels from Tagesspiegel explains that the conventionally told artist biography filmed in a neat arthouse look draws plausible parallels between the content of the novel and the life of the author: “The forlornness of the half-orphans rejected by the stepmother is reflected in the loneliness of the creature created by Doctor Frankenstein. And the social ostracism that Mary experiences as the pregnant mistress of a married artist - who is devoted to free love and often penniless - sharpens the criticism of social exclusion flowing into the novel. " Mary Shelley depicts all of this coherently, and a dynamic, also floating camera and the driving piano music underlined the urgency of all feelings, so Bartels further and sums it up: "Yes, Mary Shelley paints a romanticizing, but not clumsy idealizing picture of a love and author couple who are experimenting with a still damn demanding model of life."

Awards

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2018

  • Nomination for the audience award

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release to Mary Shelley . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 185102 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ a b c Marieluise Christadler (ed.): Freedom, equality, femininity: Enlightenment, revolution and women in Europe . Leske + Budrich, Opladen, 1990.
  3. ↑ a b Ulrich Horstmann: Polidoris vampire story: Totenruhe In: Die Zeit, October 23, 1992.
  4. ↑ Armin Strohmeyr: Frankenstein is created on Lake Geneva In: br.de, May 13, 2015.
  5. ↑ Marieluise Christadler (Ed.): Freedom, Equality, Femininity: Enlightenment, Revolution and Women in Europe . Leske + Budrich, Opladen, 1990.
  6. ↑ http://filmmusicreporter.com/2018/05/21/mary-shelley-soundtrack-announced/
  7. ↑ http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/hollywood-actress-elle-fanning-looks-stunning-in-period-costume-as-she-shoots-next-film-in-dublin-34489787.html
  8. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3468289/Elle-Fanning-Douglas-Booth-cosy-set-Storm-Stars-Dublin.html
  9. ↑ http://theplaylist.net/first-look-elle-fanning-mary-shelley-20170209/
  10. ↑ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mary-shelley-elle-fanning-portrays-gothic-literary-icon-berlin-2017-973217
  11. ↑ Toronto International Film Festival 2017. Official Film Schedule In: tiff.net. Retrieved on August 23, 2017 (PDF; 852 KB)
  12. ↑ Brent Lang: Toronto Film Festival Lineup Includes Movies From Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Alexander Payne In: Variety, July 25, 2017.
  13. ↑ Gordon Cox: Tribeca Film Festival Unveils 2018 Slate In: Variety, March 7, 2018.
  14. ↑ Start dates in Germany . In: insidekino.com. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
  15. ↑ Feature films 2018. In: hofer-filmtage.com. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
  16. ^ Reason for release for Mary Shelley In: Voluntary Self-Control of the Film Industry. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  17. ↑ http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/mary-shelley-review-toronto-1202553317/
  18. ↑ Margret Köhler: "Mary Shelley" - a film for Frankenstein's mother. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, December 23, 2018.
  19. ↑ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/biopic-mary-shelley-im-kino-das-monster-sind-wir/23799346.html
  20. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.edfilmfest.org.uk