Photos
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Featured review
Tremendously Entertaining Introduction to the Gothic Movement in Britain During the Eighteenth Century
There are certain documentaries where the presenter's enthusiasm is palpable as they take us on a journey through their subject.
THE ART OF Gothic offers a good example. Andrew Graham-Dixon takes us on an entertaining ride through the origins of the Gothic movement in Britain during the eighteenth century, from its pastiche beginnings with the work of Horace Walpole to its sexually explicit apotheosis in Matthew Lewis' THE MONK. On the way we are introduced to several figures both familiar and unfamiliar - Ann Radcliffe, Thomas Chatterton, Jane Austen - who all offered different takes on the power of Gothic to excite readers' imaginations.
Divided into several sections - including one devoted to "Sex" complete with appropriate moans of pleasure on the soundtrack - the documentary shows how Horace Walpole embraced the Gothic movement, partly as a means of reviving the past, and partly to introduce the kind of subject-matter into public culture that might not ordinarily be considered 'respectable.' As if conscious of the risk he was taking, he wrote his novel under a pseudonym, claiming all the while that it was not an original work but a translation from the medieval. It wasn't: Walpole has written everything himself. This literary strategy reached its apotheosis in the work of Chatterton, who produced what he claimed was a 'medieval' manuscript telling another Gothic tale, complete with ancient writing. Graham-Dixon has great fun deflating such claims; in one sequence he suggests that the paper Chatterton used was deliberately stained with tea to make it look old.
As the century progressed, so the Gothic movement changed; rather than looking back to past, it came to expressed hitherto hidden sexual and/or violent desires. The French Revolution had a lot to do with this; for British writers, it represented a collapse of all that had hitherto been considered 'respectable' in society. Gothic works became more and more explicit; to such an extent that they might now be considered pornographic as well as sexist. Jane Austen resented this trend: in NORTHANGER ABBEY she parodied the entire movement and its consequences through her protagonist Catherine Morland's love for the genre.
Graham-Dixon's presentational style is both informative yet witty, as he recaptures the serio-comic purpose of the genre. This program serves an ideal introduction to a literary movement that deserves more serious consideration than it has hitherto received.
THE ART OF Gothic offers a good example. Andrew Graham-Dixon takes us on an entertaining ride through the origins of the Gothic movement in Britain during the eighteenth century, from its pastiche beginnings with the work of Horace Walpole to its sexually explicit apotheosis in Matthew Lewis' THE MONK. On the way we are introduced to several figures both familiar and unfamiliar - Ann Radcliffe, Thomas Chatterton, Jane Austen - who all offered different takes on the power of Gothic to excite readers' imaginations.
Divided into several sections - including one devoted to "Sex" complete with appropriate moans of pleasure on the soundtrack - the documentary shows how Horace Walpole embraced the Gothic movement, partly as a means of reviving the past, and partly to introduce the kind of subject-matter into public culture that might not ordinarily be considered 'respectable.' As if conscious of the risk he was taking, he wrote his novel under a pseudonym, claiming all the while that it was not an original work but a translation from the medieval. It wasn't: Walpole has written everything himself. This literary strategy reached its apotheosis in the work of Chatterton, who produced what he claimed was a 'medieval' manuscript telling another Gothic tale, complete with ancient writing. Graham-Dixon has great fun deflating such claims; in one sequence he suggests that the paper Chatterton used was deliberately stained with tea to make it look old.
As the century progressed, so the Gothic movement changed; rather than looking back to past, it came to expressed hitherto hidden sexual and/or violent desires. The French Revolution had a lot to do with this; for British writers, it represented a collapse of all that had hitherto been considered 'respectable' in society. Gothic works became more and more explicit; to such an extent that they might now be considered pornographic as well as sexist. Jane Austen resented this trend: in NORTHANGER ABBEY she parodied the entire movement and its consequences through her protagonist Catherine Morland's love for the genre.
Graham-Dixon's presentational style is both informative yet witty, as he recaptures the serio-comic purpose of the genre. This program serves an ideal introduction to a literary movement that deserves more serious consideration than it has hitherto received.
helpful•20
- l_rawjalaurence
- Oct 25, 2014
Details
- Color
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
Top Gap
What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of Liberty Diversity Depravity (2014) in Australia?
Answer