Imo, the film's public reception has fallen foul of the dreaded creep of neo conservatism. And, before some of you up and stone me, let me explain.
Potter was - as I understand his work here - depicting not only the long-standing and debilitating physical torment of a horrible skin disease [which Potter also suffered from, so he should know], but also the accompanying intense psychological and spiritual trauma that, in addition to the impact of the disease, he experienced throughout his life, from childhood on. Add to this the fact that Potter and the Downey character are writers, creatures who - at least professionally - live life in their imaginations, and you have a recipe that the dead grey hands of the neo cons would want to smack down. A tormented psyche is intolerant of boundaries and of taboos - isn't it suffering enough? - so, the mind develops a pattern of creative thought that resembles those infinite 'spider' diagrams that we use to teach kids about how to develop their imaginations. In the case of TSD, the Downey character's spider diagram leads him to postulate rampant infidelity on the part of his mother and his wife, and sexual activity of a kind that a God-fearing missionary in the 19th C could not even dream of! Neo cons, beware!
Downey's character, despite the pain of his affliction, can't switch off the urge to behave as a writer. Creating stories is like a release, a panacea, for him. His pain is constant, more or less, and he allows his creative mind to take control. The film exists almost more in his head than it does in 'real life.' Thus, his imaginative recreations of his childhood experiences are heightened by his tormented psyche - did he really see his mother being unfaithful with the Binney character, and was she a victim or a willing participant? OR is he transmuting that glimpse of illicit activity in the barn into fodder for his creative imagination, so that both mother and her lover become developed as potential characters in his next novel? Is his real-life wife really unfaithful and unworthy of his trust, or is his tormented mind turning her concern for his business and his welfare into the cynical manipulations of a veritable harlot? The murder of the Binney character: did it happen, or was it the working-out by the author of a phase in the next novel, to be written up when the author was well enough to leave hospital? And so on.......
Yes, the film is gritty and sometimes even shocking. But, imo, the script is depicting what an imagination can and does render up. The art of creation, whether it be of a novel, a screenplay, a painting or a baby ain't necessarily pretty and gentle. Why censor it? Why pretend that writing and pain and life, love, sex and death are not extremely gutsy matters?`Why turn away and give in to a fit of the vapours? Potter was, surely, depicting the imaginative process in action and, as such, TSD, the film, is as successful as TSD, the much-admired tv series, which I did see, back in the day, and loved. Downey, also imo, is every bit as moving, as vulnerable and as provocative as Michael Gambon in the original.
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