The Ninth Gate is a 1999 mystery thriller film directed, produced, and co-written by Roman Polanski. An international co-production between the United States, Portugal, France, and Spain, the film is loosely based upon Arturo Pérez-Reverte's 1993 novel The Club Dumas. The plot involves the search for a rare and ancient book that purportedly contains a magical secret for summoning the Devil. The premiere showing was at San Sebastián, Spain, on 25 August 1999, a month before the 47th San Sebastian International Film Festival. Though critically and commercially unsuccessful in North America, where reviewers compared it unfavorably with Polanski's supernatural film Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Ninth Gate earned a worldwide gross of $58.4 million against a $38 million budget.
The Ninth Gate | |
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Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Roman Polanski |
Produced by | Roman Polanski |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte |
Starring |
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Music by | Wojciech Kilar |
Cinematography | Darius Khondji |
Edited by | Hervé de Luze |
Production company | Canal+ |
Distributed by |
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Release date |
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Running time | 133 minutes |
Country |
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Language | English |
Budget | $38 million |
Box office | $58.4 million |
Screenplay
Dean Corso (Johnny Depp), a New York City rare book dealer, makes his living conning people into selling him valuable antique books for a low price, and then re-selling them to private collectors. Corso meets with wealthy book collector Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), who has recently acquired a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows by 17th-century author Aristide Torchia, one of only three extant copies. The author adapted the book from one written by the Devil himself, and was burned for heresy. "The Nine Gates" purportedly contains the means to summon the Devil and acquire invincibility and immortality. Balkan believes two of the three copies are forgeries. He hires Corso to check all three and acquire the legitimate one by any means necessary.
Balkan's copy was acquired from Andrew Telfer (Willy Holt), who killed himself soon after. Telfer's widow Liana (Lena Olin) seduces Corso, in a failed attempt to get the book back. Meanwhile, Corso leaves the book for safekeeping with bookseller Bernie Rothstein (James Russo), who is then murdered; his corpse is found posed like an engraving in The Nine Gates.
Corso travels to Toledo, Spain. The Ceniza brothers, book restorers who sold Balkan's copy to Telfer originally, show him that three of the nine engravings are signed "LCF", rather than "AT", which aligns with the rumors that Lucifer himself was Aristide Torchia's co-author, and implies Satan designed the three images personally.
Corso travels to Sintra, Portugal, to compare Victor Fargas' (Jack Taylor) copy of the book to Balkan's. To Corso's surprise, he discovers that the signature "LCF" is found in three different engravings, which vary in small but significant details from the "AT" images in the Balkan copy. The next morning, a mysterious young woman (identified only as "the Girl") (Emmanuelle Seigner) who appears to have been shadowing Corso since Balkan hired him, awakens Corso and leads him to Fargas' house. He finds the old man murdered and the "LCF"-signed engravings ripped out of that copy.
In Paris, Corso visits the Baroness Kessler (Barbara Jefford), who owns the third copy. At first, the Baroness refuses to cooperate, but Corso intrigues her with evidence that the engravings differ among the three copies. He explains his idea: each copy contains a different set of three "LCF"-signed engravings, therefore all three copies are required to acquire the complete set of 9 images for the ritual. Corso finds "LCF" on three different engravings in the Baroness's book, confirming his theory.
Kessler is killed, and the Girl rescues Corso from Liana's bodyguard. When Liana steals Balkan's copy from Corso's hotel room, he follows her, and witnesses her using the book in a Satanic ceremony. Balkan suddenly interrupts the ceremony, kills Liana, and leaves with the engraved pages and his own intact copy.
Corso pursues Balkan to a remote castle, depicted in one of the engravings, and finds Balkan preparing the final ritual. After a struggle, Balkan traps Corso in a hole in the floor. Balkan performs his summoning ritual: he arranges the engravings on a makeshift altar, and recites a series of phrases related to each of the nine engravings. Balkan then douses the floor and himself with gasoline and sets it alight, believing himself to be immune to suffering. Balkan's invocation fails, and he screams in pain as the flames engulf him. Corso frees himself, shoots Balkan, takes the engravings, and escapes.
Outside, the Girl appears and has sex with him by the light of the burning castle, her eyes and face seeming to change as she writhes on top of Corso. She tells him that Balkan failed because the ninth engraving he had used was a forgery. On her suggestion before she disappears, Corso returns to the Ceniza brothers' now vacant shop. By chance, he finds there the authentic ninth engraving. On it, there is a likeness of the Girl riding a multiple headed beast, reminiscent of the Whore of Babylon. With the last engraving in hand, Corso returns to the castle. He completes the ritual and crosses through the Ninth Gate into the light.
- Johnny Depp as Dean Corso
- Lena Olin as Liana Telfer
- Frank Langella as Boris Balkan
- Emmanuelle Seigner as The Girl
- James Russo as Bernie Rothstein
- Jack Taylor as Victor Fargas
- Allen Garfield as Witkin
- Barbara Jefford as Baroness Frida Kessler
- Willy Holt as Andrew Telfer
- Catherine Benguigui as The concierge
Roman Polanski read the screenplay by Enrique Urbizu, an adaptation of the Spanish novel El Club Dumas (The Club Dumas, 1993), by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Impressed with the script, Polanski read the novel, liking it 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". Pérez-Reverte's novel, El Club Dumas features intertwined plots, so Polanski wrote his own adaptation with his usual partner, John Brownjohn (Tess, Pirates and Bitter Moon). They deleted the novel's literary references and a sub-plot about Corso's investigation of an original manuscript of a chapter of The Three Musketeers and concentrated upon Dean Corso's pursuing the authentic copy of The Nine Gates.
Polanski approached the subject skeptically, saying, "I don't believe in the occult. I don't believe. Period." Yet he enjoyed the genre. "There a great number of clichés 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." The appeal of the film was that it featured "a mystery in which a book is the leading character" and its engravings "are also essential clues".
In reading El Club Dumas, Polanski pictured Johnny Depp as "Dean Corso", who joined the production as early as 1997, when he met Polanski at the Cannes Film Festival, while promoting The Brave. Initially, he did not think Depp right as "Corso", because the character was forty years old (Depp at the time was only 34). He considered an older actor, but Depp persisted; he wanted to work with Roman Polanski.
The film press reported, around the time of the North American release of The Ninth Gate, creative friction between Depp and Polanski. Depp said, "It's the director's job to push, to provoke things out of an actor". Polanski said of Depp, "He 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". Visually, in the neo-noir genre style, rare-book dealer Dean Corso's disheveled grooming derives from Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's quintessential literary private investigator.
Polanski cast Frank Langella as Boris Balkan based upon his performance as Clare Quilty in Lolita (1997). Barbara Jefford was a last-minute replacement for the German actress originally cast as the Baroness Frida Kessler, who fell sick with pneumonia, and after a second actress proved unable to learn the character's dialogue; with only days' notice, Barbara Jefford learned her part, spoken with a German accent. Depp met his long-time partner Vanessa Paradis during the shooting.
Filming
The Ninth Gate was filmed in France, Portugal, and Spain in the summer of 1998. Selected prominent buildings in the film are:
- Chalet Biester, Sintra, Portugal (as mansion of book collector Victor Fargas)
- Château de Ferrières, Seine-et-Marne, France (as mansion owned by Liana Telfer)
- Château de Puivert, Aude, France (castle seen in the closing scenes of the film)
- Château des Cathares, Ariège, France
- Calle Buzones in Toledo, Spain (street with Ceniza Brothers' bookshop)
The Ninth Gate (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | |
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Soundtrack album by Wojciech Kilar | |
Released | 16 November 1999 |
Recorded | March 1999 |
Studio | "Smecky" Studios, Prague |
Genre | Soundtrack |
Length | 53:58 |
Label | Silva Screen SSD 1103 |
Producer | Reynold da Silva, Gwen Bethel |