Revision as of 17:47, 12 September 2010

Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll is an upcoming fantasy horror film by Marilyn Manson with Anthony Silva and Geoff Cox. It is directed by Marilyn Manson as part of his Celebritarian Corporation art movement, and is his directorial debut as a feature filmmaker. It is being produced by Blue Light for Wild Bunch and has an estimated budget of $4.2 million. Starring as the leading roles are Marilyn Manson who will be playing Lewis Carroll, Lily Cole who will be playing Alice, Evan Rachel Wood who probably will be playing Alice's alter ego, Tilda Swinton who will be playing Carroll's dream wife and Angelina Jolie, who has been rumoured to play as the Red Queen. Also invited are Johnny Depp, Alan Cumming, Daryl Hannah, Jonathan Pryce and Tim Roth.

The release date for Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll at the moment is undetermined, though the original teaser trailer was uploaded to the internet in April 2010.

Announcement at the Berlin Film Festival

Manson arrived at 2006's Berlin Film Festival with starlet Lily Cole,who will be playing Alice, to announce the start of production and acquire funding for his film project Phantasmagoria.

Plot

Synopsis:

Victorian England.

A haunted writer in an isolated castle is tormented by sleepless nights and visions of a girl named Alice, following the death of his father in 1869. He finds himself becoming a symptom of his own invention. “Now all my nightmares know my name.”

He is Lewis Carroll. Terrified of what waits for him each night. Phantasmagoria section on Official Wild Bunch Website; last accessed September 12, 2010.

Filmmaking

Pre-production

On the film's scare tactics, Manson says, "I want to take the children's story that we all know, and discover the horrifying roots that grow beneath every one of its childish metaphors. The characters may be absurd and wrapped in puzzles, but, the author himself is the story that I find painfully close to me. Lewis Carroll is far more complex than the world's narrow perception of him as a quiet deacon, a mathematician and a loner, simply obsessed with photographing young girls. He was possibly one of the most divided souls living in his own hell that the world has overlooked."

Marilyn Manson has stated his aim for the project is to "redefine the horror genre" and bring it back to the days of "Polański and Hitchcock . . . It's kind of a return to Hitchcock-style psychological horror about letting your mind do the damage and sometimes what you don't see is scarier." The film has also been linked with other projects such as Alejandro Jodorowsky's King Shot and an as yet untitled film with Tilda Swinton.

In December 2007, Manson commented on the film's production delays, stating that "It was meant to have been filmed earlier but Eat Me, Drink Me became something that was absolutely my first priority. Now the movie will be delayed even more because of the ongoing scriptwriters strike in Hollywood which is affecting all present productions. I'll try and restart it at the beginning of next year."

Marilyn Manson has said on occasion that Phantasmagoria will be filmed in a way that no one has done yet. "I have a camera that I'll be the first person to use in cinema, and I'm very excited about it. It's very unique."

He has suggested the use of subliminal elements to enhance feeling, but also says he may go further. "I'm going to do a lot of things that may end up being illegal. Until they are, I will do them. I think it will change people's opinion about horror films and they will realize they're not all about slasher . . . I might add that the girls playing Tweedledum and Tweedledee are twins who get to have real, genuine sex with each other. I like to make dreams come true."

Production

The script for the film has been completed as of December 2005, and as of December 2007 much of the design is finished and the film has a distributor. Currently the production on Phantasmagoria is postponed due to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, but filming is expected to begin in March 2008 following Marilyn Manson's Rape of the World Winter North American Tour.

Locations

In addition to Ireland, Schenker mentioned Sintra in Portugal as a location. Marilyn Manson explains that it "is a very powerfully magical, strange place. It was my first choice for location to shoot my film Phantasmagoria."

Soundtrack

Marilyn Manson has mentioned that so far the music has been based around some of the score Chris Vrenna originally created for American McGee's Alice. He intends to be working with Tim Skold and Ginger Fish on the original soundtrack and previously unreleased Marilyn Manson songs but has added that he doesn't want to over extend himself as he has other responsibilities, including acting and directing.

Marilyn Manson does mention the possibility of there being at least one unoriginal song used in one of his films: "There's a song that's a huge influence on the way the movie ends called "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" by Roxy Music, and it very well might make its way into a film, which would be very odd because it's a 70's song in a 19th century film."

Promotion

At a press conference for the film at Berlinale 2006 Marilyn Manson and Lily Cole showed a five-minute trailer, poster and still photos by Steven Klein to roughly sixty journalists which was generally well-received.

Release

The film will reportedly be made available through Marilyn Manson's official website though he has also stated that the first film's release will be "very unconventional."

Marilyn Manson has also made many references to how his website will change in the future, stating that the website is very video-extensive and "has been created to be a place where you can see even more than what is in the film, whether it will be viewed as trailers or teasers, or further elements that aren't necessary to support the film. If you enjoy the film, there's a wealth of knowledge there to dig deeper."

Interview with Anthony Silva, Screenwriter for Phantasmagoria

Interview:2010/05 Anthony Silva talks to MansonWiki.com about Phantasmagoria and more

MANSONWIKI: We know you are a screenwriter for Phantasmagoria. Are there any other responsibilities you are planned to be taking on for the production of the film?

SILVA: It's really too early to tell what my exact role will be, but I will definitely be involved in the film's production somehow. At one point I was slated to co-direct and possibly edit segments of the film, but that's all up for discussion.

MANSONWIKI: As a screenwriter for the film, could you describe what sort of research went into The Visions of Lewis Carroll?

SILVA: An incredible amount of research went into the writing of this film. There's the obvious: Lewis Carroll. But who was Carroll really? He was Charles Dodgson: author, photographer, mathematician, inventor, Anglican Deacon. Beneath the surface however, Carroll lived a life shrouded by guilt and sin, unable to find true happiness in his own life.

We read through Carroll's diaries, four of which are missing, some of which occur around the time of his involvement with Alice Liddell's family. We studied biographies, newspaper articles/reviews written during Carroll's time, historical, religious and cultural surveys. We did a great deal of research on the photography of the era, from the cameras themselves to the wet plate process of photography. We had a very unique opportunity to study several of Carroll's photographs up close at the Getty Museum's private collection and were able to compare them to his contemporaries work in the field and how his method of portraiture differed from others. We studied the medical practices of the time, as Carroll experienced great bouts of sickness throughout his life.

We wrote primarily at night, which corresponds directly to Carroll's visions in the film. Like Carroll, I too began to take on a dual persona where I was living two different lives with very little sleep. I was a television editor by day and artist/writer by night, struggling to balance those two distinct worlds.

Trailer

Trivia

• "Phantasmagoria" is also the name for live horror shows involving projection onto smoke screens that were invented in the 18th century France.
• The film's title is taken from a famous but hard to find collection of poems Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll (London: Macmillan, 1869), later published in Rhyme? and Reason? (London: Macmillan, 1883). Twin Engine Publishing HB, Wildside Press Books and Prometheus Books are some of the few contemporary publishers of the book.

Personnel

Cast

• Marilyn Manson – Lewis Carroll
• Lily Cole – Alice
• Gottfried Helnwein - The evil doctor
• Evan Rachel Wood - Alice's alter ego
• Tilda Swinton – Lewis Carroll's dream wife
• Angelina Jolie – Red Queen

Crew

• Marilyn Manson – director, producer, writer, score
• Alain de la Mata – producer
• Geoffrey Cox – writer
• Anthony Silva – writer
• Lewis Carroll – writer (Adaption of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There)
• Madonna Wayne Gacy – score (Possibly contributed prior to leaving Marilyn Manson)
• Tim Skold – score
• Benoît Debie – cinematography
• Steven Klein – art department

Promotional Stills

Stills from the Promotional Trailer

See also

• List of unreleased Marilyn Manson projects