page_title: Gothic (film)
section_title: Basis in reality
hierarchical_section_title: Gothic (film) / Basis in reality
caption_attribution_description: English: Gaddesden Place. Gaddesden Place is a private dwelling as well as providing office accommodation to two companies. It is a popular site as film location.
context_page_description: Gothic is a 1986 British horror film directed by Ken Russell, starring Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron, Julian Sands as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley, Myriam Cyr as Claire Clairmont and Timothy Spall as Dr. John William Polidori. It features a soundtrack by Thomas Dolby, and marks Richardson's film debut.
  The film is a fictionalized retelling of the Shelleys' visit to Lord Byron in Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, shot in Gaddesden Place. It concerns their competition to write a horror story, which ultimately led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein and John Polidori writing "The Vampyre." The same event has also been portrayed in the films Bride of Frankenstein and Haunted Summer, among others.
  The film's poster motif is based on Henry Fuseli's 1781 painting The Nightmare, which is also referenced in the film.
context_section_description: The film fictionalizes an actual meeting that took place between Mary Godwin, Percy Shelley, and Claire Clairemont at the Villa Diodati in Geneva, hosted by Lord Byron. It has been suggested by some historians and journalists that the events of their meeting which inspired Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidori's "The Vampyre" were triggered by the group's use of opium during their vacation together. Discussing the film's basis in reality, actor Sands commented:
  I think these portraits are rooted in reality. If people think otherwise, it's because of the later Victorian whitewash of them. These were not simply beautiful Romantic poets. They were subversive, anarchic hedonists pursuing a particular line of amorality. The film portrays Lord Byron as demonic and Shelley as on the verge of madness, but the film is an expressionist piece, and that's not an unreasonable expression of their realities.
  The film implies that Shelley's Frankenstein was inspired by the loss of her child; film historian Robert Shail wrote that Gothic's "baroque visuals can't disguise the dubious nature of Russell's premise that the book was inspired by the author's loss of a baby."
caption: Gaddesden Place in Hertfordshire, England, was used as a location for Villa Diodati
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