The Ninth Gate
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The Ninth Gate is a Spanish/French English-language mystery film based on the novel The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
It was directed by Roman Polański, and stars Johnny Depp, Lena Olin, Frank Langella and Emmanuelle Seigner. It premiered in Europe on August 25, 1999.
Plot outline
The movie starts with rare books-dealer Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) being offered a job by publishing tycoon Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) in New York. Balkan has recently acquired a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows by 17th century author Aristide Torchia. The book purportedly details the procedure for summoning the Devil. Balkan claims the book may be a forgery, and hires Corso to travel to Europe, assess the other two known copies, find out whether any are genuine and if so, acquire them for Balkan.
Origins
Polanski received the screenplay by Enrique Urbizu and was so taken by it that he read the book that it was based on, El Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte. The novel featured several intertwined plots and so Polanski decided to write his own draft with long-time screenwriting partner, John Brownjohn (they had collaborated previously on Tess, Pirates and Bitter Moon). Perez-Reverte’s book contains numerous literary references and a subplot concerning Corso’s investigation into an unpublished chapter of The Three Musketeers. Polanski and Brownjohn jettisoned these elements and focused on one particular plot line: Corso’s pursuit of the authentic copy of The Nine Gates.
Johnny Depp became attached to the project as early as 1997 when he met Polanski at the Cannes Film Festival promoting his directorial debut The Brave (1997) that was in competition. Initially, the veteran filmmaker did not think that Depp was right for the role of Corso because the character was 40 years old. Polanski was thinking of casting an older actor but Depp was persistent and wanted to work with him. Polanski cast Frank Langella as Balkan after seeing him in Adrian Lyne’s version of Lolita (1997).
Filming took place in France, Portugal and Spain during the summer of 1998.
Trivia
- The Ceniza brothers booksellers were Spanish from Toledo, Spain, and on the front door of the bookshop reads "P y P CENIZA RESTAURACION DE LIBROS", when translated to english is P & P BOOK RESTORATION.
- When the girl knocks on the door to Corso's hotel room, she knocks twenty times.
- On the train Corso asks "The Girl" what her name is and they agree upon "green eyes"
- While the movie (or at least the book) depict Corso's research in the rare book shops of Paris' Quartier Latin, on the left bank, the corresponding scenes were recognizably shot on the Ile Saint Louis, which is architectually quite different.
External links
- [}}}] at Rotten Tomatoes
- [The Engravings of The Club Dumas and The Ninth Gate]
- [Texts, engravings and formatting of the book]
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