Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll

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Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll
Tagline: "The sleep of reason produces monsters"
Directed by	Marilyn Manson
Produced by	Alain de la Mata
Written by	Lewis Carroll (adapted) Marilyn Manson Geoffrey Cox Anthony Silva
Starring	Marilyn Manson Lily Cole
Music by	Marilyn Manson
Release date(s)	2007
Country	United States
Language	English

Phantasmagoria is a film by Marilyn Manson with Anthony Silva and Geoff Cox and is directed by Marilyn Manson as part of his Celebritarian Corporation art movement. It is been produced by Blue Light for Wild Bunch and has a budget of $4.2m.

The script for the film has been complete as of December 2005 and shooting began in January 2006, in Ireland. At a press conference for the film Manson (who will be playing Carroll) and Lily Cole (who will be playing Alice) showed a five-minute trailer to around sixty journalists which was generally well-received. In addition to this a sypnosis given to journalists present at the event read:

Victorian England.

A haunted writer in an isolated castle is tormented by sleepless nights and visions of a girl named Alice. 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.

Though initially planned for distribution through his website Manson now plans for a conventional cinema release in mid-2007 alongside a soundtrack drawing upon original music for the film and previously unreleased songs that "didn’t fit elsewhere", with the film scheduled to be completed in late 2006.

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". He is also been linked with other projects such as Alejandro Jodorowsky’s King Shot and an as yet untitled film with Tilda Swinton.

Manson stated in June 2006 that he sees himself "as more a student of film than of music"^[1] and after Phantasmagoria is planning a trilogy of films retelling three Edgar Allen Poe stories.

1 Filming locations
2 Confusion over films
3 Score
4 Style and process
5 Release
6 See also
7 Sources
8 External links

[edit] Filming locations

Jeff Schenker has mentioned two locations where he will be filming PHANTASMAGORIA, the first is Sintra in Portugal which Manson explains "is a very powerfully magical, strange place. It was my first choice for location to shoot my film Phantasmagoria or possibly the second part of what I want to do, which would be the follow-up." ^[2] Shooting commenced in Ireland in January of 2006.

[edit] Confusion over films

Unfortunately, in interviews, Manson doesn't always say which series of films he is talking about, so whether he is talking about the short films or the feature length film is open to interpretation.

[edit] Score

Manson has mentioned that so far the music has been based around some of the score he originally created for American McGee's Alice before he left that project. He intends to be working with Pogo and Tim Skold on the score but has added that he doesn't want to over extend himself as he has other responsibilties, acting and directing.

Manson does mention the possibility of there being at least one unoriginal song used in one of the 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 '70s song in a 19th century film." ^[3]

[edit] Style and process

Manson has stated that Phantasmagoria will be filmed in a way 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." ^[4] 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." ^[5] "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." ^[6]

[edit] Release

The short films, and possibly the feature film, was reportedly to be made available through Manson's Official Website though Manson has also stated that the first film's release will be "very unconventional" ^[7]. The first film is also reported to get a viewing in the Berlin Film Festival in late 2006.

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". ^[8]

It has been revealed by the producer, Alain de la Mata, that the film is hoped to be completed in late 2006. ^[9]