As Good As It Gets

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Godfried Schalcken was a 17th Century Dutch painter who studied under Gerard (Gerrit) Dou, himself a former student of Rembrandt. Schalcken, like Dou, specialized in both portraits and dark, atmospheric visions lit solely by candlelight; many of which take on an eerie or sinister quality. Inspired by the work of Schalcken, Sheridan Le Fanu wrote a Gothic horror story entitled "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" in 1839, which was in turn made into a British TV movie that debuted on BBC around Christmastime in 1979 and has since fallen into obscurity. And that's really too bad, because this is a very good film that actually succeeds at being three separate things at once. For starters, it's a respectable, eerie and fairly faithful adaptation of Le Fanu's story. Secondly, it manages to accurately capture the flavor of the era in which it takes place. Finally, and most impressively, it manages to capture the dark beauty of Schalcken's artwork. Nearly every frame of this film seems to be a painting in and of itself, and done in reverence to the shadowy world Schalcken created in his paintings. Most of the shots are very carefully set and lit, with soft candlelight illuminating the action in the middle of the screen yet leaving the edges of the frame shrouded in shadow.The story begins with Schalcken's (Jeremy Clyde) arrival at Dou's (Maurice Denham) Leiden studio as an impoverished young artist just as he's making the transition from sketches to oil paintings. Schalcken falls in love with Dou's niece Rose (Cheryl Kennedy), but Dou has already promised her hand in marriage to the wealthy, mysterious corpse-like Vanderhausen (John Justin) in exchange for some gold. Schalcken promises the terrified Rose that he'll one day become successful enough to buy her back, but has to let her go for the time being. He then becomes so immersed in his work and visits a local brothel, that by the time he does actually have fame and money, he finds he may be too late to save his former love from her ghastly suitor. The film doesn't even bother to define the Vanderhausen character in clichéd horror terms. You're never quite sure what he is (a vampire... a demon lover... a sadistic old man...?) or what he's done to Rose. That is up to us to decide, and the film is all the better for allowing us to use our imaginations to fill in the blanks.I'm sure that many of today's film-goers will find this too slow-moving or "boring" for their tastes since there's no graphic violence and it relies on mood, lighting, ambiguity and art direction to create an uneasy and creepy atmosphere. However, fans of atmospheric, deliberately-paced ghost tales, as well as art connoisseurs, will find a lot to like here. Charles Gray narrates as "The Voice of Lefanu."

I saw it and taped it when it went out and have never forgotten it. Sadly that was on Betamax in a former life. I agree entirely with everyone's observations on the piece.And I have seen the original painting. Many years ago I was stood in the doorway of a huge room in an English stately home, listening to the information being given by the guide when I casually glanced to my left.This was a very warm summer's day but my blood froze. I was resting against a wall covered in paintings and there next to my left elbow was the very painting of the girl shielding the candle, with her ghastly suitor's face in the shadows...I can't remember which house it was though it might have been Woodstock near Oxford. But I will never forget that shock! The piece, from the Omnibus series, does still exist as a print so there is still hope...

"Schalken the Painter", to my memory, was first shown in December 1979 during the BBC2 drama schedule. I believe it may have been shown a second time in 1980 and again in the late 80s (although I missed both the repeats). Aged just 13 at the time, I remember the play had long lasting effects and it wasn't until a few years later when I rediscovered many works in the UK by Schalcken, that I realised the brilliant work by the Le Fanu in reworking a dark and mysterious painting. This play recorded for TV is a masterful work and the transfer to DVD must surely come.Does anyone know the exact painting that influenced the play/film and where it is displayed? (I haven't tracked it down in the 26 years that has elapsed!).I remember the first broadcast coming at the end of BBC2's evening schedule of programmes and the announcer alerting the viewer of some scenes may cause some viewers a little distress (such was the politeness of the BBC announcer at the time!).Whilst we know of the supernatural and mainly inaccurate account as dramatised by Le Fanu, it is nonetheless made all the more pointing bearing in mind how little we actually know of the Dutch 17th Century Genre Painters of which our hero Schalcken was a leading Leiden fine-painter.Given the incredible attention to Vermeer in recent years and indeed the rise in popularity of 17th Century Dutch painters, it is appropriate for the BBC to go in search of this wonderful eerie drama first broadcast in 1979, show again (perhaps on BBC4 as this is their preferred artistic channel), and finally (PLEASE PLEASE) release on DVD.The acting is superlative, the dramatisation is spot-on, and Schalken (correct spelling is Schalcken, though not used in the play or film) is portrayed as our hero destined for total emotional collapse. The narrator in the end, gives the viewer a choice. He says that Schalken does not recover and is left mourning the loss of Rose - or does he? If you haven't discovered any of Schalcken's other works, the UK have a great many of them.

Only the BBC has the ability to outdo great writers, and even then, only rarely (Ashenden was one example, Jeeves and Wooster another). Here is one of the best examples: a classic BBC TV play adapted from J. Sheridan LeFanu's chilling short story of the same name.The atmosphere of this TV film is incredibly disturbing, and the cast and crew all do a brilliant job to recreate one of the most chilling stories of gothic literature. Godfried Schalcken was a real painter who studied under Gerrit Dou in Leiden (Holland). Schalcken painted figures lit by candlelight, and his paintings are quite atmospheric. It is this dark atmosphere which suffuses LeFanu's work and this TV play. After seeing the movie, I took a trip to Europe, and had the chance to see some of the original paintings. They are brilliant in their depiction of light, shadow, and darkly captivating mood.The TV play is a kind of allegory and a mystery, in which a young maiden (a rare appearance by the lovely and talented Cheryl Kennedy) is married off to a mysterious suitor and disappears. It falls to Schalcken (played brilliantly by Jeremy Clyde), who had used the girl as a model, to investigate. The horror that he uncovers haunts him (and his subsequent artworks) forever.Unfortunately, like many late-night TV plays that were prevented from making it to VHS by a reactionary '70s era British VHS censorship debacle (the play features a very brief frontal nude scene, performed quite eerily by Cheryl Kennedy), this TV classic is now apparently lost. It has not been seen on TV for over a decade (as far as I'm aware), and like many '70s BBC masterpieces, seems destined to spend decades completely forgotten in some film vault. We can only hope that someone at the BBC will eventually find it and get the powers that be to release it on DVD or VHS. Hopefully soon!