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• JRHYSMEYERS.ORG/ FILMOGRAPHY/1998

B. MONKEY

Also known as “B. Monkey” (France / Portugal - video title) / (Spain), “Agria omorfia” (Greece), “B. Monkey - Sin salida” (Mexico - video title), “B. Monkey - una donna da salvare” (Italy), “B. Monkey: El nombre del delito” (Argentina - video title), “Inna Beatrycze” (Poland), “Tehlikenin pençesinde” (Turkey - Turkish title)

• Character: Bruno
• Director: Michael Radford
• Writer: Andrew Davies (novel), Chloe King
• Release Date: 10 September 1999 (USA) (limited)
• Genre: Crime / Romance / Thriller
• Tagline: Trouble never looked so good.
• Synopsis: In this witty romantic thriller, Alan (Jared Harris) is a London schoolteacher who leads a quiet, mildly stuffy life. As a hobby, he serves as a jazz disc jockey, spinning tunes for a hospital's public address system, but he craves danger and excitement. One night, Alan stops into a bar for a drink and sees Beatrice (Asia Argento), a beautiful woman who is arguing with two men. Alan is immediately enraptured by Beatrice and begins to pursue her. What Alan doesn't know is that Beatrice is an infamous thief known to the police as "B. Monkey" (named for her ability to break into anything), and the men she was quarreling with were Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a gay couple who are her partners in crime. When Alan becomes aware of Beatrice's secret, he tries to lead her into a safer and more honest way of life, even as she lures him into the thrilling existence he's been dreaming of.
• Co-Stars: Asia Argento, Jared Harris, Rupert Everett
• Filming locations: Ealing Studios, Ealing, London, England, UK

THE GOVERNESS

Also known as “Governante, La” (Italy), “Institutriu, La” (Spain - Catalan title), “Institutriz amante, La” (Argentina), “Institutriz, La” (Spain), “Kotiopettajatar” (Finland)

• Character: Henry Cavendish
• Director: Sandra Goldbacher
• Writer:Sandra Goldbacher
• Release Date: 11 June 1998 (USA) (Seattle International Film Festival)
• Genre: Drama / Romance
• Synopsis:In Sandra Goldbacher's film, The Governess, Rosina da Silva (Minnie Driver) is the eldest daughter of a Sephardite Jewish family of the 1840's in London. Accustomed to an affluent lifestyle, one which threatens to become shattered by the sudden death of the father, Rosina sets out to find a job to support her family. She changes her name to "Mary Blackchurch" and pretends to be a Christian of Italian descent in order to work as a governess in the Christian and conservative household in a Scottish island. Overcoming the initial hardships that came from concealing the secret that could jeopardize her position, Rosina soon takes control of her situation. She earns the respect of her spoiled student, Clementina (Florence Hoath), the acceptance of the superfluous Mrs. Cavendish (Harriet Walter), the love of the husband, Charles (Tom Wilkinson), and obsessive interest of the son, Henry (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). After discreet escapes to Charles' laboratory, where she eventually aids him in the discovery of fixing photographic images, Rosina finds herself living out sexual fantasies with her employer. In spite of the clichéd story, where the live-in employee seduces all the men of the household, and in spite of the aggressiveness with which Rosina pursues the love affair (which is hardly adequate for the character that she was initially set up to represent), The Governess benefits from the photographic references (the beautiful photographic images the characters create), and from the issues that result from the artistic manipulation of the medium.
• Co-Stars: Minnie Driver, Tom Wilkinson
• Filming locations: Brodick Castle, Brodick, Arran, North Ayrshire, Scotland, UK

THE TRIBE

• Character: Adam
• Director: Stephen Poliakoff
• Writer:Stephen Poliakoff
• Release Date: 21 June 1998 (UK)
• Genre: Drama
• Co-Stars:Joely Richardson, Jeremy Northam, Anna Friel, Laura Fraser • Synopis: Property developer Jamie has to evict some weird, post-modern hippies from a building. But they slowly drag him into their dark underworld of bizarre rituals and dangerous liaisons.
• Filming locations: London, England, UK

VELVET GOLDMINE

• Character: Brian Slade
• Director: Todd Haynes
• Writer: James Lyons (story) and Todd Haynes (story)
• Release Date: 6 November 1998 (USA)
• Genre: Drama / Music
• Tagline: The Rise Of A Star... The Fall Of A Legend!
• Synopsis: "Velvet Goldmine" is a rock opera of sorts, or as Haynes says, "a valentine to the sounds and images that erupted in and around London in the early 1970s"1. Using a non-traditional structure similar to "Citizen Kane", Haynes provides us with a glimpse of glam rock's brief flame. The film tells the story of Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), an enormously popular glam rock star loosely based on David Bowie, his relationship with his wife, Mandy Slade (Toni Collette) and his love affair with the glam rock star Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), loosely based on the personas of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, among others. The film is a combination of documentary, concert, and music video, which combine to present the film in a non-linear fashion, an 'experience' movie. The film's main structure is provided by a reporter's search for the truth about the enigmatic Brian Slade. The reporter is Arthur Stuart, played by Christian Bale. During his search for Slade, Arthur is forced to relive his both painful and liberatory adolescent relationship with glam rock in Britain. We learn that after a brief career of explosive popularity, Slade stages a fake assassination of himself during one of his concerts. The stunt backfires, Slades record sales plummet, and he retreats into cocaine use, never to be heard from again. Although Stuart's search for Slade provides us with the main structure of the film, we really never learn what happened to Brian Slade, and are only presented with the possibility that he has transformed himself into a new marketable rock star commodity for the 1980s. During Stuart's search, however, we are provided with a glimpse into the world of glam rock. Slade is shown as being ultimately a construct, transformed by an ambitious record agent into a popular rock star. He is invented by his record company, and soon rises to fame as a part of the brief English phenomenon of glam rock. His story is told through a combination of television documentary, newspaper style commentaries, behind the scenes rock documentary camera styles, and surrealistic music videos. All of these styles combine to present the viewer with a blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality, rather than a straightforward presentation of what actually occurred. Although married, Slade and Mandy have an open relationship, and are both openly bisexual. The rocker Curt Wild enters Slade's life, and he falls in love. Wild, based around fantasies of Iggy Pop, goes to England to record with Slade, and the two men are marketed "like a pair of 40s starlets, a Spencer and Tracy for the 70s"2. However, the two men's love affair soon turns sour and Wild leaves Slade. Slade, despondent, plans his assassination in order to get himself out of his current tour, and afterwards, slips into drug abuse and depression. Soon after, glam rock itself dies out. All the while we are also presented with Arthur Stuart's experience of glam rock as a teenager in England. Alienated from his peers and parents for being queer and having an affinity for glam rock, Arthur eventually leaves his parents house for London, where he has various exploits with glam rock stars. Now, however, Stuart is a reporter in a bleak, Orwellian 1984 New York, and can only look back on his glam rock days with sentimentality.
• Co-Stars: Ewan McGregor, Christian Bale, Toni Collette, Eddie Izzard, Janet McTeer
• Filming locations: Croydon, Surrey, England, UK