Herostratus is a 1967 British experimental psychological drama film directed and produced by Don Levy, with the assistance of James Quinn. The film follows a young poet named Max (Michael Gothard), who out of ennui and a desire for fame arranges with the marketer Farson (Peter Stephens) to commit suicide in public. Farson agrees to turn his suicide into a high-profile media spectacle. Clio (Gabriella Licudi), an attractive woman who is Farson's secretary, aids Max in his goals. The film also stars Antony Paul and Mona Hammond (credited as Mona Chin), as well as Helen Mirren in her first credited film role.
The film was first screened publicly on 3 May 1968 having taken a total of six years to develop from the initial scripting. Its initial release was limited to film festivals and art house cinemas in Europe, and it did not have a wider cinematic release. In 2009 the film was re-released by the British Film Institute as part of the BFI Flipside series. Both initial reception of the film and the reception at the time of its re-release were heavily mixed, and while many critics had more favourable responses to the film, the public response was generally more negative.
The film critiques consumerism and the advertising industry of the time, whilst also featuring themes of death, urbanisation, and the growing countercultural movement of the time. Levy used a number of unorthodox directing techniques in the creation of the film with the aim of heightening the film's emotional impact, some of which greatly distressed other members of the film crew.
Plot The film opens with scenes of Max dressed in all white and sprinting through the streets of London. He returns home to a run-down, one-room apartment and begins playing classical music over a speaker, at a volume that causes the landlady to bang on his door and demand him to stop disrupting the other people living in the apartments. Eventually Max stops the music and picks up an axe, using it to destroy the furnishing and the decorations in the room in a manic rage. After destroying his room, Max storms out of the building and into the streets.
Still brandishing the axe and threatening a number of passers-by as he walks through the streets to reach offices for "Farson Advertising". Here he meets Clio, who is acting as a receptionist for Farson, and declares to her that he has the greatest advertising opportunity in the world. Clio does not agree to let Max in and so he continues to harass her, eventually grabbing a phone from her desk and calling Farson directly.
Upon meeting Farson, Max declares his intent to commit suicide and offers to give him complete directive control of the event in any way that he likes, provided as many people as possible witness Max's death. Farson initially rejects this idea, however he eventually accepts the proposition as Max continues to harass both Farson and Clio. Upon coming to an agreement Farson organises a room for Max to stay in until the day where he will commit suicide, and orders a cab to take Max there.
A number of scenes are then presented, not necessarily in chronological order and all happening at unspecified points in time after Max meets with Farson, but before the date at which Max will kill himself.
An unnamed woman (Helen Mirren) performs a burlesque dance that is revealed as it progresses to be an advertisement for a brand of rubber washing gloves. The advertisement is then disrupted by Max running on-stage, where he picks up the unnamed woman and runs off-stage with her to the protests of both her and the film crew. Farson introduces Max to Pointer (Antony Paul), who Farson indicates will be controlling Max's public image in the lead up to his suicide. Farson and Pointer then discuss the image that they want to convey with Max, and highlight that they want Max's suicide to have some sort of purpose or grand message. Max is greatly upset by this discussion, and argues that he does not want to take part in constructing any special image or conveying any particular message with his suicide. He also expresses disgust for the level of control that Farson and Pointer are trying to have over his life. Farson reminds Max that he is contractually obliged to go through with his suicide, and that up until that point he had promised them that he would do whatever they want. Max is shown watching a news report on the television discussing him and his suicide attempts. The news reporter says that they don't think it is very likely anyone will be interested in Max's suicide, or that anyone will turn up to see it. Upon hearing this Max destroys the television in a fit of rage, using the same axe from the beginning of the film. Max is filming an advertisement for TV where he declares his intent to commit suicide and then stops, refusing to read any more of the script that Pointer has prepared for him. With Max's refusal, Pointer takes the script and reads it instead to the camera. The script announces that Max's suicide is not intended to get people to change their way of living, and that instead it is a warning to be careful for people who are trying to change the common way of life. Max is greatly upset by this speech and its nationalist themes and storms out of the film studio.
The night before Max is set to kill himself, Clio arrives in his room late at night. They discuss Max's upcoming suicide, and Clio expressed her empathy for Max. Max admits to her that he mainly wants to commit suicide because he does not feel that anyone has ever noticed him or cared about him, and that by committing suicide he will be able to command the attention and care of the general public who will want him to stop. Clio again expresses her empathy and care for Max, and the two have sex. Afterwards Max expresses his desire to look after Clio and protect her and tells her that he is feeling much happier with his place in life. They fall asleep together, however Clio wakes up during the night crying and leaves the room. As she leaves she comes across Farson who has been watching the two of them, and he asks her how the evening had gone.
Max is awoken in the morning by Farson, and demonstrates a renewed enthusiasm for life. He tells Farson that he does not want to kill himself, and that he is very happy with his situation. Farson berates him for this decision, stating that Max had never achieved anything meaningful with his life and that going through with his suicide would be his only chance to achieve something. Farson then reveals that he paid Clio to visit Max the night before to comfort him and sleep with him. Upon hearing this, Max is overcome with anguish and flees the building.
Max runs to the rooftop of the building where Farson and Pointer decided that he would commit suicide. On the rooftop Max begins shouting into the megaphone to the ground below, and although there are no people on the ground at the time he does draw the attention of a worker who was also on top of the building. As Max prepares to jump from the roof the worker pulls him away from the edge, and attempts to wrestle him to the ground. The two fight and in the scuffle Max knocks the worker off the edge of the building. Max runs to the ground floor where he sees the worker's dead body and sees only one other person who has noticed the death of the worker. Realising that no one would have cared if he had committed suicide instead he flees the scene, distraught. As Max runs it is revealed that the scene of him running at the beginning of the film was the same scene as this one at the end of the film, bringing a cyclical end to his story.
At the same time Clio runs from Farson, distraught since she believes that her actions have led to Max killing himself. As Farson catches up to her she berates him for what he has done, and after Farson admits that he has been motivated by his love for Clio she commands him to apologise to her on his knees. Farson does, however this does not help Clio feel any better and she breaks down into tears. Clio is then shown distraught and alone. She cries out that she wants to get out from her situation and an unknown voice from off-screen replies that she can get out, and she is choosing not to.
Cast Michael Gothard as Max Gabriella Licudi as Clio Peter Stephens as Farson Antony Paul as Pointer Mona Hammond as Sandy
Some of the film's unnamed characters are played by Hilda Marvin, Brigitte St. John, Malcolm Muggeridge, Vivienne Myles and (a then-unknown) Helen Mirren in her first credited film role.
Themes and interpretations Emotion Levy was particularly interested with the audience's experience of films emotionally rather than the experience of a coherent narrative, and also wanted to break the barrier between the film and its audience with the intent to produce an "alienation effect". While at Slade he wrote that he wished to "investigate the problems of perception, memory, time-sense and emotion associated with the techniques of the film medium", and throughout Herostratus the composition of many scenes rests on their emotional impact rather than any pervasive symbolic meaning. In his essay "You CAN get out: Herostratus Now" critic Amnon Buchbinder discusses the recurrent slaughterhouse and striptease scenes as one example of the film's emotional purpose, and asserts that these scenes do not convey distinct symbolic meaning. To Buchbinder the combination of these sequences is intended to convey the experiences of desire and disgust to the audience, through the juxtaposition of visceral scenes of both "The rending of flesh and the revealing of flesh".
Key to reinforcing the emotional impact of the film was Levy's directing of the actors, specifically what he referred to in his notes for the film as a "special form of improvisation... exploiting the subconscious". Although the specifics of this technique are not known, Levy discussed aspects of his directorial techniques in an interview before the release of the film. Levy highlighted that none of the actors were provided scripts for the scenes, and that the directorial techniques that were being used led to some of the actors being in a seemingly hypnotic state during filming. Critic Stuart Heaney states that this style of directing is an attempt to heighten the emotional reality of the film by removing the boundaries between the director and the actors, and also impacting the boundaries between the actors and the audience. Buchbinder presents a similar view of the film, stating that "Levy's actors are surrogates for the audience" and further proposing that "the film's method is to traumatise its audience, and then cauterise the wound with beauty".
Advertising and consumerism One of the central themes of the film is a criticism of consumerism and the advertising industry of the time. Max is overtly manipulated by Farson's advertising agency throughout the film, and his attempts to subvert this control are all thwarted due to the immense power that the agency holds over him. May describes this plot structure as "a weighty token of retaliation against 1960's materialism". In her essay "Colour and the Critique of Advertising," Sarah Street discusses how Herostratus employs many techniques that were commonly used in advertising at the time, especially manipulation of colour and gloss, to highlight the constructed falsehoods of advertisements. Street writes that Herostratus uses colour "to expose and exploit [advertising] conventions: how saturation, light and texture indicate superficiality not depth in advertising contexts." while also highlighting the immense power that these kinds of techniques can have "in terms of their unambiguous, persuasive messaging".