The Count Of Monte Cristo Bbc Television Serial
Elisa Rathrock
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (巌窟王,, Gankutsuō?) is a Japanese anime television series produced by Gonzo, based on the 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It was first broadcasted on TV Asahi on October 5th of 2004, and lasted 24 episodes; with the final episode being broadcasted on March 29th of 2005. it was licensed for a Western release first by Geneon Entertainment and later by Funimation.
The series is mainly told from the perspective of Viscount Albert de Morcerf, the teenage son of one of the Count's enemies. While the series adapts much of the original storyline and carries over its theme of revenge, the plot and characters feature multiple differences.
Geneon Entertainment acquired the North American release rights for Gankutsuou and released it under the title Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo. As of September 12, 2006, all six volumes have been released on DVD. A box set was also released as a compilation of the six DVDs. On December 27, 2008, Funimation announced that they had acquired the license and planned to release the series in 2009.
Set in the year 5053, the series focuses on the impact of the titular Count: formerly a sailor named Edmond Dants, he was betrayed by his friends and imprisoned on false charges. Aided by a mysterious force dubbed "The King of the Cavern", Dants escaped and refashioned himself as the Count, determined to exact vengeance on those who wronged him.
Use of the program came about due to issues created by the source material, which set its events in grand aristocratic houses, ornamented in the complex Art Nouveau or Baroque styles. Maeda also wanted to fully express the different textures of character clothing. This made key animation challenging; after trying several different animation types and getting nowhere, Maeda tried the computer-managed layering system, which made the process both possible and much easier than traditional animation. The illustrators only needed to create the clothing outlines for key frames rather than full character designs, for example. Because of this style, Maeda had to imagine each scene as being filmed with live-action actors rather than focusing on animation. By using the computer program, Maeda could create different texture layers within scenes. During the testing stages, Maeda worked with professional stylists, stapling fabric pieces to concept drawings to achieve the desired effect.
The character designs were created by Matsubara, who had gained notoriety for his work on Oh My Goddess! and the Sakura Wars franchise. Matsubara was brought on at an early stage, when Maeda was putting together internal promotion videos for the project. Matsubara designed the characters based on Maeda's drafts. The character design of Gankutsuou was different from other anime of the time, not using shadows and highlighted elements and instead focusing on vigorous movement and exaggerated posture, communicating a character's personality through movement.
In addition to Japanese designers, Gankutsuou saw a collaboration with American fashion designer Anna Sui, who had previously done a collaboration for a Dark Horse Comics project and liked the prospect of working on a full-motion animation project, the studio's animation technology and Dumas's original novel. The anime uses clothing styles drawn from early 19th century France, showing fashions associated with the time including the "dandy" look and widening hems for women's skirts being incorporated. Sui described these designs as her biggest challenge.
The television drama Revenge is a prime time soap opera in the tradition of such classic 1980s fare as Dallas, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest. Wealth and privilege evade the Southampton of Revenge in much the same way that it did in California and Texas on those shows of the past, with plenty of greed, betrayal, and ambition thrown in for good measure.
Armed with wealth beyond his imagination, Dants transforms himself into the Count of Monte Cristo. After years of careful planning, he then returns to his native France and enacts an elaborate plot against those responsible for his incarceration.
On Revenge, it is the father of eight-year-old Amanda Clarke that is betrayed and likewise convicted of a crime he did not commit. After serving ten years herself in a juvenile institution, Clarke is emancipated and finds that not only is her father now dead but innocent as well.
She also discovers that she has inherited a secret fortune from billionaire software magnate Nolan Ross. Amanda Clark thus changes her persona into the wealthy Emily Thorne, plots her own strategy for revenge and eventually returns to the Southampton of her youth to extract vengeance on those who incriminated her father.
Clarke, meanwhile, is charged with the twenty-first century equivalent by financing a terrorist organization that was responsible for the downing of Flight 197 and the subsequent death of 246 Americans. Both Edmond Dants and David Clarke are thus enemies of the state, sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole or reduced sentence.
Monsieur de Villefort, the man most responsible for sending Edmond Dants to his island prison, rises afterwards to the position of Deputy Minister of France, for instance, while federal prosecutor Tom Kingsly becomes a United States Senator following the conviction of David Clarke.
At the heart of each beats the same classic tale of revenge, however, with the original a literary classic that has withstood the test of time and the latter a worthy twenty-first century adaptation in its own right.
Popular culture often serves as a mirror into the past and present through narratives that reflect the real world. Remixing History intertwines these fictional stories with their factual counterparts, creating a hybrid history and better understanding of our times in the process.
Helen Tennison, Director
Helen's directing draws on her devising and physical theatre background to create a strong visual aesthetic. Her work ranges from Shakespeare (she also leads regular workshops in verse speaking), to new writing and site-specific pieces. She is particularly interested in the meeting point between naturalism and expressionism and enjoys being involved in the development of new scripts.
Eva Auster, Video and Projection Designer
Eva is a London-based video and projection designer and Isadora programmer working with various artists, companies and directors from the United Kingdom and abroad to create visually beautiful and challenging work for live performances, physical theatre, dance and live events. Eva works and experiments with interactive video-mapping technologies, and various multimedia in order to communicate storytelling ideas and narratives to a wide-range of audiences. She is also an experienced lecturer, giving sessions on topics from video design to theatrical performance and content creation, whilst also providing private adult tuition on various technical subjects and technical support. For further information about her work, please visit her website.
Matt Eaton, Composer and Sound Designer
Multi-instrumentalist Matthew Eaton, best known to Domino as one of the founding members of Pram, is also an accomplished sound designer with professional experience in theatre and film. Over the past years, Matt has worked on countless scores for projects including Hamlet (Creation Theatre Co), It Ain't All Bollywood (Rifco Arts) and most recently worked on a production of The Gambler for BBC Radio 3. Versatile and swift, Matt uses his own studio facilities to create sounds from mysterious and eerie to sugar plum nursery style. Only Matt knows how to make running a screwdriver along an electric guitar sound like the perfect match for an underwater dream.
Eduard Lewis, Director
The USF School of Theatre and Dance was excited to welcome back guest director Eduard Lewis (Antigone, A Tale of Two Cities) to direct the 2018-19 BRIT production of Emma. Eduard Lewis trained on the MFA in Theatre Directing at Birkbeck University and Arts Educational and was a Resident Trainee Director at Royal Exchange Theatre 2012/2013.
Her work B U R N T O U T recently premiered at The Place as part of Resolution 2019. Sara trained at Laban and has taught movement at ALRA, Mountview, East 15 and Rose Bruford. She has just finished choreographing the latest music promo for C Duncan. saragreen.co.uk
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