Matthew Lewis' The Monk

[transemacabre]

I started reading The Monk (which is available for free on Project Gutenberg) on long subway rides about a week ago, after finding out that this book is one of the prototypical Gothic bodice-rippers. Having finished it, I am overcome with the desire to direct a classy, big-budget porno about it.

Imagine! A young, handsome priest tormented by his illicit desires for a beguiling woman who has disguised herself as a boy to join his monastery and seduce him! What part of that is not supposed to be a wild turn-on? The Ambrosio/Matilda sex scenes in the book verge on porn as it is. You could add in a few more sex scenes to make it a proper porno -- hey, Don Raymond and Agnes had to conceive that baby somehow. Maybe up the debauchery in the nun procession towards the end. It's even got (unintentional) brother/sister incest to arouse the kinksters. Find a crumbling monastery somewhere that's hard enough up for money to let a porno shoot there, and raid The Borgias costume bin and we'd have a hit!

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes! There is a recent French film version, Le Moine, starring Vincent Cassel. There was an earlier one with Paul McGann.

It was an influence on Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, which is one of my all-time favourite novels.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

That's so funny, when I was reading it I kept seeing shades of Frollo in Ambrosio, but I wasn't aware that The Monk was a direct influence on NDdP!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes: NDdP is in part a sort of mash-up of The Monk and Quentin Durward (of which Hugo had written a review).