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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasmagoria:_The_Visions_of_Lewis_Carroll 

Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll is an upcoming fantasy horror film by Marilyn

Manson with Geoffrey Cox and Anthony de Silva. It is directed by Marilyn Manson as part of

his Celebritarian Corporation art movement, and is his directorial debut as a feature

filmmaker. It is being produced by Blue Light for Wild Bunch and has estimated budget of

$4,200,000. In the leading roles are Marilyn Manson as Lewis Carroll, English model Lily

Cole as Alice, Golden Globe-nominated actress Evan Rachel Wood as Alice's alter ego and an

Academy Award-winning British actress Tilda Swinton as Lewis Carroll's dream wife.

Synopsis:

"A haunted writer in an isolated castle is tormented by sleepless nights and visions of a

girl named Alice. He finds himself becoming a symptom of his own invention."

“Now all my nightmares know my name.”

"He is Lewis Carroll. Terrified of what waits for him each night."
    ”

Cast:

    * Marilyn Manson as Lewis Carroll
    * Lily Cole as Alice
    * Evan Rachel Wood as Alice's alter ego
    * Tilda Swinton as Lewis Carroll's dream wife

As of December 2007 much of the design is finished and the film has a distributor.

Marilyn Manson about the film:

“It was meant to have been filmed earlier but Eat Me, Drink Me became something that was

absolutely my first priority. Now the movie will be delayed even more because of the ongoing

scriptwriters strike in Hollywood which is affecting all present productions. I’ll try and

restart it at the beginning of next year.”

“Coming out with this tour and when I finish this and I go and make my movie, its going to

make for a better movie because I feel stronger physically, mentally, focused, more

confident. I’ve got more Ideas. I got time to step away from the script, and still I love it

and I can’t wait to do it. It’s even in a greater place now because, asides from the writers

strike, that works out with the tour so, it looks like we are going to do it, I wont say

when because movies are very unpredictable they get moved around, but when the tours done,

May, June I don’t know, but in Europe, Prague, most of it in Prague, maybe some of it in

Romania. Wild Bunch is so supportive and have always believed in me, they want me to have

everything I need to make the best movie I can make, and I feel like I can make the movie

now so I am excited to do it.”

Presentation of Lewis Caroll's character by Marilyn Manson:

“I want to take the children’s story that we all know, and discover the horrifying roots

that grow beneath every one of its childish metaphors. The characters may be absurd and

wrapped in puzzles, but, the author himself is the story that I find painfully close to me.

Lewis Carroll is far more complex than the world’s narrow perception of him as a quiet

deacon, a mathematician and a loner, simply obsessed with photographing young girls. He was

possibly one of the most divided souls living in his own hell that the world has

overlooked." 

“It's about Lewis Carroll and how he became a persona much more bizarre and elaborate than

Marilyn Manson. Charles Dodgson was his real name, and he was a person who had a tortured

inability to find love and to find happiness in his life, and his story is one of great

depression. It's one of a split personality — a person who was deaf in his right ear and

left-handed. He was a mathematician and an artist, a deacon in a church who believed in

evolution.”

“I felt like there were a lot of things about his personality that were like mine. His

creativity thrived mostly at night. He was a very odd person. In the past year, just putting

together the script, I think I've adopted a lot of his personality, whether for better or

for worse. I discovered that Charles Dodgson, who called himself Lewis Carroll, was more of

a creation than his stories were. He was very much a Jekyll and Hyde story, and the more I

looked into it, the more (I realized) this was a ghost story, really. He was haunted by his

own demons and had a split personality in a lot of ways. He couldn't find happiness; he

couldn't find a family. He didn't sleep. I think that he was seeing things. You start seeing

things differently, stuff that normal people don't see — stuff that I have seen now and

again. I think I was able to relate to that and to want to put it on the screen.”

Redefinition of horror genre:

Marilyn Manson has stated his aim for the project is to “redefine the horror genre” and

bring it back to the days of Roman Polanski, Ingmar Bergman and Alfred Hitchcock. “It‘s kind

of a return to Hitchcock-style psychological horror about letting your mind do the damage

and sometimes what you don’t see is scarier." "I wouldn't say it will be like a modern

horror film. It wouldn't be like what people are used to seeing today. But I think by being

traditional, sometimes like a Hitchcock, it's almost modern, because people are so used to

seeing special effects. I have a magician that I've hired to do my special effects. I don't

want any CGI. I want only in-camera, so I have a magician who's my special-effects man. I

just want to be unconventional by being traditional."

Marilyn Manson has stated that Phantasmagoria will be "something people haven't seen

before[5] and will be filmed in a way no one has done yet. “I have a camera that I’ll be the

first person to use in cinema, and I‘m very excited about it. It’s very unique.[sic]"

He has suggested the use of subliminal elements to enhance feeling, but also says he may go

further. “I‘m going to do a lot of things that may end up being illegal. Until they are, I

will do them. I think it will change people’s opinion about horror films and they will

realize they’re not all about slasher”. “I might add that the girls playing Tweedledum and

Tweedledee are twins who get to have real, genuine sex with each other. I like to make

dreams come true”.

The film has also been linked with other projects such as Alejandro Jodorowsky’s King Shot

and an as yet untitled film with Tilda Swinton.

Production:

Currently the production on Phantasmagoria is postponed and shooting is slated to begin

March 2008 or June 2008 after the touring of Marilyn Manson's seventh studio album.

Locations

It was originally believed that Manson was filming in Ireland and Sintra in Portugal as a

possible location. Marilyn Manson explains that it “is a very powerfully magical, strange

place. It was my first choice for location to shoot my film Phantasmagoria...” Recently, on

the 14 January 2008 radio show of Loveline with Dr. Drew and Stryker, Manson states that

although unsure of where he will be filming, it will more than likely be Romania.

Soundtrack

Marilyn Manson has mentioned that so far the music has been based around some of the score

Chris Vrenna originally created for American McGee's Alice. He intends to be working with

Twiggy Ramirez, Tim Skold, Rob Holliday and Ginger Fish on the original soundtrack and

previously unreleased Marilyn Manson's songs but has added that he doesn’t want to over

extend himself as he has other responsibilities, i.e. acting and directing. Madonna Wayne

Gacy possibly contributed prior to leaving Marilyn Manson.

“ It's interesting that we can create scenes around the mood of certain songs. It's

working in a different way than you normally would with film. I just started making music

that ended up not fitting anywhere on any of the Marilyn Manson albums over the years, and I

kind of collected it together. It's much more cinematic."

Marilyn Manson does mention the possibility of there being at least one unoriginal song used

in one of his films: “There’s a song that’s a huge influence on the way the movie ends

called "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" by Roxy Music, and it very well might make its way

into a film, which would be very odd because it’s a 70's song in a 19th century film”.

Promotion

At a press conference for the film at Berlinale 2006 Marilyn Manson and Lily Cole showed a

five-minute trailer, poster and still photos by Steven Klein to around sixty journalists

which was generally well-received.

Release

The film will reportedly be made available through Marilyn Manson’s official website though

he has also stated that the first film’s release will be “very unconventional”.

Marilyn Manson has also made many references to how his website will change in the future,

stating that the website is very video-extensive and “has been created to be a place where

you can see even more than what is in the film, whether it will be viewed as trailers or

teasers, or further elements that aren’t necessary to support the film. If you enjoy the

film, there’s a wealth of knowledge there to dig deeper”.