FILM 1104: THE NINTH GATE
TRIVIA: The two booksellers Corso
encounters in Toledo are actually the same actor, José López Rodero.
Writer/director/producer Roman
Polanski used a motion capture rig to use the same actor twice. The
same man appears again later, playing two workmen cleaning out the bookstore.
Rodero was an assistant director and production manager, not a professional
actor. He was hesitant to accept these multiple parts.
The Don Quixote that Corso buys at
the beginning of the film is the very famous Joaquin Ibarra edition, published
in 1780, which is generally considered as the best and most beautiful one. He
also mentions the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice, 1499) printed by Francesco
Colonna, dubbed "the most beautiful book ever printed". You can take
a look at its amazing illustrations on the net.
The New York sequences were shot in
Paris as Roman Polanski could not set foot into America because he was still
wanted for his 1977 sex crime charges. The exterior locations were redressed
with American-related details and the skyscraper seen in the opening and in
Balkan's office were Translite material taken from Manhattan.
The film has a different title from
its source novel, "The Club Dumas", because the novel centers around
a secret society obsessed with serialized novels, such as those written by Alexandre Dumas père.
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