A movie from hell
By Daily Bruin Staff
Oct. 17, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Twentieth Century Fox Johnny Depp‘s
character, Inspector Fred Abberline, indulges his opium addiction
in "From Hell."
By Ryan Joe
Daily Bruin Contributor
Johnny Depp saunters into the junket room, immaculately dressed
in a sharp black suit, a hint of crimson collar peeking out of the
darkness at his neckline. He pulls out a little taupe cigarette and
snaps out his lighter. A mane of long brown hair veils
contemplative eyes, as the smoke circles and curls like white
laundry in the wind.
Depp bears a slight resemblance to his character in the upcoming
“From Hell,” the opium-inhaling Inspector Fred
Abberline, who is fatefully assigned to uncover the identity of
Jack the Ripper.
Based on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s heralded graphic
novel, “From Hell” is an atmospheric thriller that
holds the Jack the Ripper mystery in a strange and unfamiliar
light, allowing weird and distorted angles to arise in a case
already drowning in enigmatic intrigue. The result is a wild
conspiracy theory that begins at the heights of royalty and
spirals, spreading like the plague into the shackles of
poverty-stricken ghettoes.
 Twentieth Century Fox The mysterious Jack the Ripper
walks away from his latest in a series of murders. His story is
depicted in the Hughes brothers’ "From Hell."
“I’m pretty familiar with most of the theories on
the Ripper case,” said Depp at a recent Los Angeles junket.
“But this was a strong one. It’s one of the theories
that’s pretty shocking and important.”
Depp, whose familiarity on various Ripper theories stems back to
his childhood, believes that “From Hell” distinguishes
itself from other Ripper horror films through its combination of
visions: the ideas of the directors, brothers Albert and Allen
Hughes, distilled through the initial concept of the graphic
novel’s writer Alan Moore.
But while the literary source owes much to past Ripper writings
and theories, the Hughes brothers’ vision took inspiration
from past cinematic horror films, including
“Dracula.”
“There were many directors who did their take on
it,” said Albert. “We actually took a lot from (Francis
Ford) Coppola’s version.”
The Hughes also wolfed down a diet of past Ripper films,
including Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lodger,”
“Time After Time” starring Malcolm McDowell, and the
Jack the Ripper TV movie starring Michael Caine.
“Oh yeah, we got ’em,” Albert said. “But
they’re sort of like a big blur because we watched them
all.”
 Twentieth Century Fox Heather Graham and Johnny Depp star
in "From Hell," based on the story of serial killer Jack the
Ripper.
While other efforts had to be taken to turn the decidedly
non-cinematic graphic novel into a cinematic film, the most pointed
subtraction seems to be in the bloody portrayal of the
murders.
The violence, still smattered like wet arterial spray across the
celluloid, has nonetheless been toned down. The Hughes brothers
acknowledge that they reduced the raw-animal violence, which is now
represented through visceral sound effects and montage sequences of
shocked witnesses, their faces pale with creeping nausea.
So vivid were the comic book’s depictions that it had been
banned in Australia and London, and remains banned today in South
Africa.
“(The violence) was important for forensic purposes
because according to the conspiracy theory, there was a lot of
Freemasonic symbolism in the arrangement of the body parts,”
said the novel’s illustrator, Eddie Campbell.
“I think that the problem was, being a comic book, they
just presumed it was aimed at children, so they implied a different
sensibility as to whether (the books) were palatable or
allowable.”
Ultimately, customs officials allowed the graphic novel version
to be distributed, but not the individual, single-issue chapters
that comprised the gestalt.
Indeed, Heather Graham, who stars opposite Depp as the love
interest, Mary Kelly, was astonished by the brutality inflicted by
the Ripper towards his female victims. Graham, who describes the
source material as “very long “¦ and interesting,”
claims that “the initial shock (came) when (she) first read
it.”
The Hughes brothers can attest to troubles with the Motion
Picture Association of America ratings system as they were
threatened with an NC-17 rating, the financial kiss of death.
“With the MPAA, it does matter who you are,” Allen
said. “With big filmmakers, they let you get away with murder
literally. With us, it’s always a problem.”
A throat-slicing scene, which was depicted in bowel-shredding
detail, was something the MPAA wanted slit from the final cut.
“We cut some frames,” explained Albert. “That
amounted to, what, half a second?”
“Less than half a second,” corrected Allen.
Ultimately, the film got its R rating and Campbell, despite the
imminent release of the film and the consequent increased exposure
expected toward the graphic novel, doesn’t fear censorship
will be a major issue again.
“It’s a 600-page book,” Campbell said.
“If somebody wants pornography they can get it more easily on
the Internet.”
