The Ninth Gate

Dean Corso, a New York City rare book dealer, makes his living conning people into selling him valuable antique books for a low price, and then re-selling them to private collectors. Corso meets with wealthy book collector Boris Balkan, who has recently acquired a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows by 17th-century author Aristide Torchia, one of only three extant copies. The author adapted the book from one written by the Devil himself, and was burned for heresy. "The Nine Gates" purportedly contains the means to summon the Devil and acquire invincibility and immortality. Balkan believes two of the three copies are forgeries. He hires Corso to check all three and acquire the legitimate one by any means necessary.

Balkan's copy was acquired from Andrew Telfer, who killed himself soon after. Telfer's widow Liana seduces Corso, in a failed attempt to get the book back. Meanwhile, Corso leaves the book for safekeeping with bookseller Bernie Rothstein, who is then murdered; his corpse is found posed like an engraving in The Nine Gates.

Corso retrieves the book from a hidden cabinet and travels to Toledo, Spain. The Ceniza brothers, book restorers who sold Balkan's copy to Telfer originally, show him that three of the nine engravings are signed "LCF", rather than "AT", which aligns with the rumors that Lucifer himself was Aristide Torchia's co-author, and implies Satan designed the three images personally.

Corso travels to Sintra, Portugal, to compare Victor Fargas' copy of the book to Balkan's. To Corso's surprise, he discovers that the signature "LCF" is found in three different engravings, which vary in small but significant details from the "AT" images in the Balkan copy. The next morning, a mysterious young woman (identified only as "the Girl") who appears to have been shadowing Corso since Balkan hired him, awakens Corso and leads him to Fargas' house. He finds the old man murdered and the "LCF"-signed engravings ripped out of that copy and the book half burned.

In Paris, Corso visits the Baroness Kessler, who owns the third copy. At first, the Baroness refuses to cooperate, but Corso intrigues her with evidence that the engravings differ among the three copies. He explains his idea: each copy contains a different set of three "LCF"-signed engravings, therefore all three copies are required to acquire the complete set of 9 images for the ritual. Corso finds "LCF" on three different engravings in the Baroness's book, confirming his theory. Corso is assaulted from behind and when he comes to his senses he finds that the Baroness Kessler is strangled and the library in flames.

Corso escapes and later is assaulted by Liana's bodyguard. The Girl appears floating in the air and rescues Corso. When Liana steals Balkan's copy from Corso's hotel room, Corso and the Girl follow her to her chateau, and witness her using the book in a Satanic ceremony with an audience of robed rich people present. Balkan suddenly interrupts the ceremony, kills Liana, disperses the audience and leaves with the engraved pages and his own intact copy.

Corso pursues Balkan to a remote castle, depicted in one of the engravings, and finds Balkan preparing the final ritual. After a struggle, Balkan traps Corso in a hole in the floor. Balkan performs his summoning ritual: he arranges the engravings on a makeshift altar, and recites a series of phrases related to each of the nine engravings. Balkan then douses the floor and himself with gasoline and sets it alight, believing himself to be immune to suffering. Balkan's invocation fails, and he screams in pain as the flames engulf him. Corso frees himself, shoots Balkan in mercy, takes the engravings, and escapes.

Outside, the Girl appears and has sex with him by the light of the burning castle, her eyes and face seeming to change as she writhes on top of Corso. She tells him that Balkan failed because the ninth engraving he had used was a forgery. On her suggestion before she disappears, Corso returns to the Ceniza brothers' now vacant shop. By chance, he finds there the authentic ninth engraving. On it, there is a likeness of the Girl riding a multiple headed beast, reminiscent of the Whore of Babylon. With the last engraving in hand, Corso returns to the castle. He completes the ritual and crosses through the Ninth Gate into the light.

Château de Ferrières, Ferrières-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, France

Roman Polanski read the screenplay by Enrique Urbizu, an adaptation of the Spanish novel El Club Dumas (The Club Dumas, 1993), by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Impressed with the script, Polanski read the novel, liking it because he "saw so many elements that seemed good for a movie. It was suspenseful, funny, and there were a great number of secondary characters that are tremendously cinematic".[4] Pérez-Reverte's novel, El Club Dumas features intertwined plots, so Polanski wrote his own adaptation with his usual partner, John Brownjohn (Tess, Pirates and Bitter Moon). They deleted the novel's literary references and a sub-plot about Dean Corso's investigation of an original manuscript of a chapter of The Three Musketeers, and concentrated upon Corso's pursuing the authentic copy of The Nine Gates.[4]

Polanski approached the subject skeptically, saying, "I don't believe in the occult. I don't believe. Period."[5] Yet he enjoyed the genre. "There [are] a great number of clichés of this type in The Ninth Gate, which I tried to turn around a bit. You can make them appear serious on the surface, but you cannot help but laugh at them."[5] The appeal of the film was that it featured "a mystery in which a book is the leading character" and its engravings "are also essential clues".[6]

In reading El Club Dumas, Polanski pictured Johnny Depp as "Dean Corso", who joined the production as early as 1997, when he met Polanski at the Cannes Film Festival, while promoting The Brave.[7] Initially, he did not think Depp right as "Corso", because the character was forty years old (Depp at the time was only 34). He considered an older actor, but Depp persisted; he wanted to work with Roman Polanski.[8]

The film press reported, around the time of the North American release of The Ninth Gate, creative friction between Depp and Polanski. Depp said, "It's the director's job to push, to provoke things out of an actor".[8] Polanski said of Depp, "He decided to play it rather flat, which wasn't how I envisioned it; and I didn't tell him it wasn't how I saw it". Visually, in the neo-noir genre style, rare-book dealer Dean Corso's disheveled grooming derives from Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's quintessential literary private investigator.[5]

Polanski cast Frank Langella as Boris Balkan based upon his performance as Clare Quilty in Lolita (1997). Barbara Jefford was a last-minute replacement for the German actress originally cast as the Baroness Frida Kessler, who fell sick with pneumonia, and after a second actress proved unable to learn the character's dialogue; with only days' notice, Barbara Jefford learned her part, spoken with a German accent.[4] Depp met his long-time partner Vanessa Paradis during the shooting.

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[10]
Filmtracks	[11]

The musical score for The Ninth Gate was composed by Wojciech Kilar, who previously collaborated with Polanski on Death and the Maiden (1994). The film's main theme is loosely based upon Havanaise, for violin and orchestra, by Camille Saint-Saëns;[12] some of the score has a vocalization (specifically, a melodic aria) by Korean soprano Sumi Jo.[13] A soundtrack album was released on 16 November 1999 via Silva Screen label.

• The Ninth Gate on IMDb
• The Ninth Gate at Box Office Mojo
• Texts, engravings and formatting of the book - Original
• Texts, engravings and formatting of the book at the Wayback Machine (archived 5 September 2004)
• "Satanic Verses" article from American Cinematographer magazine