Rodrigo Areias is a Portuguese and very prolific film producer, director and writer, with a career spanning more than two decades, and more than 100 films to his credit. In 2024, he released The Worst Man in London, which premiered in the 53th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The the quasi-fictional biographical drama tells the story of painter Charles Augustus Howell.

This interview was conducted in December 2024 as part of ArteKino 2024. Prince is available to watch online for free during the entire month – just click here for more information.

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Eoghan Lyng – Please tell us how this film journey began.

Rodrigo Areias – Well, this all began with the invitation from Paulo Branco, the producer, for me to adapt a book on Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Lizzie Siddal. After reading that book, I thought that there was an interesting environment, yet it was a British perspective on a story, that I couldn’t have. So my response to the invitation was to bring my good friend – Eduardo Brito – as a scriptwriter into the project and start to investigate a possible Portuguese perspective. Eduardo, as a Sherlok Holmes aficionado, brought the main character to the project – Charles Augustus Howell – explaining us that Conan Doyle used him as a villain on a couple of Sherlock Holmes adventures. And added that Conan Doyle called him the worst man in London. So this stuck, and from that point on, we started a long research on this character.

EL – What were some of the challenges you faced in bringing a vision of 19th century England to the big screen?

RA – There are a lot of challenges on a period film like this, but most of it was possible to discuss for a long period of time with my good friends and long time partners Jorge Quintela the DoP, Susana Abreu the costume designer and Ricardo Preto the Art director. So most of the difficulties were thought through in a collective way. So I knew what I wanted to do and trusted my team, so it all went smoothly.

EL – The real life Howell’s actions were legendary and he purportedly inspired some of Arthur Conan Doyle’s. Has he been misunderstood by historical fiction?

RA – I truly believe that he was misunderstood by his contemporaries and therefore by history. Most information that can be found about Charles Augustus Howell is condemning him for his actions. But there is also a lot more complexity in human nature than just being good or bad. He did great things and he also did some shady things, and that is why my intention was to really push both sides of human nature on that character. What I was mostly interested in was his motivations, how he was available to do despicable things in order to please his friends. But mostly, how he never dropped out on them, even when they were condemned by society, like Simeon Solomon after he was accused of gross indecency and banned by the entire Victorian Society, Howell kept on helping him and buying him drawings so he could survive. Those are the actions I am interested in explore on his behaviour. After reading all the published correspondence between Howell and the Rossettis, which many dialogues are based on, it was clear to me that he was not exploring Dante at all. But there were some unclear negotiations between them and strange requests from both parts, for sure. So my main idea was to create a doubt and not to give an absolute perspective of what happened.

EL – Your movie utilises a vibrant colour palette: there are striking blues, reds and yellows, while most of the clothes are dark. Please tell us more about this artistic choice.

RA – The palette was also created during a long period of time, and we had the opportunity to have that discussion for a long period of time. So all the creative team was able to analyse a lot of pre-Raphaelite [Brotherhood] paintings, and decide. The night look was based mostly on The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt, which was an important inspiration of the whole film. But the day shots are sometimes based on specific paintings that the framing evokes directly, and some other times evokes more indirectly. But my intention was for the spectator to feel, even if not consciously, the importance of the pre-Raphaelite paintings on the composition of the film. About the costumes, they were designed specifically for the characters of the film, and to convey a certain feeling and laying on specific backgrounds, both interior and exterior, sometimes mend to stand out, some other times with the intention to blend in.

EL – The Worst Man in London features a great deal of candlelight, bringing the likes of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon [1975] to mind. Please tell us more about this aesthetic choice.

RA – About this choice, naturally that Barry Lyndon is always a reference, yet, there was a lot of light used besides the candlelight… and there was a purpose of it not feeling natural. Our main goal was for it to give more the impression of a slightly unnatural look of use of the light, as if it was a painting. So the idea was always to use the painting references and not as much the need for the light to be realistic.

EL – The movie utilises a number of long, lingering takes on characters in dialogue. Was this a compositional decision on your end?

RA – Yes, I wanted that time could be part of the experience of watching this film. Sometimes the shot starts in one painting composition and ends on another painting composition. And the idea of not having a fast editing was also based on the speed of life being very different back then than nowadays, and I wanted that the film could bring out a slow paste experience for the spectator as if when we watch a painting. Of course that it’s not that radical, since it’s a narrative film with crime and political ingredients, but to convey that feeling even if unconscious to the spectator.

EL – One character says “I don’t have any good words for French impressionism”. Please tell us more about the relevance of the French art movement in your film, and its connection to Britain.

RA – I think that the reason why I did not study the pre-Raphaelites in art school, is because they were revisionists and not revolutionary on the art history. They were extremely important on many aspects of the social evolution using art, but they were not considered revolutionary as the French Impressionists. At the same time, it’s John Ruskin who says that line, and he was extremely conservative, that’s why I wanted that line on the film. The last exhibition on the film is by James Whistler, which has already some more abstract paintings and that John Ruskin hated and wrote an extremely bad review on. Becoming the first art critic to be forced to compensate an artist for defamation.

EL – A woman shouts: “wanna quickie???”. Is it correct to say that your film has a sex positive flair?

RA – I think that the sexual emancipation of women in the Victorian period has a lot to do with the pre-Raphaelites. Just the way the pre-Raphaelite sisterhood changed the dress code of the time, is an impressive statement. But not only that, but also the encouragement of the emancipation of women as artists. At today’s eye it may seem as if it was not much done, but back then, it was impressive the shock they were able to create in an extremely conservative society.

EL – There’s a stirring vibrato sound emanating from the stringed soundtrack. Did the music evolve from the script, or from watching the reels?

RA – When I first imagined the musical score, it was something very different. Yet, when we came to the editing room, I felt the need to use a musical tone a bit more classical. Samuel Martins Coelho is a friend that had worked on sound tracks for film before, but we had never worked together, but I had seen some solo shows of his using violin and electronics and I thought it could adapt to the mood I wanted for the film. In the end he transformed his violin sound by using thicker strings to create a more bass sound, and decided to use only the violin. Despite all of that, the live performances with live music of the film as cine-concerts, is executed by two violins and one cello to play the score live.

EL – There are moments where characters can be seen breathing out steam, suggesting temperatures were very low. Was it challenging working in such conditions?

RA – It is always challenging to shoot for weeks during the night out in the cold… but it all went pretty well. But it was important for the spectator to perceive that the cold is part of the film, so it was worth it.

EL – So far, how have British audiences reacted to the film, compared to viewers elsewhere (particularly in Europe)?

RA – The way different cultures look at films, has always fascinated me. Even within Europe, films are perceived in various different ways depending where they are shown. It has been very curious to understand that in some cultures where the audience has more immigrants, the main character is perceived in a totally different way than in audiences where there are less immigrants. His actions tend to be more understood by people that are living abroad… In some European countries his actions are perceived as much more controversial than others, in the premiere in Rotterdam I explained that I could see his motivations not as someone that would have the intention of gathering and accumulate wealth, but someone that does not always act in the best way but to try to help others. Of course that I don’t feel that this applies to all of his actions, but I really wanted the spectators to understand that he has a purpose on all of his actions.

But the film has not been distributed in the UK so far, so I will wait for that to answer…

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Rodrigo Areias is pictured at the top of this article. The other image is a still from The Worst Man in London.