Herostratus (film)

When Max, a young poet, hires an advertising agency to turn his suicide-by-jumping into a mass-media spectacle, he finds that his subversive intentions are quickly diluted into a reactionary gesture, and his motivations are revealed as a desperate attempt to seek attention through celebrity.[1]

The film stars Mona Chin (Sandy), Michael Gothard (Max), Gabriella Licudi (Clio), Antony Paul (Pointer), and Peter Stephens (Farson); other parts are played by Hilda Marvin, Brigitte St. John, Malcolm Muggeridge, Vivienne Myles and (a then-unknown) Helen Mirren in her first credited film role.

The title comes from the name of the Ancient Greek man Herostratus, who sought to immortalize his name by setting fire to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.

The film features music by Halim El-Dabh.

It was co-produced by James Quinn, the British Film Institute and the BBC.

Both the director and the lead actor would later commit suicide.[2]

First presented in January 1968 by Henri Langlois at the Cinémathèque Française in the Palais de Chaillot, the film was released in Paris in 1968 at Studio Saint-Séverin cinema.

The BFI has released the film on DVD and Blu-ray Disc through its Flipside strand.[3]

• "In the beginning was the image: The films of Don Levy and Peter Whitehead". Norwich Cinema City (Norwich), September 2004.
• Herostratus British Film Institute
• Herostratus at IMDb
• Herostratus at AllMovie
• Herostratus at the National Film and Sound Archive