After reading Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula," I've been seeking out a bunch of movie adaptations of it. I wouldn't have guessed that my favorite would turn out to be a ballet made in the style from the silent film era, but it has. "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" does many things well. As an adaptation, it succeeds because it focuses on and accentuates a couple major themes from the novel and doesn't get bogged down in details of faithful rendering of the book or peripheral nonsense, such as the movies that turn the Gothic horror story into a romance, or about the historical Vlad the Impaler, or both. As a silent-film ballet, it succeeds by the marriage of two mute art forms and by integrating the editing with the music and the camera within the dance rather than outside it as a spectator.
Stoker's novel is about many things--it's a relatively long, even too long, book, after all. No movie has, should or could encompass it all. The ones that some people claim have come closest (Franco's 1970, the 1974 and 1977 TV-movie, or Coppola's 1992 versions) tend not to be very good adaptations or even very good movies. The better ones, including the 1931 films and the 1922 "Nosferatu," or even some of the Hammer splatters, and this one, stray considerably from the word of Stoker, but they all do a few things well. This one concentrates on the sex and xenophobia inherent from the novel. We get the xenophobia part from the start, as words blazed across the screen shout about the threat of a foreigner from the East landing on the shores of England. Casting an Asian performer in the role of Dracula was a stroke of genius, as it has considerably more resonance in today's West than would yet another incarnation of Bela Lugosi's suave, Latin-lover type. Later, the xenophobia is tied in with money--literally, a casket full of cash that Dracula sneaks back to his home country--which also has more resonance today, where racism is frequently rationalized as economic. The fear of miscegenation that Dracula's bloodsucking on Englishwomen presents is, perhaps, less of a panic nowadays, but it ties these two major themes together.
And, boy, does this movie bring out the sexual subtext of Stoker's tale. The blood transfusions of Lucy play out like a gangrape. Others had made this connection before in readings of "Dracula," of blood as a stand-in for semen--that of the Englishmen being used to combat the exchange of fluids from the foreign Dracula. But, it's one thing to read and think about the subtext; it's another to see it so visually and vigorously implied. In the first act, Van Helsing's examination of Lucy also includes a rough gynecological look. From here, the sexual references continue to pour. Lucy, as a vampire, is attacked by the men again--this time all bearing especially phallic stakes, or spears or pikes, to poke her with. Later, the men turn their weapons upon the sisters/wives of Dracula with gusto equal to their blood donations, and despite the homoeroticism of it, upon Dracula, who they leave impaled upon the phallic object.
Not content with merely male sexual aggression, however, there's also a brief glimpse of Harker's stay at Castle Dracula, which is consumed by imagery of the lustful female vampires. To combat this foreign threat to her betrothed, Mina even attempts to perform fellatio on Harker in a scene akin to that of the blood transfusions on Lucy. This episode is brought on by Mina reading Harker's account of the fem vamps in his diary (hence the movie's title), which along with an earlier scene of Van Helsing stealing Lucy's journal, alludes to the epistolary structure of Stoker's novel, which was largely composed of diary entries. The sets for these later acts involving Mina also contain pathways suggestive of vaginas--contrasting with the phallic pikes otherwise employed throughout. You don't have to appreciate Freudian film theory to understand this stuff; it's blatant. One title card even reads, "cuckold's counterblow," as the Western heroes attack the vampire's lair.
This is a gorgeous and rhythmic picture. As many of my IMDb reviews will attest, I've long been a convert to appreciating the silent film era. Oddly, although I've long known about Guy Maddin's postmodern tendency to adopt this era's style, this is the first movie of his that I've seen. It's clear that he knows how to compose an image and how the silent art form enhances this. The use of framing, such as irises, and filters, petroleum jelly on the lens for soft focus edges, slow motion and other image distortions, sound effects, dissolves and tinting/toning are exceptional. The sparing use of color, including for red blood, and the lighthouse strobe light in the first act are especially nice touches. And I've never seen two silent art forms--the silent film and ballet--integrated like this before.
Although I'm a fan of silent films, until now, I've never much appreciated ballet. At university, I had a class where we were tortured with a statically-filmed, live-ballet performance. There's not much worse in filmdom than a camera that forces one into the position of a second-generation theatrical spectator--removing any benefits of the live performance and leaving only static dullness. Here, however, the camera is part of the performance; like the human performers, it dances. Additionally, the quick editing style is in rhythm with the music. The effect is immersive and visceral. As with the actors of the silent film era, who used a system of gestures adapted from theatre to express their characters, ballet has its own expressive codes. Thus, not only are the performers' expressions enhanced by cinematic elements such as the close-up, but, here, also by transmuting it through another art form that relies upon coded gestures. The themes from Stoker's novel are likewise enhanced by the transmutation.
(Mirror Note: Dracula's lack of a reflection isn't addressed, but there is a beautifully-done scene of Lucy looking in the mirror.)
Stoker's novel is about many things--it's a relatively long, even too long, book, after all. No movie has, should or could encompass it all. The ones that some people claim have come closest (Franco's 1970, the 1974 and 1977 TV-movie, or Coppola's 1992 versions) tend not to be very good adaptations or even very good movies. The better ones, including the 1931 films and the 1922 "Nosferatu," or even some of the Hammer splatters, and this one, stray considerably from the word of Stoker, but they all do a few things well. This one concentrates on the sex and xenophobia inherent from the novel. We get the xenophobia part from the start, as words blazed across the screen shout about the threat of a foreigner from the East landing on the shores of England. Casting an Asian performer in the role of Dracula was a stroke of genius, as it has considerably more resonance in today's West than would yet another incarnation of Bela Lugosi's suave, Latin-lover type. Later, the xenophobia is tied in with money--literally, a casket full of cash that Dracula sneaks back to his home country--which also has more resonance today, where racism is frequently rationalized as economic. The fear of miscegenation that Dracula's bloodsucking on Englishwomen presents is, perhaps, less of a panic nowadays, but it ties these two major themes together.
And, boy, does this movie bring out the sexual subtext of Stoker's tale. The blood transfusions of Lucy play out like a gangrape. Others had made this connection before in readings of "Dracula," of blood as a stand-in for semen--that of the Englishmen being used to combat the exchange of fluids from the foreign Dracula. But, it's one thing to read and think about the subtext; it's another to see it so visually and vigorously implied. In the first act, Van Helsing's examination of Lucy also includes a rough gynecological look. From here, the sexual references continue to pour. Lucy, as a vampire, is attacked by the men again--this time all bearing especially phallic stakes, or spears or pikes, to poke her with. Later, the men turn their weapons upon the sisters/wives of Dracula with gusto equal to their blood donations, and despite the homoeroticism of it, upon Dracula, who they leave impaled upon the phallic object.
Not content with merely male sexual aggression, however, there's also a brief glimpse of Harker's stay at Castle Dracula, which is consumed by imagery of the lustful female vampires. To combat this foreign threat to her betrothed, Mina even attempts to perform fellatio on Harker in a scene akin to that of the blood transfusions on Lucy. This episode is brought on by Mina reading Harker's account of the fem vamps in his diary (hence the movie's title), which along with an earlier scene of Van Helsing stealing Lucy's journal, alludes to the epistolary structure of Stoker's novel, which was largely composed of diary entries. The sets for these later acts involving Mina also contain pathways suggestive of vaginas--contrasting with the phallic pikes otherwise employed throughout. You don't have to appreciate Freudian film theory to understand this stuff; it's blatant. One title card even reads, "cuckold's counterblow," as the Western heroes attack the vampire's lair.
This is a gorgeous and rhythmic picture. As many of my IMDb reviews will attest, I've long been a convert to appreciating the silent film era. Oddly, although I've long known about Guy Maddin's postmodern tendency to adopt this era's style, this is the first movie of his that I've seen. It's clear that he knows how to compose an image and how the silent art form enhances this. The use of framing, such as irises, and filters, petroleum jelly on the lens for soft focus edges, slow motion and other image distortions, sound effects, dissolves and tinting/toning are exceptional. The sparing use of color, including for red blood, and the lighthouse strobe light in the first act are especially nice touches. And I've never seen two silent art forms--the silent film and ballet--integrated like this before.
Although I'm a fan of silent films, until now, I've never much appreciated ballet. At university, I had a class where we were tortured with a statically-filmed, live-ballet performance. There's not much worse in filmdom than a camera that forces one into the position of a second-generation theatrical spectator--removing any benefits of the live performance and leaving only static dullness. Here, however, the camera is part of the performance; like the human performers, it dances. Additionally, the quick editing style is in rhythm with the music. The effect is immersive and visceral. As with the actors of the silent film era, who used a system of gestures adapted from theatre to express their characters, ballet has its own expressive codes. Thus, not only are the performers' expressions enhanced by cinematic elements such as the close-up, but, here, also by transmuting it through another art form that relies upon coded gestures. The themes from Stoker's novel are likewise enhanced by the transmutation.
(Mirror Note: Dracula's lack of a reflection isn't addressed, but there is a beautifully-done scene of Lucy looking in the mirror.)