7. Dracula (1958), dir. Terence Fisher

[strange_complex]

I synchro-watched this with lady_lugosi1313 yesterday afternoon, as we were in need of some comfort-viewing. I've reviewed it a bunch of times before (previous reviews all linked from here: LJ / DW), so won't say too much about it here. We mainly spent the time squeeing over its many wonderful features - the pineapple, Lee's swishy cloak, the resolution of the Cushing finger and the expansive feel of the sets. And occasionally discussing the continuity questions it raises, like how come it is May when Harker arrives at Dracula's castle, but 1st December when Dracula's hearse goes through the customs post at Ingstadt.

lady_lugosi1313 did raise the interesting question of whether the Bride means it on any level when she talks about what an evil man Dracula is, and how he is keeping her a prisoner in the castle. That is, is it all wholly a ruse to get Jonathan Harker to come close enough to her for her to bite him? Or is it to some degree a true reflection of how she feels about having become a victim of Dracula herself at some time in the past and been condemned to vampirism because of it, which the vampire possession now affecting her can easily mobilise precisely because it is true? I suspect that probably is part of what is meant, in the same way as we later see Lucy calling Tania to play with her and greeting Arthur with a request for a kiss - both things she would have wanted to do in her human life, but now hideously twisted to a demonic purpose.

Also, I'm not sure I'd picked up the full implications of the 'we' in this little exchange between Arthur and Van Helsing before:

ARTHUR: There's so much in Jonathan's diary I don't understand. Can Dracula really be as old as it says here?

VAN HELSING: We believe it's possible.

I do know that he goes on to say "I've carried out research with some of the greatest authorities in Europe and yet we've only just scratched the surface" only a few lines later, but there he distinguishes more carefully between himself acting as an individual ("I") and the combination of that self and the authorities he has worked with ("we"). Meanwhile, the earlier "we believe" doesn't quite work to mean "Jonathan and I believe" by this point either, given that both characters in the scene know that Jonathan is dead, so he'd be more naturally spoken of in the past tense. Obviously I am vastly over-reading dialogue which only ever aspired to be fit for purpose here, but anyway to me it speaks of a team of active vampire hunters, of whom Jonathan Harker and Van Helsing are the two who happen to have been selected to go and deal with Dracula, but whose numbers are greater and who form a separate and distinct group from the greatest authorities in Europe whom VH has also consulted in the course of their work. That's what I like to think, anyway.

Comments

[magister]

Wesley started out as a total drip, but becomes increasingly dangerous - not to mention unstable - through his time on Angel. Jonathan just seems mildly stoned.