Vampires Are All the Rage: Cinema
WCW inSIGHT Film critic, Dimitri Keramitas examines the current vogue for vampires and their impact on film and contemporary culture
A Cinematic World by Dimitri Keramitas, WCW Columnist
Vampires are all the rage: The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the second instalment of the Twilight series, is a huge money-maker, there are knock-offs galore, on TV there is The Vampire Diaries (following on the heels of Buffy). Actually, vampires have long been a favourite in movies and before that in fiction, ever since the days of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, James Rymer’s “Varney the Vampire”, and LeFanu’s “Carmilla”. The myth expresses the dark side of our longing for immortality both spiritual and carnal. However, every age has its own take on this bicuspid archetype.
In F. W. Murnau’s 1922, “Nosferatu”. the first Dracula film, the vampire creeps out of some primeval subconscious, not unlike figures from other German expressionist works. In 1930s Hollywood, Bela Lugosi’s, Dracula set the template for years to come: the vampire as exotic, aristocrat, sexual predator, the underside of Valentino’s Sheik. One reason for this development are the consequences of WWI. The smoking ruins of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires exposed the public to exotic Central European states with their bizarre histories and legends.
In the 1960s, the sexual revolution resulted in more virile characters played by the likes of Christopher Lee and Robert Quarry (aka Count Yorga). This comes out even in Roman Polanski’s parody, “The Fearless Vampire-Killers”. His film takes on a chilling retrospective irony by having the principal victim played by Sharon Tate.
In the 1980s and 1990s, hi-tech FX and video game culture resulted in vampires so hyperbolically monstrous they lost any connection to human character. Movies suc as “Blade” appealed to younger audiences, male adolescents in particular.
Now in the noughties it’s the turn of teenaged girls. The world of Twilight is almost exclusively one of adolescents. The heroine’s father, a rather clueless law-enforcement officer, appears only sporadically. We barely see any other adult characters, except for fleeting glimpses of teachers. Though there are a few adult vampires, all that haemoglobin does such wonderful restorative work they tend to be played by actors in their 20s.
The series centres on the banal school life and otherworldly romantic life of Bella, played by Kristen Stewart. Like many American teens, she is the child of divorce, is trapped in middle-class drabness, deals with immature girlfriends and fends off dorky would-be boyfriends. She dreams of something else … and unlike her real-life counterparts she finds it, in the form of a vampiric heartthrob. Not only the principal character but also his vampire relations, who constitute a functional and very cool alternative family.
Aside from her American Girl good looks, Kristen Stewart has talent and genuine charisma. She’s able to make the audience (the 90% that is female and under 17) identify with her amorous conundrums. She spends much of the movie pining for her vampire love—specifically longing for him to “transform” her (into a vampire) with some heavy necking. The taboo on going all the way seems expressive of modern-day concerns over AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy and abortion. The taboo is based on fear, but also creates forbidden desire, which thus far is never actually consummated.
Robert Patinson, who plays Edward Cullen, seems talented enough when he is given a real scene to play. Unfortunately, he’s mostly called upon to sleepwalk with a pained expression that is meant to express the difficulties of sanguinary abstinence, but seems more like haemorrhoidal discomfort. Taylor Lautner plays his more conventional rival Jacob in a serviceable way; he proves his thespian dedication by having built impressive muscles for the role, compensated for by chopping his long black hair. The rest of the cast does what is expected of them, though their performances are no more distinctive than those in any number of run-of-the-mill movies or TV series.
Director Chris Weitz does a competent job, taking advantage of Northwestern scenery to give a dreamy larger-than-life romantic feel to the movie. But like the previous Twilight episode, a rudimentary plot framing an uneventful narrative hobbles New Moon. The plot is the classic triangle: Bella must choose between Edward the vampire (aristocratic, European, glam-pretty, sophisticated) and Jacob the werewolf (working-class, American—Native American at that, a hunk, can take apart a motorcycle). They come from feuding families trying to respect a precarious truce, a spin on Romeo and Juliet. Yet the film doesn’t take much advantage of the vampire vs. werewolf motif. Throughout much of the film the vampire family has vamoosed, and the heroine’s initiation to cubby-love retreads themes from the first film in a different form. Nothing much happens, to put it bluntly.
The director tries to make up for two hours of tedium with a rousing finale that moves the action to a medieval village in Italy, but this doesn’t work, either. The film is one-part romantic sudser, but neither boy gets the girl. The film is another-part horror film, but the werewolf does not vanquish the vampire or vice-versa.
In short, Twilight tries to recapture the erotic and nightmarish power of the old Lugosi films, but as my adolescent children might put it, the series is less Dracula than Lame-ula.
