Vampire: Masked Identity, Hidden Death
Abstract
The cinema has rapidly and in grand style absorbed the novel character of vampire Dracula, the dual creature combining the features of man and monster, a dead man and living person. The imagination of Murnau, Herzog, Coppola, Scott or Jordan has helped spectators get acquainted with a whole bunch of vampires. In the essay, Wałaszewski attempts to identify the source of fascination with vampires. He claims that the character expresses duality of the temptation of immortality and punishment, transgression of man’s condition and an infringement of the laws of nature (lack of mirror reflection, sucking people’s blood). According to Wałaszewski, this duality is a trap set for the first time by Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897. In line with the folklore tradition, Stoker’s vampires raising from tombs force us to symbolically face man’s most primeval fear; an encounter with the death-heralding look-alikes. The cinema has turned the vampire into a character from a pantheon of dreams about immortality.
Keywords:
vampire, Dracula, Bram StokerReferences
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Authors
Zbigniew Wałaszewskikwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Academy of Special Education Poland
Filmoznawca i teoretyk mediów komputerowych, adiunkt w Akademii Pedagogiki Specjalnej w Warszawie. Autor rozprawy doktorskiej nt. Nowe oblicze Drakuli. Wampir w kulturze XX-wiecznych mediów. O znaczeniach symbolu wampira we współczesnej kulturze. Interesuje się kinem gatunków (horror i s.f.) i współczesnym kinem autorskim (Herzog, Lynch, Greenaway, Von Trier).
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Copyright (c) 2000 Zbigniew Wałaszewski
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