Movies: Dracula, Nosferatu, and other vampires

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

IS the new Nosferatu movie any good?

See the first post of this thread for my thoughts. It mostly has positive reviews.

 

[kihei]

Also, seeing Interview with the Vampire in the same tier as Twilight is wild to me.

As the guy who believes that they belong in the same tier, let me explain my reasoning. I was more bored in Interview with the Vampire than I was in the first Twilight chapter, obviously a very low bar in itself. Why? The only time I got interested was when the Kirsten Dunst part of the narrative was central to the plot. I thought the young Dunst was by far the best thing in the movie, and was the only part of the book that Neil Jordan nailed. Her fate was genuinely troubling, haunting even, the others not.

To me the movie just spun its wheels most of the time, a sketch of the book rather than a convincing adaptation. I was metaphorically twiddling my thumbs a lot of the time while watching it as I remember. Cruise's look was silly, but he did create a character, just not the one from the book. It hurt that there was a potentially great Lestat sitting right there in the movie--Antonio Banderas who had all the darkness, sensuality, and presence that Cruise lacked and that Lestat needed.

Meanwhile, Pitt was still in his teething stage on his way to becoming a real actor, but not there yet, and he seemed like a whiny schoolboy most of the way. The relationship between the two vampires jettisoned the erotic connection in the book and instead portrayed them as bickering flat mates. A lot to this I blame on director Neil Jordan who never really found a satisfactory or cohesive style for adapting the novel. On the whole, despite the occasional striking image, I found the movie a chore to sit through and certainly not superior to at least the first Twilight in any way, shape or form which, while trash, was competently presented.

 

[HanSolo]

As the guy who believes that they belong in the same tier, let me explain my reasoning. I was more bored in Interview with the Vampire than I was in the first Twilight chapter, obviously a very low bar in itself. Why? The only time I got interested was when the Kirsten Dunst part of the narrative was central to the plot. I thought the young Dunst was by far the best thing in the movie, and was the only part of the book that Neil Jordan nailed. Her fate was genuinely troubling, haunting even, the others not.

To me the movie just spun its wheels most of the time, a sketch of the book rather than a convincing adaptation. I was metaphorically twiddling my thumbs a lot of the time while watching it as I remember. Cruise's look was silly, but he did create a character, just not the one from the book. It hurt that there was a potentially great Lestat sitting right there in the movie--Antonio Banderas who had all the darkness, sensuality, and presence that Cruise lacked and that Lestat needed.

Meanwhile, Pitt was still in his teething stage on his way to becoming a real actor, but not there yet, and he seemed like a whiny schoolboy most of the way. The relationship between the two vampires jettisoned the erotic connection in the book and instead portrayed them as and bickering flat mates. A lot to this I blame on director Neil Jordan who never really found a satisfactory or cohesive style for adapting the novel. On the whole, despite the occasional striking image, I found the movie a chore to sit through and certainly not superior to at least the first Twilight in any way, shape or form which, while trash, was competently presented.

I guess that's fair but I could leverage some of the same complaints against Twilight. Sure the plot structure is functional but while Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have become good actors over time, both their performances were laughably bad and they carry the bulk of the movie. And to me, I'll agree that Interview is dull and a weak adaptation, Twilight as a whole whether you're talking about the book or the movie is badly written both in terms of plot and dialogue. And I'd go a step further and argue that the premise pisses on the mystique and dark nature of vampires in the first place.

Yes both sexualize and make vampires out to be objects of lust and Twilight makes some half assed attempt to present the idea that love with a vampire is dangerous but the Cullen clan is portrayed to be more akin to angels than monsters in the form of people. Meyer, and whomever adapted her novel for the film, bend over backwards to present them as pure hearted "good vampires" who are more like to protect Bella than present any kind of danger to her themselves and it's all done to create a group of otherworldly characters for people to swoon over and fantasize about without any real potential that any of them might be problematic or dangerous. On top of the fact that while a lot of vampire fiction toys with the rules of their vampires' powers and weaknesses, Meyer writes her vampires to have very few to the point that they're basically just superheroes that sparkle in the sun (I never watched or read past the second book, but I have seen reviews and near the end it's revealed that they basically are with different vampires having unique superpowers)

To me Twilight in both forms is little more than schlocky romantic fantasy where the concept of vampirism is more of an afterthought where the Cullens could have been any other kind of otherworldly beings of beauty and charm (say, humanoid aliens like Clark Kent/Superman) and the story wouldn't need to change all that much.

To me, Twilight barely belongs on a list of vampire movies and I do think interview with the vampire is better at least to the extent that the writing is more competent and the mythos dangerous side of vampires is a lot more prominent. But our feelings are subjective so I appreciate the response either way.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

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I've only read the third Anne Rice novel (why the third one? couldn't say), in which Lestat is more comic than dark, so I really can't evaluate the value of Jordan's adaptation. I liked the film (and Cruise's Lestat) quite a bit, but I haven't seen it in such a long time. I appreciate your different positions. Obviously, if you've read and liked the book, a lot of things become inexcusable when they stray away without justification. I thought Twilight was a pretty bad film (and I wouldn't compare it to either Jordan's vampire or (great) werewolf film!), but if you'd just examine it on the spectre of the relationship between sex and vampirism, I think it brings a lot of interesting (even if normative) elements.