“What is genre?
Which films are genre films? How do we know which genres they belong?”(Altman
6) These are all common questions that one might ask themselves while
contemplating a movies genre. There are not always exact answers,
but in some cases there are. As Altman says, “Name one of the classic, Bedrock
genres-Western comedy, musical war film, gangster picture, science fiction –
and even the most causal moviegoer will come up with a mental image of it…”
(Altman 2) People understand basic genre when it comes to the general aspect of
it. It’s when movies start combining
genres that things start to get tricky. Producers weave certain aspects from
different genres into their movies, overlapping and combining to create a new
genre of their own, a literal movie melting pot. In Bram Stoker’s
Dracula, a combination of genres is used to form a very good example
of a horror, romance film. The horror aspect of the film is shown in many ways.
Stoker’s use of shadows, coupled with the use of gruesome creatures is sure to put anyone on
the edge of their seat.
The use of shadows
is a key element to how Dracula can be classified as horror. Predominantly in
the beginning of the movie, while Dracula is prowling about his castle, his shadow is almost like a different person.
It doesn’t always move when he does and seems to have a mind of its own. In the
scene when he first meets Jonathan Harker, the viewer sees Dracula’s
shadow slinking along the wall, with his long fingers sticking out like a
predators claws. The camera then comes in for a frightening close up of his
face. Anther aspect of the movie that classifies it as horror is the use of the
many disturbing beasts that Dracula turns himself into. With each creature
seemingly worse than the last, Stoker turns the sly, smooth talking man into a
monster of gruesome proportions. The spine-chilling close up and sly movements
of the shadow, both coupled with the disturbing creatures that Dracula turns
into are strong representations of the horror genre. Another genre that is used
in the movie is romance.
Many scenes in
Dracula are so over the top romantic that they almost seem pornographic. In the
scene where Lucy first encounters Dracula you see her wandering through a hedge
maze half naked with her clothes blowing in the wind of the storm. She is
almost in a trance as Dracula lures her to the center of the maze. Once she is
there Dracula, who has taken the form of a repulsive monster, has his way with
her, ripping her clothes off and turning her into a vampire as well. Another
highly sexual and romantic scene accurse when Dracula is turning Mina into a
vampire. First thing he does is bite her neck, then using his nail he cuts his
own chest to let her drink his blood. Both of these actions are portrayed very
sensually. The way she feeds from his cut makes it look like she is sucking on
his breast, and as she is finishing it’s almost as if the whole scene, along
with Dracula are climaxing. These romantic scenes add to the highly sexual side
of the movie.
Throughout all of Dracula
Bram Stoker uses many different aspects of the horror genre, like the use of
shadows, and disturbing monsters coupled with romantic, over the top love
scenes to create a movie with a genre all to its own.
Work Cited
Altman, Rick. Film/Genre. London: BFI Pub 1999.
Print
No comments:
Post a Comment