Literature Review #1
Citation
Kane, Tim. The Changing Vampire of Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Growth of a Genre. McFarland and Company Inc. Publishers. 2006.Print.
Summary
The book analyzes the seventy years long history of vampire films. He divided the films in cycles, according to the transformations suffered by the vampire narrative in the course of the time. Thus, the first is the Malignant Cycle, from 193 to 1948 .This cycle includes films in which Dracula is perceived as the antagonist and the predatory function dominates the composition. In films produced during the Erotic Cycle, which comprises films produced between1957 and1985, the sensual aspect of the story is emphasized, with Dracula being portrayed more as a seducer. Finally, during the third cycle, named the Sympathetic Cycle, by the author, the vampire becomes a hero, and many of his evil aspects are eliminated. The predatory function is reduced, in favor of the social function.
Tim Kane grew up in South California and as a child; he enjoyed reading books by H.G Wells. He studied writing at the University of California San Diego and published many short stories. The changing Vampire in Film and Television was Tim Kane’s first book. He lives in California and teaches in Chula Vista.
Key Terms and Concepts:
Vampire film cycles- groups of films which share the same composition, by analyzing the same elements.
Predatory vampire – A vampire who transforms during the attack, physically illustrating the lust within.
Traditional vampire narrative – the historical version of the vampire story, with elements which appear in the earliest versions of the vampire stories.
Sympathetic vampire – a vampire who becomes the positive character in the film, who struggles against his condition and gains the public’s sympathy.
Quotes and meaning:
“the vampire in Bram Stoker’s narrative is a dual creature, one social and one predatory” (Kane 100).
Here the author notices that the vampire in the traditional vampire narrative is perceived as both an animalistic and erotic creature, which lusts for the blood of virgins, and a social creature, which can act in the human world. This duality is present in the gothic literature of the 19th century, which tackled the animalistic side of human beings, and the existence of evil in the civilized world.
“I have made a conscious choice to divide the vampire narrative corpus into three cycles of films, which roughly align to historical periods: the Malignant Cycle (1931- 1948), the Erotic Cycle (1957-1985), and the Sympathetic Cycle (1987 to present day)” (Kane 9).
In this statement, the author explains the theoretical frame of his book, which analyzes the transformation of the vampire according to public tastes, based on the ideologies of the society. The Malignant Cycle corresponds to the fear of the animalistic side of human beings, and is partially based on the new awareness that man evolved from ape. The second cycle corresponds to the sexual revolution in the Western world, where sexuality stopped being a taboo, and the third cycle represents the transformation of the vampire in a hero, once people stopped being interested in righteous heroes, and started to be interested in ambiguous characters.
“the vampire has sympathetic qualities, dominating the screen time in the film” (Kane 89).
The vampires’ sympathetic features refer to the ability of the filmmaker to transform the monstrous creature into a character that the audience can identify with. The sympathetic vampire dominates the screen time because he or she becomes the heroic protagonist, whose nature and qualities, mixed with dangerous underlying features, fascinate the viewers.
Questions
How can a film which does not perfectly fit into Kane’s cycles appeal to the audience?
How does the vampire hunter transform during these cycles?
How are the social and predatory functions of the vampire rendered in the present-day vampire culture?
