tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3020726079869673159.post7418073922302057558..comments2024-03-17T23:04:04.405-06:00Comments on hearth/myth: Samhain musings.Lynne Cantwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05397656985652575608noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3020726079869673159.post-73608557758632226992021-11-01T20:20:21.155-06:002021-11-01T20:20:21.155-06:00I admire you for making the effort. :)
I need to ...I admire you for making the effort. :)<br /><br />I need to watch Nosferatu again. We saw it at a local screening during which the film broke at the climactic scene. Arrgh!<br /><br />In the operatic version of Dracula I saw this summer, Seward is tortured by his yearning for Lucy, who is married to Jonathan, who never recovered from the mental illness he suffered at the hands of the count in Transylvania. Lucy also yearns for Seward and feels trapped by her marital vows. Dracula is sort of a free spirit who shows her how much her religion has oppressed her. In that opera, the church is definitely <i>not</i> capital-G Good. ;)Lynne Cantwellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05397656985652575608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3020726079869673159.post-11614038357902261492021-11-01T09:25:06.819-06:002021-11-01T09:25:06.819-06:00While I like the 1977 BBC "Dracula" and ...While I like the 1977 BBC "Dracula" and do not at all care for "Dracula is Dead and Loving It" I absolutely share your opinion about the original novel. It has some real power, which is part of its longevity, but of course cannot but have been filtered through the mind of a would-be good Victorian gentleman who wrote it!<br />The efforts to give the women their agency back interestingly emerges first in the silent film NOSFERATU. Other versions have sought to do the same, including more than one stage adaptation, and even James V. Hart's re-interpretation which ended up filmed by Francis Ford Coppola.<br />But these nearly always focus on Mina, while keeping Lucy as some stereotypical waif/slut. This includes the most recent BBC production, which also did something more interesting in making Dracula's nemesis Sister Agatha, a very minor character in the book.<br />Forgive the tooting of my own horn, but my stage adaptation THE WINGS OF DRACULA (of which I am very proud can you tell?) focused on making all the characters far more real, far more complex frankly than the novel generally does. In my version Dracula may be perceived as some kind of great evil, but seems himself more as a natural force, i.e. pretty much an Angel of Death. Teh focus is on how this impacts others, based on their own relationship with death. Lucy, an orphan with consumption, no longer fears death or pretty much anything. Mina, along with her husband, face the prospect of such with the comfort of their own fierce religious faith. Arthur is in a complex form of denial, while Quincey by becoming dangerous feels he has at least emotionally protected himself from death. Meanwhile, Dr. Seward cannot but see Dracula and death as an enemy to be fought with every breath. I am also proud of having changed Renfield into a woman, and explained her mental state rather than just had her a bug-eating maniac. Likewise then, her attendant would be a woman also, and I nicked a name as well as a bit of backstory from Stoker's notes about a character who never made it onto the page to create said attendant.<br />Besides, there just aren't enough women characters in the story.<br />It is an interesting challenge, at least to me, to adapt Gothic works from the Victorian Age and make them relevant to our own, rather than simply repeating the same tropes in a formula. Zahir Bluehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14533361554787004824noreply@blogger.com