Dracula has long lingered in my fevered imagination. I was infected at first bite. Which is what they all say, I am sure. The army of the adoring. Dracula is so all encompassing, in our collective consciousnesses, that even children’s books are made about him…
My first foray into this vampiric world, came aged 6, fittingly on a family trip to the Emerald Isle. My prize copy (picked up in a remote newsagents), and resplendent will lingering illustrations was of the Ladybird books variety. Here our creepy count was not too dissimilar to that ably portrayed by the deeply charismatic and aristocratic, Claes Bang in the recent Mark Gatiss spectacular. He haunted each page with his supernatural menace. Those glowing red eyes mesmerised me with as much intensity as Claes conjures as he prances across our screens. Hooked and enraptured I stared at those pages for hours. Nothing much changes in 2020! Except now I can add drools longingly to my explanation.
Much the same could be said for Christopher Lee as he hams the Count up to the max. And teenaged me was all about Coppola’s vision- the yearning that Gary Oldman inspired. Lamenting hearts and a love through the ages. There have been so many incarnations- each of them bringing their own dimensions to this iconic story. Never does it get old.
Yet how can this be? How can a character so entrance? Offer so many possibilities? Yet always be the epitome of the talk, dark and handsome (brooding man). It is some kind of magic Bram has invoked, because my memory of reading the actual story as an undergrad is one of a story that drags and chafes as it bundles along. Dracula is repression. He is desire. He is fear. He is love. He is exotic. He is familiar. He is darkness and the light. And maybe herein lies the answer. We are presented something definitive and dangerous. Something that can’t be contained or controlled….
Because we all need a bit of reckless abandon. It is something we have largely forgotten in modern society, with its rules and expectations. Often it breaks down and the order is disturbed. Sometimes the danger threatens with intensity. The beast is unleashed. I’m thinking Ted Bundy or Jack the Ripper. There is something primal activated in our amygdalas. Fight or flight is something never that far from the surface, we are all at its mercy really. Call it survival. Yet our fictional and filmic responses are tempered- here we can release this tension in a way that actually reminds us we are safe. Another binary opposite to add into the mix. Because oppositions is what Drac does with aplomb. He is a man of contrasts- and that is where I think his real power lies. Prince of Darkness (and thus light).
contraryreader 