[quote=“scherpschutter, post:159, topic:1962”][url]http://img5.imageshack.us/i/hangover1.jpg/[/url]
Is that you, Ennioo ?[/quote]
Probably tonight yes. My friends birthday and plenty of beers to be consumed 
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[quote=“Silence, post:160, topic:1962”]No, this is Ennioo:
;D[/quote]
Oh no Ennioo is pissed 
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[url]http://img5.imageshack.us/i/l616558c19d53a1.jpg/[/url] DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES (The Fearless Vampire Killers)
Quote from: Stanton on Yesterday at 09:53:24 AM
[i]It’s an intelligent and well made film with a clever combination of slapstick, parody and a typical 60s new-rules-for-the-genre attitude including an unhappy ending. Strong doses of erotic and real horror (for it’s time) too.
[/i]
A new attitude to a genre, in this case the horror movie. Today we would say that Polanski’s approach was postmodern: he planned to put a new light on the genre, by presenting classic genre elements with an ironic twist. But the typical 60s genre approach, at least at its zenith, wanted to be clever, therefore I don’t think Dance of the Vampires, as the film was originally called, was intended as a parody. The film is a comedy, but the intentions of its maker were serious.
Even today Dance of the Vampires is a confusing movie, just imagine how things must have been when it was first released. According to Glenn Ericsson of DVD Savant, the movie was completely altered for the American market:
“the changes started right at the top with an expensive animated cartoon prologue showing caricatures of the vampire hunters trying to dispatch a chortling, Dracula-style vampire. The purpose of the prologue seems to be to re-acquaint audiences with the standard anti-vampire methods (…) Audiences I saw the film with in 1970 thought this cartoon amusing, but its tone created false expectations for broad slapstick that the feature doesn’t fulfill.”
Obviously the American distributor wanted to sell the movie as a spoof (most probably of the Hammer movies), and for this purpose other changes were made; in order to create a more comical effect:
“The entire role of Professor Abronsius (…) was revoiced and redubbed”
(…)
“he tends to grunt and quack his way through his lines in the original”
In the American version, Abronsius was given a:
“Saturday-morning cartoon voice”.
Morever some of the leering sex and gore was jettisoned, leaving viewers, so it seems, with a rather anemic vampire movie.
I don’t know if the version I saw was the director’s cut, but it didn’t have the cartoon intro and the spicy moments weren’t cut, so it was closer to what Polanski originally must have had in mind. I admit that at least the erotic scenes had some bite. Sharon Tate is beautiful and a lingering camera makes the very best of barmaid Fiona’s ample bosom. Overall Dance of the Vampires is a very good-looking movie, beautifully shot, and with a magnificent set and costume design. There are a few striking scenes with mirrors and the final half hour, when the fearless vampire killers enter the castle, is entertaining. But it takes more than an hour to get there, more than an hour in which very little was able to attract my attention, apart from those sets and (of course) that ample bosom.
Like I said Dance of the Vampires is not a spoof. Polanski is doing with the horror genre what Leone was doing with the western: redefining it, proposing a new attitude towards it, by using quotations from classic movies and re-using genre characteristics. And his ambitions in this aspect are not very humble:
“Polanski has drawn from the entire spectrum of the Horror genre, as indicated in arcane details like the fact that Alfred’s and the Professor’s costumes are copied from characters in Murnau’s Nosferatu and Dreyer’s Vampyr.”
As said, today this approach is generally described as ‘postmodern’, but to both Leone and Polanski the postmodern ‘referential’ method was only a means to an end, they did not make films ‘for the fun of making films’. I don’t know Polanski as well as Leone, so to find out what Polanski might have meant to ‘say’ with his movie, once again I turn to Glenn Ericsson:
“Many critics call The Fearless Vampire Killers Polanski’s odd film out, an aberration in his catalog of titles. Nonsense. The cruel ‘the vampires win’ climax adheres strictly to the axiom: no matter how bad you think things might turn out, in a Polanski film, they’ll end up worse.”
(…)
“Polanski and scenarist Gerard Brach’s underlying message is that virtue and decency are delicate qualities unsuited for defeating Evil. Unlike the united and motivated vampires, the ‘good’ humans exist in Kafka-esque isolation one to another, weakened by self-doubt, ignorance and petty vanity.”
Like Leone’s spaghetti westerns are not only comments on the history of the western and the West, but also reflect the personal experiences and thoughts of a man who grew up in a country that was deeply wounded by the events in previous decades, Polanski’s films echo several of his life’s experiences about escaping from the ghetto while family members were killed in concentration camps, and growing up in a totalitarian state. In other words, like Leone, Polanski uses a genre (in this case horror) as a vehicle to tell a personal story. The use of genre characteristics may be typically postmodern (postmodern artists and critics don’t accept the distinction between ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ art forms, and have therefore more appreciation for genre art), but artist have followed this ‘vehicle procedure’ throughout history. Homer’s Odyssea is the Greek equivalent of a road movie, bursting with sex and violence, many of Shakespeare’s plays are vulgar melodramas, Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutti a comedy of errors, with many of the jokes aimed below the belt.
I guess in 1967 Polanski thought he was too young for an uncompromising film about his personal experiences during the war and its aftermath, so he disguised his movie as a genre movie, a combination of horror and comedy. The comedy aspects, in this case, might have been applied to make the subject matter acceptable, not only to the audience, but also (and probably even more so) to Polanski himself.
Considered as a ‘disguised personal essay’, Dance of the Vampires becomes a completely different movie, a companion piece of the more recent The Pianist, that deals more directly with the very subject matters that were presented in disguised form here. It fits very well in Polanski’s oeuvre, is indeed not the odd film out. The story element of the outsider who’s not able to avoid disaster in a hostile surroundings, is a recurring theme in his work. It’s not only present in some of his more important films, like Chinatown or Tess, but also in a relatively minor film like Frantic, with Harrison Ford desperately wandering through Paris in order to prevent his life from falling apart.
But does this all make it a good film? If you use a genre - be it western, horror movie, detective or any other - as a vehicle in the abovementioned sense, you’d better be sure your genre movie is a good genre movie, otherwise it won’t work. I still think it’s a problem that both the horror and the comedy elements in Dance of the Vampires don’t really work. It all feels terribly forced, the comedy is not funny, and the horror is more silly than scary. It is a clever movie, probably even a bit too clever for its own sake.
Glenn Ericsson’s quotos are taken from this article:
I think it works, the horror and the comedy.
It’s not as a whole a parody, but if one makes intellectual fun of several horror film stereotypes, it’s also in parts a parody. And of course overall it’s a serious and deeply personal film.
I’m surprised that you think Dance of the Vampires is confusing as I don’t see anything confusing in it. And I also can’t remember having read anywhere something like this about this film. Generally the film was mostly praised for being a milestone of the genre and an important development of it’s motives. At least here in ol’ Germany.
But that’s not a reason not to be bored or disappointed by this film.
Confusing in the sense that it’s not what it seems: it seems a spoof, but it isn’t, not really.
I guess the American distributor was confused by the look of the film and for this reason added some spoofy elements to it, such as the cartoon intro and the altered dialogue.
Yes, it makes for some intellectual fun, and yes, it is a serious and deeply personal film, and in that aspect it’s a rewarding film, but it’s not easily enjoyable. I remember I watched it for the first time, somewhere in the 80s I suppose, and didn’t have a clue where Polanski wanted to go with his movie. I watched it as a parody, and was disenchanted.
Do you like the other Polanski films of the 60s?
Knife in the Water
Repulsion
Cul de sac
Rosemarie’s Baby
Excellent review scherpschutter… You’ve remained very balanced in this review, which I feel is an appropriate handling of this film, and comes closer to my problems than I was able to articulate. Its not that I thought it was a horribly made film, I just was incredibly bored with its content as far as dialog, characters, comedy, horror, etc. I didn’t think it was written or directed badly, or even acted badly for that matter… just very dull and lifeless.
[quote=“Stanton, post:165, topic:1962”]Do you like the other Polanski films of the 60s?
Knife in the Water
Repulsion
Cul de sac
Rosemarie’s Baby[/quote]
Should see them again to give a well-balanced judgement, but I remember I did like Repulsion and Cul de sac, but didn’t like Rosemary’s Baby. I don’t remember Knife in the Water very well. Saw it when a long time ago, but never went back to it.
I liked some of his later work, although none of the films was really great. Frantic is a nice little thriller, not a masterpiece, but still underrated.
I’m going to rewatch some of his work in the near future
My main problem with the film is the horror and comedy do not work.
I have not seen this but in my mind, when comedy & horror combine, it’s no longer a horror movie.
Dune (Lynch/1984)
“Dune” (1984), directed by David Lynch, who made the art-house classic “Eraserhead” (1977), is probably the strangest mainstream science-fiction film ever made.
The movie went through a well documented production hell, at various points the film was offered to directors like David Lean, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Ridley Scott. It was finally rescued from this and eventually Lynch was offered it, who took up the chance to make a screen adaptation of Frank Herbert’s hugely respected 1965 novel.
The films plot is deceptively simple: In the far future, a duke and his family are sent by the Emperor to the sand world Dune from which comes a spice that is essential for interstellar travel. But there encounter problems with Paul Atreides, who may or may not be a Messiah the natives have been waiting for. Of course it gets much, much more complicated than this and at times it’s almost impossible to follow and reading the book beforehand, I’m reliably informed, is a good idea.
The music, photography and set design all very impressive, and the special effects are still good (notably the sand worms and the ships that travel through space), if a little dated in some aspects. The acting is variable to say the least. Sting should never have been included and his performance undoubtedly still haunts him, but Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides brings just the right note of ambiguity to his character and his performance is the stand-out one in the whole picture. But I am beating around the bush here: David Lynch’s direction lends the whole film a real other-worldly feel that is missing in most science-fiction movies. You really do feel like this is the far, far future. He also gives the film moments of true surrealism that are astonishing for a movie that cost $50 million that the backers obviously wanted back (something which never happened: on its original release, “Dune” failed badly) and was intended for a mainstream audience. Unfortunately, despite and perhaps because of, David Lych’s visual panache, the movie is nevertheless incoherent towards the last half hour and even at the end, when I had finally got the plot straight in my head, others I wouldn’t be surprised to see scratching there heads.
This isn’t a film classic, it may not even be a minor masterpiece, but it is one of the few movies to convey the feeling of the future so purely, and because of this, good or not, it’s a movie you must see at least once in your life. Whatever it is, it’s like no other movie you’ve ever seen.
Never saw the film but for my 12th birthday party one of my friends gave me the board game!
Never seen it, saw a cheap DVD in a local shop a while ago, but didn’t buy it because it was fullscreen.
I’ve always been told that storywise the film is a mess, but visually impressive, so I was afraid a fullscreen version would harm it too much.
Started watching it once but didn’t like it so I stopped watching it.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:172, topic:1962”]Never seen it, saw a cheap DVD in a local shop a while ago, but didn’t buy it because it was fullscreen.
I’ve always been told that storywise the film is a mess, but visually impressive, so I was afraid a fullscreen version would harm it too much.[/quote]
Blast! There goes any chance of intelligent debate!
Not a bad film, Dune. Not great either, but it displays vision and is entertaining enough for me.
“Fear is the mind killer”
I’ve seen it years ago - but I’m not much use here either. I only remember some impressive worms, a floating fat bloke - but most of all I have nightmares about Sting.
“Sting, we want you to be in a sci-fi film.”
“Great - do I get to take my clothes off and overact in a very mannerist and wooden way?”
“Of course your Stingness.”
“OK - I’m in, any chance of singing a song?”
“Nah - Fuck off!!!”
[quote=“Reverend Danite, post:176, topic:1962”]“Sting, we want you to be in a sci-fi film.”
“Great - do I get to take my clothes off and overact in a very mannerist and wooden way?”
“Of course your Stingness.”
“OK - I’m in, any chance of singing a song?”
“Nah - Fuck off!!!”[/quote]
“But can I have metal underpants?”
“Of course you can!”
[quote=“Silence, post:173, topic:1962”]Started watching it once but didn’t like it so I stopped watching it.[/quote]same here, i was bored
The full screen version is most likely a much longer version, but wasn’t made by Lynch, who maybe despises this longer version. I have one of those cheap DVDs, but haven’t watched it yet.
The greatest problem with Dune, apart from the dated special effects, is that it is much too short. All happens much too hastily, and you always feel that a Lynch director’s cut would have been much, much longer. In this version only an ok film and Lynch’s weakest work. Some good scenes though.
Which scenes did you like in particular, Stanton?
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