In 2022, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the film’s release in France Nosferatu of the German Friedrich Murnau, first true cinematographic work with a central character of vampire. A century later, the creature is everywhere on our screens and in very different genres. How has this depiction of the vampire evolved in fiction over time?
Until the 70s, the vampire as a mirror of our fears
For fifty years, this character is represented as a frightening being in the many films on the famous Count Dracula, with Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee in the title role. VS‘are youIt was a time when fears were projected onto this creature: that of war, recession or foreign countries. “We don’t care about the vampirereports Jacques Sirgent, historian specializing in vampires. The important thing is what it represents for us, what it evokes in our unconscious. It awakens people’s fears, anxieties, aspirations, eroticism, violence. I don’t find the vampire scary, but commercially a scary movie makes a lot more money than a movie that isn’t.”
From 1967 to the 1990s, a creature derided and softened
We have to wait until 1967 and The Vampire Ball Roman Polanski to see vampires a little derided. This is still the case with Vampire, did you say vampire ? by Tom Holland, in 1985. Then another trend appears: that of vampires represented as sensual and sexual characters, as in the famous and baroque Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola in 1992. “There is this story of teeth”says Judith Beauvallet, from the YouTube channel Damsels of horror. In the Dracula of Coppola, it is not specifically said that vampires have sharp teeth. Little by little, we will try to create this sexier, perhaps more aesthetic ‘bloodsucker’ aspect and, therefore, to remove these two large, not very becoming incisors to make pointed canines. We are going to try to draw the vampire towards a more romantic aspect, with a sexy dimension and more accessible to all. He’s more mellowed.”
Since Buffy et Twilighta being with whom we identify (almost)
Latest trend: that of endearing and misunderstood vampires, with whom the public can identify and have empathy. The cult series buffy the vampire slayer will do a lot in the 90s. Without forgetting the romantic saga Twilightin bookstores and then in the cinema, where humans become the marginalized.