Vampyr (1932) Critical Review of Term Paper

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For example, "Out on the lake, for example, calling and voices are heard within the mist almost detached from Gray and Gisele. The mist dissolves all boundaries between themselves and the point of landing, creating a space which seems infinite but in which one is contained. As viewers, we, too, become contained within this space and share the characters' experience of blocked vision and of doubled and repeated echoes" (Sayers & Williams 41).

Figure 1. Still from Vampyr (1932).

Source: Sayers & Williams 41.

This eerie use of mist and blend of light and dark to create a surreal atmosphere as shown in Figure 1 above added a supernatural feel to the production that modern reviewers admire for its relevance and effectiveness. For example, "Given that vampires usually inhabit night and remain covered during the day, it is significant that this mist shrouds the point between appearance and disappearance, similar to the relation to shadows and the movement of extra-corporeal experience which Dreyer presents as shadows in Vampyr" (Sayers & Williams 40). While Dreyer did not necessarily invent all of his techniques, he did take them to new levels that were uniquely his own. In this regard, Morgan (2002) points out that, "Taking to the country is in fact a set piece of both the comic and horror modalities, but the latter is skeptical, indeed suspicious of the pastoral [and a] young man from the city encounters an eerie countryside in Carl Dreyer's film Vampyr (1932)" (45). Likewise, according to Andrew (1984), Dreyer's "[s]uperimposition of David Gray's ghost over his body substitutes for more prosaic ways of signifying his mental life (using an intertide, or a close-up of his eyes closing in thought).

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The trope of the superimposition is thus straightened out, permitting us to understand the direct sense of the film and to appreciate the ingenuity of Carl Dreyer in presenting that sense to us in such a striking way" (165).

Conclusion

While it may not have been a popular hit at the box office at the time, the research showed that Carl T. Dreyer's 1932 production of "Vampyr" has been universally acclaimed by critics as a masterful piece of early horror that has been enormously influential on the genre over the years. The research also showed that German expressionism influenced "Vampyr," perhaps by virtue of the postproduction work that was done on the film. Finally, the director's use of various cinemagraphic techniques including his innovative use camera movement and of light and shadow to maintain the feeling of an "art film" throughout was described. Taken together, the research suggests that it would be reasonable to assert that Dreyer knew what scared people as well as what intrigued them about forbidden sexual themes - then and now.

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