Here's a genre question for you all -- and the answer would inform how Twilight was conceived and constructed and cast, how one should market the film, and how as an audience member you should "experience" it.Is "Twilight" a vampire movie, or is it a movie about Vampires?
I saw it last night and so wish I had time to write a review that started: "If Twilight is in fact a vampire movie, it lacks fangs -- the most horrific aspect is how much it leaves me feeling long in tooth ..."
7 comments:
long in tooth? like angry?
i think it's a teen romance story with vampire-like people...and werewolf like people, but sort of not really
however- the 4th book is (and hopefully the movie will be) definitely something different. maybe not a vampire book, but the sci-fi balances the romance in a most delicious way...
in fact, the vampires are really more like superheros with a variety of different "gifts" and hypersensitive sight, smell, everything...and the whole loss of soul dealio is not Buffy tormenting, although the consequences of sleeping with a human are sort of bad but also not really as it turns out...there's a funny aintitcool review about the lack of vampire-ness here:http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39189
while i agree technically, i still goo goo gah gah: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39180
Long in tooth, meaning old -- it was a hint that I view this as a teen film that happens to have vamps -- just like Valley Girl is not really a punk movie. But is that true? Shawn of the Dead is still a zombie film, just because it's also a comedy.
I haven't read the books, but Heather said the same thing about super heroes the other day.
So I'm a little late to the party on this one, but the internet is out in my apt, and likely will be for some time...
Anyway, the NYT's review (by Dargis) hit on the former element of Jim's intro: that is that "Twilight" lacks fangs. In fact, Dargis deployed some honest to goodness theory -- although dressed down some -- when discussing the relationship between the vampire as a literary (or here cinematic) character and sexuality.
Here's her punchline:
Faced with the partially clad Bella (who would bite if she could), Edward recoils from her like a distraught Victorian. Like Ms. Hardwicke, the poor boy has been defanged and almost entirely drained. He’s so lifeless, he might as well be dead — oops, he already is.
Personally, I didn't even make an attempt to see the film, nor do I plan to, but the question I would ask is can "Twilight" be viewed as a critique of the vampire-repressed sexuality model (which is really just a subset of the monster-as-return-of-the-repressed model) or is it not deep or hefty enough to do any theoretical lifting?
While neither deep nor hefty, I think any vampire film, including Twilight, is always about sex, just as any zombie film is about class.
Haven't seen Twilight yet, but I should, given my Kristen Stewart fandom. But Jim hit the nail on the head -- or jammed the stake into the heart... with the vampire/sex connection.
Let The Right One In, the best vampire movie I've seen in awhile, and the best film I've seen all year, is completely about sex, seen through an adolescent, coming-of-age lens. I post this just so more people will see the original before Goddard's American remake comes out...
Jim, is there any particular film that started the vampire/sex connection? Or has it always been easily implied/inferred?
I think the vampire/sex connection is inherent and has been there since Stoker -- which everyone should read. People don't realize Lugosi was viewed as a sex symbol when cast in Dracula and 90% of his fan mail was from women.
There are films that instead use it as a metaphor for something else. The Addiction is a really fun example.
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