Vampyr

Infobox Film
name = Vampyr


caption = Original movie poster
director = Carl Theodor Dreyer
producer = Carl Theodor Dreyer Julian West
writer = Sheridan Le Fanu (novel) Christen Jul Carl Theodor Dreyer
starring = Julian West Maurice Schutz Rena Mandel
music = Wolfgang Zeller
cinematography = Rudolph Maté Louis Née
editing = Paul Falkenberg
distributor =
released = 1932
runtime = 75 minutes
language = German
country = flagicon|France France flagicon|Germany Germany
budget =
amg_id = 1:52181
imdb_id = 0023649

"Vampyr" is a French-German film by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer, released in 1932. An art film, it is short on dialogue and plot, and is admired today for its innovative use of light and shadow. Dreyer achieved some of these effects through using a fine gauze filter in front of the camera lens to make characters and objects appear hazy and indistinct, as though glimpsed in a dream.

Made in 1930, the early days of sound film, it was filmed in three language versions: English, French and German.

It exists in prints of various lengths and arrangements of scenes, and under alternate titles including "Vampyr: Der Traum des Allan Grey" ("The Dream of Allan Grey") [Sullivan, J. (editor), "The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural", Penguin, 1986, p.440. ISBN 0-670-80902-0] It was copyright in the USA in 1934 as "The Vampire" and exhibited theatrically with the title "Not Against the Flesh" in 1935, both by General Foreign Sales Corporation. A re-edited, English dubbed version, "The Castle of Doom", in the very late 1930s by Arthur Ziehm Inc.. It stars Julian West (a stage name of Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, the film's producer and financial backer), Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz, Jan Hieronimko, and Henriette Gérard.

Production

Dreyer's cast was predominantly made up of amateurs (only Sybille Schmitz and Maurice Schutz were professional actors). However, this was unimportant to a director who was more concerned with creating an atmosphere of dread than staging a play. Dreyer reportedly told his cameraman, "Imagine we are sitting in an ordinary room. Suddenly we are told that there is a corpse behind the door. In an instant, the room we are sitting in is completely altered: everything in it has taken on another level; the light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are physically the same. This is because "we" have changed... This is the effect I want to get." [Cited in Aylesworth, T.G., "Monster and Horror Movies", Bison Books, 1986, p.74. ISBN 0-86124-285-8]

No sets were constructed for the film. The inn and castle were real, and the building of dancing shadows was a disused ice cream factory. Dreyer altered the ending of the film to include a white, dust-filled plaster works. [Butler, I., "Horror in the Cinema", Zwemmer/Barnes, 1970, p.57. ISBN 0-302-02058-6] White is the predominant colour, representing the loss of blood, and seen in the use of white mist, white flour and the white buildings and skies that recur throughout the film.

Plot

The plot is credited to J. Sheridan Le Fanu's collection "In a Glass Darkly", which includes the vampire novella "Carmilla", although, as Timothy Sullivan has argued, its departures from the source are more striking than its similarities. [See Sullivan, "The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural", p.440.]

The actual events are rather obscure and dominated by a weird, dream-like atmosphere. Allan Gray (despite the film's German title), a youth travelling in the French countryside, puts up at an inn in the surroundings of a solitary castle, near the village of Courtempierre. He begins to see strange sights that are impossible to explain (notably shadows leading a life independent from that of their "owners").Having been asked for help by the Lord of the Manor, Allan visits the castle and becomes involved in the tragic events that are befalling the family. Leone, the daughter of the Lord of the Manor appears to suffer from anaemia, but her father already suspects that her illness is caused by a vampire. The Lord of the Manor dies, seemingly of natural causes, but actually as a result of the actions of the servants of the undead. As Allan reads an old book about vampires, he learns more and more about these creatures, while the fiend continues to assault the young woman.

The vampire turns out to be an extremely evil old woman, Marguerite Chopin, who died in mortal sin and caused a similar epidemic a quarter of a century ago. She is conspiring with the village doctor who helps her to gain access to her victim; her ultimate objective is to cause the victim to commit suicide and thus deliver her to the devil. Eventually, Allan and an old servant stake her, and her servants also die. At the end, Allan is seen leaving together with Leone's sister, Gisele.

Cast

*Julian West as Allan Gray
*Rena Mandel as Gisele
*Sybille Schmitz as Leone
*Jan Hieronimko as the Village Doctor
*Henriette Gérard as Marguerite Chopin
*Jane Mora as The Nurse
*Maurice Schutz as the Lord of the Manor
*Albert Bras as an Old Servant
*N. Babanini as His Wife

Response

The film, produced in 1930 but not released until 1932, was originally regarded as an artistic failure. It got shortened by distributors, who also added narration. This left Dreyer deeply depressed, and ten years passed before he again was allowed to direct a feature film ("Vredens Dag").

Following the pattern of several other Dreyer films, the critical reputation of "Vampyr" has changed dramatically since its original release.Fact|date=April 2008 It is today regarded as a masterpiece of cinema.

Release

Poor quality versions have come out of its American and British home video releases. A better DVD version is available as part of a French box set, and a Criterion collection release. [http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=437]

A Eureka Masters of Cinema series release is released on 25 August 2008 with the following special features:
*Full-length audio commentary featuring Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro talking about one of his favourite films.
*New, high-definition transfer of the Martin Koerber / Cineteca di Bologna film restoration in its original aspect ratio (1.19:1)
*New and improved English subtitle translation
*Full-length audio commentary featuring film scholar Tony Rayns
*Two deleted scenes, removed by the German censor in 1932.
*Carl Th. Dreyer (1966) – a documentary by Jörgen Roos
*Visual essay by scholar Casper Tybjerg on Dreyer's Vampyr influences
*The Baron – a short MoC documentary about Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg
*Inspiration for the film - Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla - as an on-disc PDF.
*80-page book featuring rare production stills, afacsimile reproduction of the 1932 Danish film programme, writing by Tom Milne (The Cinema of Carl Dreyer), Jean and Dale Drum (My Only Great Passion: The Life and Films of Carl Th. Dreyer), and Martin Koerber (film restorer)

References

See also

*List of German films 1919-1933

External links

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