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Tartan Video 2006
Contents: Commentary featuring Paul Morrissey, Udo Kier and Maurice Yacowar, Screen-test, with commentary, Production stills
The first striking thing about this extras package, is that director Paul Morrissey literally never stops talking - which suits our purposes just fine. The second is that director Paul Morrissey could talk the legs off a centipede which, again, suits our purposes down to the ground, as you learn a lot about this movie over a good two hours.
In the screen-test we see footage of Flesh For Frankenstein's Srdjan Zelenovic auditioning for the role of Dracula (before Udo Kier ultimately stepped into his over-sized shoes). Morrissey was clearly very taken with the towering and aloof actor, who he recalls as having "an extraordinarily deep voice, as if coming from the grave. You pay attention to a man like that." We also learn that the aristocratic Zelenovic grew up in a "Soviet slave camp" (aka Yugoslavia), that his brother (who was just as tall) was a basketball player; and that his father was a general in Tito's army.
The production stills segment (featuring some great photos of Morrissey and Kier) lasts a good 25 minutes, affording Morrissey more time to discuss casting, characters, and behind-the-scenes stuff. Among other things, we learn that cameo performer Roman Polanski wanted to write his own part, rather than improvise; and that Udo and Joe Dallesandro were given haircuts so they could start shooting the minute Flesh wrapped.
A fan of spontaneity, Morrissey wasted no time in bringing his next project to the screen. "Dracula started shooting at 1pm after finishing Frankenstein an hour before. I suppose if they'd ask me to make a third right afterwards, I'd probably have done it."
The real meat is in the director's commentary proper - which is slightly confusing until you work out these are three separately recorded interviews edited (not entirely seamlessly) together. Mostly, this works. Sometimes, as with the juxtaposition of crusty but avuncular film historian Maurice Yacowar and the more down-home Morrissey, it renders matters redundant. Kier's own introduction "I'm Udo Kier, I'm Dracula, I'm on the search for the blood of a virgin and I hope you enjoy it," comes quite out of the blue, and makes you jump out of your skin.
"I didn't want to overplay it and play Dracula when I'd just played Frankenstein," Kier recalls. Once persuaded, Morrissey next explained he'd have to lose 10 kilos. "I said, 'I know how to do it.' I just didn't eat anymore." And he ended up in a wheelchair. Still, he appears to have relished the chance to star in something other than the more sombre fare he was used to.
"Dracula was important for me, it was seen by a lot of people. If you make a film in German, where's the audience? Some old guys hiding away in Brazil, if you know what I mean!" Yes, Udo, we know what you mean. Some of those Nazis probably got off on Joe Dallesandro's heaving buttocks too. Elsewhere he comments that "vomiting blood looks so great when you have a tuxedo on. Look at the red... it's beautiful." Sometimes, Udo, you seem like a strange and scary man.
Morrissey, often introduced by a disembodied woman's voice, reveals that the castle "belonged to someone who was in a madhouse and was rented out;" and that, "I did almost no research - I respect the legend, but I wasn't going to have my hands tied."
Yacowar's commentary, though erudite, can occasionally become intrusive, and an unwitting parody of 'Cahiers Du Cinéma'-speak, for a discussion about what is essentially a trashy horror-comedy. "There's an inexplicable psychology between their stripping in the fields and their sexual banter," he notes of the Di Fiori sisters, while "the combination of blood and bread makes the scene an infernal parody of communion. Morrissey must really enjoy the sex scenes played with Marxist polemics. He is sexually exploiting the class that exploits him economically." "This sequence is so beautifully photographed," Morrissey interrupts.
But Yacowar is far from finished. "For both of the vampire's climaxes Morrissey uses quiet piano music. This gives the blood-taking act the calm of satiety and culmination... the toilet is Morrissey's personal metaphor for the moral vacuum that has been created by liberal self indulgence." Later he'll concede, "Maybe I'm reading too much into that line. I usually do." He's mostly good value, however, especially for priceless stuff like, "This is a very elegant composition, with the little mound of breast in the foreground, romantically heaving."
To summarise, then: Keir? "There's communism in it, there's sex in it, there's revolution in it, there's aristocracy in it, and there's a vampire in it." Thanks, Udo. Final thoughts, Paul? "It's looking for the ambivalence of serious and silly, the meaningless and meaningful." And last but not least, Maurice. Who, for once, seems totally lost for words. "Whatever it is," he reckons, "it's some sort of a vampire movie." Got that? "But it raises more questions than it answers." Yes? "It's a kind of strange tribute to the horror movie mentality." Uh-huh. "A little bit horrible in some parts, and enjoyable in others." Come, Maurice, you're simply not reaching. "It's not one simple thing." Bless.
score 7/10
Ali_John_Catterall 13 November 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2157039/ |
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19-2-2021 12:05:18