Dracula (Browning, 1931): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.10pm
The screenings of this film (also being shown on August 3rd) will feature a performance of the Philip Glass score for the movie by the Kronos Quartet.
BFI introduction (to this film which is part of the Philip Glass season at BFI Southbank):
The vampire Count Dracula relocates from Transylvania to England, hoping
to nourish himself on the blood of unsuspecting victims. Bela Lugosi’s
seminal performance as Count Dracula was an early – but not the first –
entry in Universal Studio’s remarkably successful monster series of the
1930s. Glass’s score, performed by long-term collaborators the Kronos
Quartet, tweaks out the tale’s emotional undercurrents, its romance and
elements of the sublime, while never resorting to the trappings of a
conventional horror score.
Time Out review:
Not by any means the masterpiece of fond memory or reputation, although
the first twenty minutes are astonishingly fluid and brilliantly shot by
Karl Freund, despite the intrusive painted backdrops. Innumerable
imaginative touches here: the sinister emphasis of Lugosi's first words
('I...am...Dracula') and the sonorous poetry of his invocation to the
children of the night; the moment when Dracula leads the way up his
castle stairway behind a vast cobweb through which Renfield has to
struggle as he follows; the vampire women, driven off by Dracula,
reluctantly backing away from the camera while it continues hungrily
tracking in to Renfield's fallen body. Thereafter the pace falters, and
with the London scenes growing in verbosity and staginess, the hammy
limitations of Bela Lugosi's performance are cruelly exposed. But the
brilliant moments continue (Renfield's frenzy in his cell, for
instance), and Freund's camerawork rarely falters.
Tom Milne
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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