Abstract
This article argues that the shifting bodily borders of male protagonist, David Gray,
and female vampire, Marguerite Chopin, evoke horror in Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932).
Situating the film within the ‘loose, ambiguous narratives’ of European art
cinema, it is suggested that the film’s central trope is the confounding of spectator’s
ability to make sense of the events taking place within the text. Gray’s bodily
borders vacillate throughout the film, moving between active and passive and alive
and dead, evoking formlessness and uncertainty. Vampyr even includes an
uncanny moment in which Gray looks upon his own dead body laid out in a coffin.
Even when Gray is active, the mesh screens, closed windows and locked doors distance him from his object of pursuit and undermine his gaze. Through the formless
female vampire, oblique narrative and form and white mise-en-scène, Vampyr
reveals the impossibility of vision and the limitations of the spectatorial gaze.
and female vampire, Marguerite Chopin, evoke horror in Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932).
Situating the film within the ‘loose, ambiguous narratives’ of European art
cinema, it is suggested that the film’s central trope is the confounding of spectator’s
ability to make sense of the events taking place within the text. Gray’s bodily
borders vacillate throughout the film, moving between active and passive and alive
and dead, evoking formlessness and uncertainty. Vampyr even includes an
uncanny moment in which Gray looks upon his own dead body laid out in a coffin.
Even when Gray is active, the mesh screens, closed windows and locked doors distance him from his object of pursuit and undermine his gaze. Through the formless
female vampire, oblique narrative and form and white mise-en-scène, Vampyr
reveals the impossibility of vision and the limitations of the spectatorial gaze.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 161 - 170 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Studies in European Cinema |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2008 |
Keywords
- horror film
- vampire
- Vampyr
- male body
- 1930s film
- uncanny
- formlessness