RSSS 315 Seventh Week

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RSSS 315 (Seventh Week)

• Slavic Folklore Vampires and Werewolves

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Basic information

• Instructor George Gutsche
• Teaching assistants Kenny Cargill, Paula
  McCambridge
• gutscheg_at_u.arizona.edu
• D2L http//russian.arizona.edu/courses/vampires
• Office hours T 11-1230 or by appointment

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Exam Issues
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Dracula Chapters 14-19
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Dracula continued
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Whitby and London
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Nosferatu films (German)

• Murnaus Symphony of Horror 1922
• Herzogs Nosferatu 1979

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Klaus Kinski 1926-1991

• German-Polish heritage
• Nosferatu Phantom of the Night 1979

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Literature into Film Challenges

• Background information
• Imagery
• Suggestiveness
• Inner dialogue, monologue

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Quick Review

• Nobility vampires

• Coppola film
• Contamination?

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Note on Tolstois Family
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Varney the Vampire

• 1845-47
• 1000 pages
• Each issue (200 chapters) sold for a penny

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Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 1814-73

• First published in Dark Blue, December, 1871
  through March of 1872.
• Some have said "probably the best vampire story
  of all"
• Diminished Gothic's emphasis on external sources
  of terror
• Focus on the psychological effects
• Lesbian theme would be productive in later
  fiction and film

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Observations

• Negatives
• Clumsy transitions
• Forced, post-hoc explanations
• Positives
• Novel use of folklore
• Dream descriptions
• Laura-Carmilla relationship

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Gothic features

• Mystery, gloom, fog, night, storm
• Desolation, isolation
• Animals wolves, bats
• Distant past (unforgotten) sense of nostalgia
• Old castles, mansions, graveyards, churches
  (cobwebs, spiders)
• Mysterious sounds (howling, flapping, scratching
• Mysterious figures, secrets, threat of violence
• Dark colors (black), blood, pale features

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Carmilla

• Lesbianism
• Setting on edge of Eastern Europe (part of Styria
  is in Slovenia today)
• Influenced literature and films
• Hammer's The Vampire Lovers (1970)
• Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (1932)
• Numerous others

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Austro-Hungarian Empire (Styria12)
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Film Versions of Carmilla/Bathory The Hunger
(1983)
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Daughters of Darkness (1971)

• Another cult classic
• Harry Kumel
• Combines Carmilla and Bathory

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Carl Dreyers Vampyr (1932)

• Famous expressionist film director (Danish
  1889-1968)
• Evil presence, atmosphere
• Two daughters, one infected
• Reassuring male presence

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Bela Lugosi 1882-1956

• Really E European (Hungarian)
• Theater background
• 1931 hit Dracula
• Career swings
• Sad ending

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General interpretations of werewolves

• Psychological
• Sociological
• Ideological

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Etymology and Terminology

• Man-wolf, Old English reasonable
• Lycanthropy, Therienthropy

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Werewolf Epidemics

• Peter Stubbe example
• Le Gevaudan (France)
• Loup-garou stories

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Folklore

• Variety of features
• Variety of cultures

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Metaphors

• The beast within
• Man as animal

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German (very rich)

• Kleinkrams werewolf
• Greifswald werewolves
• Kornwolf
• Wolf wives
• Brothers Grimm collection

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East European

• Rusalki and samovily
• Shapeshifters who lure men to their death
• Croatian folk tale

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Wolfsbane

• Poisonous
• Buttercup family
• Source of aconite
• Also pain reliever (in proper dose)
• Hallucinogenic effects

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Pentagram

• Five pointed star
• Witchcraft and werewolves

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Key facts

• Shallow or no graves
• Bloating during decomposition
• Fluids expelled during decay
• Dead bodies make noises
• Decomposition generates heat
• Skin shrinks back
• Corpses attract wolves
• Puncturing is the best treatment for bloat

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More on Reality-Based Vampires

• Perkowskis Psychic vampires
• Psychology of sucking, biting, thirsting, death
  and rebirth
• Links with milk and blood
• Oral sadism
• Attraction, repulsion ambivalence
• Projection revenge of the dead

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Blood and Roses (1960)