Christopher Lee played Dracula many times for Hammer Studios but famously disliked their treatment of the character. Franco directs Lee's single non-Hammer Dracula film and, because of its faithfulness to the plot and tone of the source material, this became Lee's favorite outing as the count. And its easy to see why. Lee shows off some fearsome acting that brings a deadness and evil that is lacking in his more famous roles. The entire film is modestly budgeted, but the minimalism serves the foggy atmosphere and Gothic staging. This is one of Franco's finest examples of restrained directing. His touch is evident in the moments of extreme horror (like Dracula's brides eating a baby) and his excellent use of inner montage through zooms and understated motion. The highlight of this impeccable production is probably the fine casting, including Soledad Miranda in her first vampire role. From the get-go, she is as elegant and seductive as possible. Her tragic aura was never more pronounced and useful to a film and you can see Franco slowly falling for her beauty. This film is an important step in Franco's career as he finds a special muse and gravitates to truly tonal, disturbing horror and away from the simpler, poppier horror stylings of his Orloff films.
I revisited "Other Side of the Mirror" and it feels like a tone poem to Soledad's abrupt death and the dashed romantic feelings he held for her. Its interesting how that film is the rare example of Franco indulging in realism and overt dialogue about philosophy. I bring that film up to highlight that Franco's spacey minimalist indulgence in imagery was a concentrated style that he could break away from if he desired. That helps process his more extreme explorations in style. He knew exactly what he was doing.
NHATD is the most extreme work of cinematic style Franco ever gave us. It makes Diabolical Dr Z look like a Dragnet episode. Its essential in understanding Franco's aims and roots as an artist. The entire experience is not dependent on its thin plot for anything but visual tone and a physical stage for his actor subjects. Almost nothing of incident or attraction happens. I'm blanking on anything happening at all besides some love-making and a 30 second shot of Lina Romay walking slowly towards frame. How is this the most beautiful film I've seen? Because its almost pure documentary of reality except for Franco's experiment with time and editing. All actors are shown lifeless, tranced, ghostly, subjected. Are they in a dream or a ghost world? By simply erasing the action, cutting and sounds we expect, Franco uses our expectations against us and lets our imagination create its own sense of dream space. Its comparable to the effect of Charleton Heston spending reels of "The Omega Man" wandering alone through a psychological warzone to minimalist jazz. But this is way more radical. Franco doesn't give us any surreal or supernatural reason for this affected realism. Its simply his darkly romantic vision of life.
My theory is that Franco's entire aesthetic derives from Soviet montage theorists like Eisenstein and Pudovkin. Franco, perhaps more than any director ever, synthesized their unique views into a style of montage adaptable to any and all narratives. His entire career is practice in applying his profound knowledge of montage to as many films as possible but as economically as possible. NHATD is maybe the culmination of a lifetime of craft and his analysis of the very hypnotic effect of cinema itself. He is asking "What is cinema"? At the depths of finance and obscurity, he finally has the courage to make a film that is anti-commercial and only interested in exploring the power of the camera. And it is triumphant & transcendent.
No comments:
Post a Comment