Death and the Photographer

An Every Day Kind of Tragedy

Death. Of course, I want to talk about death. When people pass on, there inevitably is someone who considers their passing tragic-- whether it is because the decedent was too young, because so many people depended on that person and are now defenseless, or if the tragedy is that they died alone and were utterly unmourned. We all die just as surely as we are born... but death doesn't lose its sting despite being so commonplace.

So You're Going to Show Me Death Art

Yep. Enter Sarah Sudhoff's project "At the Hour of Our Death." The photographer snapped pictures of textiles that had been stained by someone's passing. Her thoughts on this work are moving and too eloquent not to quote: "Death, like birth, is part of a process. However, the processes of death are often shielded from view. Today in Western society most families leave to a complete stranger the responsibility of preparing a loved one’s body for its final resting place [...] Now the stain of death is quickly removed and the scene is cleaned and normalized [...] The images are my attempt to slow the moments before and after death into a single frame, to allow what is generally invisible to become visible, and to engage with a process from which we have become disconnected."

I'm not ignorant of the fact that we live in a culture that is uncomfortable talking about dying. Artwork that is "too real" in that regard can be jarring. That said, I think the reasoning behind this project is incredibly justified and beautiful. The work is presented tastefully and without a touch of exploitation. She is doing something that is motivated on a deep personal level and we as an audience benefit from taking a moment to pause-- to slow down time and interact with societal "dark matter." I would argue that "media-fication" of death is needed-- at least a little.

I should add Sudhoff's project is gorgeous and fits that bill. This is far from something like Logan Paul's infamous stroll through Aokigahara-- which would be the photo negative of her artwork (his video was tasteless, had no higher purpose beyond his own personal gain, etc). She approaches the topic with respect, sensitivity, and vision.

At the Hour of Our Death from Walley Films on Vimeo.

What Would a Manifesto Look Like for a Person Who Was Super Into This as a Kind of Artistic Ideal?

I'm going to rant like Marinetti because I can...

As a theatre artist I am stunned-- STUNNED! I am utterly aghast with how much of your "dark matter" there is to everything that might make us uncomfortable. The occultation and sanitization of death, decay, and (let's be honest) most things unpleasant is a crime! We rob ourselves of a truer understanding of our world, of nature, OF LIFE! Life is dirty. Life is that torn up bit of upholstery with the blood of a seizure victim permeating through the strands of thread. The fluids look like dendrites and LIKE DENDRITES they shoot information to our brains faster than the blink of an eye. That is power. It is amazing how much life there is in death!

Friends, do not mistake me. I do not mean to suggest that onstage death should be made to shock and frighten. Something exploitative and vulgar like a man being fed is own viscera until he dies is best left to lesser artists who are only interested in notoriety and a paycheck. Instead, we should look death in the face in a way that is candid-- and therefore beautiful. Not just death! Anything unpleasant! Any uncomfortable part of life should be viewed in stunning REALISTIC detail. We cannot continue to keep ourselves numb! It cannot be afforded!

Let us DARE to be ugly! Let us DARE to look at something that shakes us to the core! Art should be DARING! Art should make us feel ALIVE-- even as we stare Death in his eye sockets.

Fangs for the Memories

Right. So. Dracula.

Now, I could go on about the book and its gazillion incarnations for days (and I probably will corner you and force that conversation at some point because I'm bored), but today we are focusing on the Universal film Dracula and 1922's Nosferatu. Even if you have never seen the 1931 Dracula, you probably will recognize images from the film. On a cultural level, the "classic" Dracula people think of is Bela Lugosi.

That ain't Count Count creeping in the shadows.

A Copy That Is Better Than the Original

Enter Drácula (or, as it is sometimes known, "Spanish Dracula"). See, back in 1931 the technology hadn't been perfected yet when it came to dubbing movies but Universal wanted to distribute in Latin America. The simplest way to resolve the issue was to have an entirely different production performed in Spanish but with the same sets, scripts, etc. In this particular instance, the English team shot during the day and the Spanish team kept literal vampire hours. They would watch the dailies and find ways to improve upon what had been done in the earlier shoot. It is an interesting watch and a darling of many critics. Some go so far as to say that it is superior to the original. Here's a little more detailed info plus an interview with one of the stars, Lupita Tovar.

Pardon how 90's fabulous this is.

Surely Someone Else Copied the 1931 Dracula

Oddly enough, another production that paid extraordinary attention to the Lugosi Dracula was Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It. It certainly pales in comparison to Young Frankenstein and is not favored among critics; however, there are many intricate details from the "original" film present. So I guess this is a not-as-good-as-the-original copy. I'll let Cinemassacre take you through the deets.

Not entirely without merit.

WAIT! EMILY! It Also Had Nods to Nosferatu!

When you're right, you're right. Lets take a ride on the the copy of a copy train. A decade before the Universal film premiered, the narrative of Dracula appeared in the silent film Nosferatu.

So, Nosferatu is... not Dracula right? He's called Count Orlock instead... and the whole thing takes place in Bremen instead of Whitby... so maybe it's a different story. The Stoker estate called shenanigans. The first legal action they took was Stoker's widow refusal to grant the approval for the film to be made. In the second legal action Prana Films was sued for copyright infringement and all copies were destroyed. Save just one. That one is why we can see the film today and now shot of the shadow creeping up the wall appears everywhere!

Then this unofficial copy of Dracula inspired a film by the same name under the direction of Werner Herzog in 1979 (4/4 by Ebert). The Herzog Nosferatu is not a remake by any stretch of the imagination but in the world of simulation as we've discussed it in class, the through-line is unmistakable.

BUT THEN!

For even more copies which get us farther away from Bram Stoker's Dracula, the 1922 Nosferatu was given the Noises Off treatment in Shadow of the Vampire. It's a film about the making of Murnau's film... with the added complication that the actor portraying Count Orlcok actually is a vampire!

By the time we get to the Nosferatu-style character in What We Do in the Shadows, we are so far from the original Dracula to the point that it is, as Andrea so aptly put the concept, "a version almost unrecognizable from its “authentic” origins."

Obviously, I've watched all of these with gusto.

Today I Learned...

We all just aren't going eat Stu!