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Bram Stoker - Dracula Book Club
Mar. 15th, 2025 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bleodsweanBook discussion here. Starting with Jonathan Harker's Journal
The Source Material, eh?
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dracula, by Bram Stoker.
Mar. 15th, 2025
bleodsweanBook discussion here. Starting with Jonathan Harker's Journal
The Source Material, eh?
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dracula, by Bram Stoker.
Schalcken the Painter
Mar. 15th, 2025 06:21 pmearthspiritsSchalcken the Painter is a brilliant 1979 BBC film adaption of Joseph Sheridan le Fanu's gothic tale "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" (1839) - Inspired by the haunting artwork of real life 17th Century Dutch artist, Godfried Schalcken.
As an artist, I'm always fascinated by films about art and artists, and I love ghost stories and artistic horror. Thus I was delighted this evening to finally be able to see this lost masterpiece in its entirety. It stars Jeremy Clyde as Schalcken (who does bear a remarkable resemblance to the artist), Maurice Denhem as Gerrit Dou (A Dutch artist who was the real Schalcken's mentor), and Cheryl Kennedy as Dou's beautiful niece, Rose.
The film is an evocative tie-in to Dracula / Nosferatu lore, as well as to the entwined motifs of Demon Lover and Death and the Maiden. Other motifs in the film are women being treated as "property" by men, and how greed and the lust for wealth and fame can corrupt an artist's soul, even to the point of betraying those they profess to love.
There is another vampiric connection. Not only was Sheridan le Fanu the author of "Camilla", the 1872 novella about a seductive female vampire, he was also mentor and employer of fellow Irishman, Bram Stoker (who worked for Sheridan le Fanu's newspaper, The Dublin Evening Mail).
While Schalcken the Painter is a short film (only 70 minutes), it's lush and beautifully acted by all, with incredible attention to detail (the 17th Century Dutch costumes and sets are gorgeous), and it's all wonderfully atmospheric, with its realistic dark candle-lit interiors. There's also lavish use of the real Schalcken's artwork throughout.
Rating / Warnings:
Please note that the film is for mature audiences only, as it does depict nudity and sexual situations.
Also, a warning to fellow animal lovers: There's a couple of brief scenes where the young male art students are drawing a still-life of flowers and dead animals (I'm assuming they're not real, and are hopefully just props?). There's also a scene where the students are awkwardly attempting to "play" with a live cat (who in my opinion, doesn't look too happy with the situation). Thankfully, the cat wasn't harmed, but I found the scene rather disturbing, and didn't like the so-called "playfulness" of the students. Perhaps that scene was supposed to be symbolic of the way the men in the story treat the various female characters.
Link to the full film on Youtube: m.youtube.com/watch
As an artist, I'm always fascinated by films about art and artists, and I love ghost stories and artistic horror. Thus I was delighted this evening to finally be able to see this lost masterpiece in its entirety. It stars Jeremy Clyde as Schalcken (who does bear a remarkable resemblance to the artist), Maurice Denhem as Gerrit Dou (A Dutch artist who was the real Schalcken's mentor), and Cheryl Kennedy as Dou's beautiful niece, Rose.
The film is an evocative tie-in to Dracula / Nosferatu lore, as well as to the entwined motifs of Demon Lover and Death and the Maiden. Other motifs in the film are women being treated as "property" by men, and how greed and the lust for wealth and fame can corrupt an artist's soul, even to the point of betraying those they profess to love.
There is another vampiric connection. Not only was Sheridan le Fanu the author of "Camilla", the 1872 novella about a seductive female vampire, he was also mentor and employer of fellow Irishman, Bram Stoker (who worked for Sheridan le Fanu's newspaper, The Dublin Evening Mail).
While Schalcken the Painter is a short film (only 70 minutes), it's lush and beautifully acted by all, with incredible attention to detail (the 17th Century Dutch costumes and sets are gorgeous), and it's all wonderfully atmospheric, with its realistic dark candle-lit interiors. There's also lavish use of the real Schalcken's artwork throughout.
Rating / Warnings:
Please note that the film is for mature audiences only, as it does depict nudity and sexual situations.
Also, a warning to fellow animal lovers: There's a couple of brief scenes where the young male art students are drawing a still-life of flowers and dead animals (I'm assuming they're not real, and are hopefully just props?). There's also a scene where the students are awkwardly attempting to "play" with a live cat (who in my opinion, doesn't look too happy with the situation). Thankfully, the cat wasn't harmed, but I found the scene rather disturbing, and didn't like the so-called "playfulness" of the students. Perhaps that scene was supposed to be symbolic of the way the men in the story treat the various female characters.
Link to the full film on Youtube: m.youtube.com/watch