a few more thoughts about andy warhol's dracula

This is a rape scene -- Morrissey obliterated the line
between sex and violence

Earlier this week a wrote a post about Andy Warhol's Dracula, the film we saw in Keith's cinema history class last Thursday.

There are a few points I should have made about the movie and its sensuality.

Part of what made the movie so entrancing and so exhausting was the way the sensuality built into the Dracula character. When he's drinking blood it's portrayed as almost a sexual act. In one scene he is on top of one of the Di Fiore daughters, his fangs in her neck, and he's thrusting his body up and down as if he were having sex with her. When he comes up for air after drinking a victim's blood, there are crimson streams pouring from his mouth, and he looks as if he had just had an orgasm. Both of these -- and other -- images that combine violence with sexuality are deeply disturbing, and were part of the reason I felt exhausted.

In one scene where Dracula, having drunk the blood of a woman who was not a virgin (she lied to him), he retches into a bathtub. And a bidet. And the floor. It's horrifying and yet so sensual. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but it's true.

And then there are the scenes, so beautifully shot and yet so vulgar -- where Dracula is sucking blood out of a loaf of bread (don't ask), and when he's on the floor, desperately trying to get to the blood spilled by the youngest di Fiore sister as she lost her virginity. He looks like a drug addict desperate for a fix. And this is a perfect example of Paul Morrissey (who disdained hippie culture) glamorizing the vulgar subculture. Of course, the duality is even stronger when one considers that the sister lost her virginity in a rape which is portrayed more as seduction, in which she says "No" repeatedly, only to slowly relax and eventually give in and relax. If you've seen Rocky Horror and recall Frank's seduction of Janet, imagine a more stylized and sensualized variation of that.

Over and over, this movie presented visual oxymorons. The boundaries between sex and violence are erased, and I found that draining. And yet, that made this stand out as one of the most interesting classes we have had.