promethia_tenk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
promethia_tenk) wrote2020-01-09 09:42 am
promethia_tenk) wrote2020-01-09 09:42 am
Entry tags:
promethia does tv wrong: Dracula
So, I'm on my final week of work hell *cries*, I'm running on fumes, living on hot dogs, and Doctor Who is finally back and is actually good again. And yet I am on my third viewing of Moff and Gatiss' Dracula because I need Steven Moffat's writing like I need oxygen.
Of course Tumblr hates it, lol.
Is it Moff's strongest work? Heck no. I'd call it solidly uneven. There are writers who can make truly dark content sing, but I don't think Moff is one of them (Gatiss might be; I don't know enough of his writing outside Who). I think Moff doesn't quite know how to focus properly when he doesn't have a redemptive element to build around. That said, there was something sickly satisfying about watching him roll out every one of his magical alchemy tropes and systematically destroy them because, look, sometimes caring about something hard enough just doesn't fix things.
I've actually read Dracula, like it a lot, was looking forward to a relatively faithful adaptation. I rather thought, going into this, that the novel already had a ton of elements that seemed right in Moffat's usual wheelhouse. This wasn't a faithful adaption, however, so much as our intrepid writers ransacking the book for parts and then diving cheerfully off the deep end. I was fine with this once the initial shock wore off.
What they did write, however, was basically Hannibal with Dracula trappings. From the shift in focus to a central, mutually obsessive relationship, to Dracula smugly dropping vampire puns into conversation with unsuspecting humans, to the opening credits which, frankly, are a complete rip-off/homage. Was it as good as Hannibal? Of course not, but few things are.
Claes Bang is an immensely watchable Dracula. Just endless fun. I have a huge annoyance with most modern vampire stories (the 'vegan vampires,' I call them). Reading Dracula was massively refreshing because here was a vampire of an whole different sort: entirely monstrous, deeply inhuman, and perhaps most importantly, a shadowy, unknowable figure. Most often glimpsed out of the corner of your eye rather than hogging the spotlight . . . So the show got the monstrous part right, at least. I'm not mad about it: this Dracula is stupidly entertaining and is basically Hannibal, as I said before. Still, I await the truly faithful Dracula adaptation of my dreams that omits Dracula himself as much as possible.
I'm not going to argue with anybody that episode three wasn't a hot mess: by far the worst of the three. However, this definitely goes a long, long way towards making me like it anyway (warning: actual spoilers and hard-core Moff-style metaphors). Watching episode one again with this in mind and knowledge of where it's all going is fantastic.
Everything I've just said scarcely matters, however, because omg, Sister Agatha. omgomgomogmomgomomgomgomgomg I love her so much. Nobody writes like Moffat. Nobody. Oh god, she's so great, I can't.
Anyways, Tumblr hated it. If any body knows the location of some thoughtful, substantive, mostly positive writing on the subject, please, please point me towards it.
Of course Tumblr hates it, lol.
Is it Moff's strongest work? Heck no. I'd call it solidly uneven. There are writers who can make truly dark content sing, but I don't think Moff is one of them (Gatiss might be; I don't know enough of his writing outside Who). I think Moff doesn't quite know how to focus properly when he doesn't have a redemptive element to build around. That said, there was something sickly satisfying about watching him roll out every one of his magical alchemy tropes and systematically destroy them because, look, sometimes caring about something hard enough just doesn't fix things.
I've actually read Dracula, like it a lot, was looking forward to a relatively faithful adaptation. I rather thought, going into this, that the novel already had a ton of elements that seemed right in Moffat's usual wheelhouse. This wasn't a faithful adaption, however, so much as our intrepid writers ransacking the book for parts and then diving cheerfully off the deep end. I was fine with this once the initial shock wore off.
What they did write, however, was basically Hannibal with Dracula trappings. From the shift in focus to a central, mutually obsessive relationship, to Dracula smugly dropping vampire puns into conversation with unsuspecting humans, to the opening credits which, frankly, are a complete rip-off/homage. Was it as good as Hannibal? Of course not, but few things are.
Claes Bang is an immensely watchable Dracula. Just endless fun. I have a huge annoyance with most modern vampire stories (the 'vegan vampires,' I call them). Reading Dracula was massively refreshing because here was a vampire of an whole different sort: entirely monstrous, deeply inhuman, and perhaps most importantly, a shadowy, unknowable figure. Most often glimpsed out of the corner of your eye rather than hogging the spotlight . . . So the show got the monstrous part right, at least. I'm not mad about it: this Dracula is stupidly entertaining and is basically Hannibal, as I said before. Still, I await the truly faithful Dracula adaptation of my dreams that omits Dracula himself as much as possible.
I'm not going to argue with anybody that episode three wasn't a hot mess: by far the worst of the three. However, this definitely goes a long, long way towards making me like it anyway (warning: actual spoilers and hard-core Moff-style metaphors). Watching episode one again with this in mind and knowledge of where it's all going is fantastic.
Everything I've just said scarcely matters, however, because omg, Sister Agatha. omgomgomogmomgomomgomgomgomg I love her so much. Nobody writes like Moffat. Nobody. Oh god, she's so great, I can't.
Anyways, Tumblr hated it. If any body knows the location of some thoughtful, substantive, mostly positive writing on the subject, please, please point me towards it.
no subject
There are writers who can make truly dark content sing, but I don't think Moff is one of them (Gatiss might be; I don't know enough of his writing outside Who).
Gatiss is very very good with dark, but more on the disturbing & absurd side. (You should watch some League of Gentlemen.) See The Crimson Horror, that's very him. When I re-watch I'll try to remember that he's a writer too. ;)
If you want DoWntime's take, here's the first post (there are links to the others):
https://downtime2017.wordpress.com/2020/01/02/dracula-1/
(Spoiler: He didn't like ep 3...)
no subject
All week I've been going "I need podcasts about this stuff" because no matter what else is going on in my day, no matter how crazy, I always have default podcast-listening time built in and all my brain wants to think about is Dracula right now. But it can be hard to find podcast content about limited-run shows.
But Moff and Gatiss did a whole podcast discussion on each episode:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0742833
Oh, it's Christmas!
I SHALL REPORT BACK.
no subject
no subject
I've listened to all three episodes and am probably going to do it again.
I think my number one take away is that I could not quite entirely get my head around why they thought all of Dracula's hang-ups where explained by death? Like, they tried to say, see, it all hangs together! and I just went . . . I want you to be right, but does it tho?!? So when they said that Dracula refuses to live like a scurrying rat desperately trying to survive but that is, in fact, what he is. He is lying to himself that he is not that rat, and that is why he doesn't want to face the harsh light of day, why he wants to be invited in, etc., etc. it was like ok, that actually lines up.
no subject
I lol'd at Downtime's comment about Moff continuing his obsession with violent middle-aged women. Look, I try to be open-minded, but if you're not obsessed with violent middle-aged women, what are you doing with your life?
Gatiss is very very good with dark, but more on the disturbing & absurd side. (You should watch some League of Gentlemen.) See The Crimson Horror, that's very him.
Yeah, a lot of the tone of this whole thing reminded me strongly of Crimson Horror--that campy, glib sadism. Every time I knew in my gut that things were about to go very badly with a sort of . . . definitive dismissiveness, I figured that was Gatiss's influence. It works wonderfully well.
When I re-watch I'll try to remember that he's a writer too. ;)
*burries face* I knowwwww . . . . it's so awful, but . . . who can be bothered?
If you want DoWntime's take, here's the first post (there are links to the others):
Thank you. You'd mentioned and then I never bothered to go look. I'd entirely forgotten about that website.
[Of some YouTube rant tearing apart Sherlock] There’s a completely unnecessary six-minute tangent about, of all things, fucking Jekyll.
Look, I'm not going to be watching an hour-plus YouTube rant about Sherlock, but as someone who is very explicitly trying to produce a unified theory of Moffat, if you think that Jekyll is an irrelevant tangent, ever, no wonder you are having difficulty . . .
There’s a strong and neglected argument to be made that the only seriously problematic thing Moffat has ever done is continually work with Gatiss.
*chokes on laughter* Oh the shade, the shade of it all . . .
In this case, you think that this is a playful remix of the novel, but it turns out to be an essentially original story that only uses the original novel as raw material for its own goals.
I guess they played me like a fiddle. Fair do's.
This isn’t to say that Bang isn’t conventionally handsome but, as my friend
Ooooo, this! There's something very weirdly distinctive about him that is almost entirely impossible to put your finger on, which is great.
Bad news for nun fetishists: Moffat and Gatiss don’t seem to be among your ranks. Dracula stands naked before them and flirts a bit, but for the most part, you’ll have to make do with those 1,031 videos. This is probably for the best. It would be a stupid error to hit Sister Van Helsing with the male gaze when she’s such a win for the show’s burgeoning feminist politics.
NGL, this took me by surprise and I want to pick it apart in so many ways but I have to leave soon. Mostly I'm trapped between feeling that is such a limited, male interpretation of that scene and needing to point out that Moff and Gatiss are men and yet they managed to write it! Also the #1 thing I have to note about his post about the third ep is that he says literally nothing about anything except Lucy. Which is fair in that Lucy is the #1 problem with that episode but is also entirely failing to take into account over half of what the episode actually was. And I kind of feel like . . . the two are linked? Lucy's storyline is entirely explicitly about The Gaze and Laherty gloms onto that and gets totally lost in it? Whereas I'd argue that everything about Agatha/Zoe's casting/presentation/writing is wholly resistant to The Gaze, and that is very much the point and I feel like Laherty is missing the point because he can't see around The Gaze, somehow? Not that I'm sure I can articulate the point myself at the moment, but it's like it's not even a deconstruction of the male gaze, but a complete elision of it.
no subject
[insert face like 'O' going 'Hm' when the Doctor asks why he'd say he's not good at running... a sort of puzzling things out face]
Dracula - does NOT employ The Gaze. At all. He might appreciate the finer things in life, but he's emphatically not concerned with looks, just substance. See how he wants Jonathan to stay with him, how he tells Lucy that he couldn't care less what she looks like (and he means it, both times, looks are of zero importance).
Damn. This is very interesting.
no subject
He does say he's obsessed with youth and beauty, so you'd need to figure out how to square that, but I really liked the bit on the podcast where Moff and Gatiss talk about how he uses sex because it's the thing that makes people the most crazy. He uses sex because it makes him an effective predator, but that doesn't mean that that's what he himself is interested in.
Which is just a very interesting dynamic.