Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1993) dir. Francis Ford Coppola / Peter Paul Rubens, The Entombment(c. 1612, detail) / Francesco Vanni, Saint Catherine Drinks From the Side of Christ (c. 1594, detail)
In the gothic imagination, the unconscious has erupted and has seeped out into “the world.” As if our most disturbing, unacknowledged dreams had broken their restraints, claiming autonomy. The profane and the sacred become indistinguishable: Dracula, immortal so long as he is infused with the blood of living creatures, becomes for certain of his victims a perversely life-bearing force, ironically not unlike the Christian savior. For those whom he blesses, he can transform into vampires like himself. […] What are we to make of these charismatic fantasy figures, vampire and savior? Vampire-as-savior?
Doktor Johannes Faust’s Magia Naturalis et Innaturalis, oder Dreifacher Höllenzwang, leiztes Testament und Siegelkuns [Bibliothek der Zanber-Geheimnisse-und Offenbarungs-Bucher], Prague, ca. 1587.
“People got such a charge from seeing their names in print. Proof of existence. I could picture a squabble of ghosts ripping through piles of newspapers. Pointing at a name on a page. See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was”
