Georg Hegel, a great German thinker whose writing would influence other philosophers such as Marx and Nietzsche, contended that history was simply a result of conflict which arose from the dialectic of the predominant ideology of the age and its respective antithesis.This juxtaposition would inevitably result in a synthesized thesis, which was a compromise of sorts between the two schools of thought.Once this synthesis occurred, another opposing antithesis would arise in turn resulting in a subsequent synthesis. Though Hegel only intended this dialectic to apply towards the progress of human thought, it can also be applied to the evolution of the vampire mythology. The dominant thesis regarding the vampire narrative in the early parts of the twentieth century was fashioned by films such as “Dracula” and “Nosferatu”. However, over the last twenty years a challenging synthesis has arisen. With films ranging from Kathryn Bigelow’s “Near Dark” to Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s “From Dusk Til Dawn”, the latter quarter century of the 1900′s bore witness to a radical new take on the once rigid mythos. ’Let the Right One In’, the 2008 Swedish film by Tomas Alfredson, presents a fresh critique of the traditional vampire mythology by modifying the iconic atmospheric elements of the vampire film, placing adolescents into a narrative generally reserved for mature protagonists, and creating an additional motive, love, into the already vibrant character dynamic.
Read More
