このレッスンの実行方法

レッスン12は8本のビデオレクチャー（レクチャーのテキストがビデオレクチャーの下に記載されています）と6本の動画で構成されています。
このレッスンは、ページをスクロールダウンしながら最初から順番に動画を見たりテキストを読んでください。

Part One – Horror films are often concerned with broken taboos. For your homework, you read about how the Dracula story concerns the breaking of two major taboos; the universal taboo against leaving the dead uncared for and the almost universal taboo against cannibalism. In Eastern Europe, where both the real Dracula and the fictional story comes from,  the usual explanation for why a dead person would become nosferatu (an un-dead body) was that they had not been properly buried. It is to this universal taboo that we now turn our attention by looking at a film Bela Lugosi starred in only one year after his huge success as Dracula. The film is White Zombie, the world’s first zombie film. Critics were surprised to find Lugosi in the film because he had been so successful in Dracula. They expected him to continue to appear in Universal films. White Zombie was an independent production, meaning that the producer was not working for any of the large studios and had to put funding together ‘Independently”. 

We have already said that Dracula was made on a very low budget of only $355,000. This was less than a quarter of the budget Universal gave to The Phantom of The Opera. However, Dracula’s budget seems large compared to the $50,000 budget for White Zombie! How was it possible to make a film so cheaply? Well, for one thing buying the rights to the story was very cheap compared to buying the rights to Dracula. Then there was the fact that White Zombie-like Dracula had a very small cast of main characters, (although there are far more extras than in Dracula). By far the highest-paid actor in the film was Lugosi who was paid $5000 for his role as the evil witch doctor “Murder” Legendre. This was actually more than he had been paid for Dracula in which his total salary was only $3,500. But once he had played Dracula, Lugosi should have been able to get far more than $5,000 for a leading role. This would be a problem for Lugosi for the rest of his career in film. He consistently made bad business decisions  He also turned down roles which he should have taken, while taking roles which he should not have taken. It is hard to say which the “Murder Legendre” character is. On the one hand, he was poorly paid for the role, but on the other, he played the character brilliantly. Lugosi often said that the key to his uncanny performance in Dracula was how he used his eyes and to a lesser extent his hands. Let us see if this is true as we watch the opening scene of White Zombie.

Part Two – It really is a very strong opening. Lugosi, who never speaks a word, is genuinely disturbing and the driver’s terror when he sees the zombies descending from the hill reminds us of the terror of the coach driver In Dracula who left poor Mr. Renfield at the Borgo pass at midnight. It is also in this opening scene that we learn about and see the extraordinary custom of burying bodies in the middle of the road “Where people pass all the time”. This is to prevent the bodies from being stolen and turned into zombies according to the beliefs of the local people.

So, immediately we wonder if a zombie is the same thing as a nosferatu. Are zombies the dead who walk? Shall we take a closer look at them? In this scene, the plantation owner, Beaumont, who has fallen in love with Madeline and wants her for himself goes to see the Witch Doctor, Murder Legende, to seek his help.

Part Three – These zombies are nothing like the zombies we are used to seeing in movies and television of the last fifty years. These zombies are working together in the sugar mill. They are not mindlessly staggering around trying to eat the living. In fact, it was only in the last fifty years that the taboos about the walking dead, zombies, and cannibalism were combined. These zombies appear to be “mindless”, but they are not cannibalistic at all and they obey Legende’s orders. In fact, as the witch doctor says, they are quite useful workers (even if one of them has fallen into the sugar cane grinder). The story of zombies is a bit like the story of Dracula. Dracula, you remember, was a real person in history. It was Bram Stoker who changed him into a vampire in his novel. The same thing happened with Zombies. Zombies were real. They were not dead people at all, but people who had been drugged into deep comas and appeared to be dead. Their families would bury them properly, but the person who drugged them would then dig up their bodies and wake them up in order to use them as slaves. He would show them their own graves and make them believe they were really dead. He would continue to drug them and through a combination of the drugs, hypnosis and the victim’s own superstitious beliefs would be able to control them.

Part Four
If anything, Lugosi’s performance as Murder Legende is even stronger than his performance as Dracula (and that is saying quite a bit). But Lugosi has help in this film that he never had in Dracula. Despite the incredibly low budget, White Zombie manages to have far more interesting sets than Dracula. Beaumont’s mansion looks far more like a mansion than Dracula’s castle looked like a castle. And the sugar cane mill is a masterpiece of atmosphere. But there is something else that elevates White Zombie above Dracula. Victor Halperin does a far better job as a director than Tod Browning did. Carl Laemmle Jr. had originally wanted Paul Leni to direct Dracula because of the German director’s expressionist style. Browning brought very little of that to Dracula. But in the scene of Neal getting drunk after he thinks Madeline has died, Halperin uses shadows in a way we would expect from Leni or F.W. Murnau.

Part Five
Halperin follows the scene of Neal getting drunk with one in which Legende and Beaumont with the help of Legende’s zombies steal Madeline’s body. During this scene, Legendre also reveals that the Zombies were all actually his enemies in life, and if their souls were to become free they would “tear me to pieces”. This should be the set up for an ending in which they do just that, but we are still only halfway through the film. By the way, that was another way the film saved money, by being short. The whole film is only sixty-seven minutes long which is seven minutes shorter than Dracula in the version I use in this class.

White Zombie and Dracula have very similar plots in that one point of conflict in the films is between the monster and the young married (or soon to be married) couple. The threat “abnormal” monsters pose to the “normal” institution of heterosexual marriage is a theme throughout the history of horror films, but White Zombie also explores the theme of unrequited love which we saw in both The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of The Opera. Beaumont’s kidnapping of Madeline closely resembles Erich’s kidnapping of Christine. Both Beaumont and Erich insist the kidnapped woman renounce her true love. But Beaumont has no more success at this than Erich did. You can make someone your slave and force them to work for you or do other things for you, but the one thing you can never make another human being do against their will is love you. Love is freely given or it is not love. Beaumont at least sees the terrible mistake he has made and tells Legende to restore Madleine’s free will. But, as you will see in the next excerpt, Legende has other plans for Madeline which do not include Beaumont.

Part Six
Apparently, Legende plans to make Madeline his own and also plans to eliminate Beaumont entirely by turning him into one of his zombies. It may also be that Legende has his eye on Beaumont’s very considerable wealth.

Later, when Madeline’s husband, Neal, and Dr. Bruner the missionary comes to the house on the cliff to try to rescue Madeline, Legendre tries to force Madeline to kill Neal. We shall see how all of this plays out at last in the final excerpt.

Part Seven – So, in the end, Legende, Beaumont, and all the zombies fall off the cliff. Good and Love triumph over Evil and greed, just as Hollywood requires. However, the ending of White Zombie is far less satisfying than the rest of the film. It almost seems as if the director were suddenly in a great rush to get to the end and this is a shame because a good ending for a film is as important as a good dessert is for a fine dinner. A bad ending leaves you with a bad feeling about the whole film.

Generally, in film criticism, the rules are that we criticize the film that was made, not the film we wish had been made. But, we are actually a language class and I think it would be good fun for all of you take another look at excerpt #6 and try to imagine how you would end the film if you were making it. Before you go on to part eight, make some notes which you can compare with my own ideas about how the film might have ended.

Part Eight – In the actual film, it is Dr. Bruner who stops Madeline from killing her helpless husband. If I were the filmmaker I would change that. I would have Madeline struggle against Legend’s will and win. This would demonstrate that her love is stronger than his magic. Legendre would be incapable of forcing her to kill her husband any more than he could force her to love him.

I would also change the way in which Legende dies. When Dr. Bruner intervenes to save Neal from the zombies he knocks Legendre out with a cudgel. In the film, we see the zombies simply walk off the cliff. If I were making the film I would have used what Legende himself said earlier in the film: that if the zombie’s ever regained their souls (i.e., if he lost his control over them) they would tear him to pieces. I would have had the zombies attack Legende and go over the cliff with him. In my opinion, that would have been a far more ironic end to Legende. I admit that Beaumont suddenly appearing and pushing Legendre off the cuff is somewhat ironic and satisfying, but I think my proposed ending would have been neater and more fun. Do you like my ending?