07 February 2009

Dracula Documentary - Voyager

I know this site is in english and I should write and put documentaries in english, but Voyager is one of the best (if not the best) science TV shows in Italy. Also, some readers might know/understand italian, so today I propose this documentary:



Basically, it presents the Dracula of the literature, "born" in 1897 when Bram Stoker's novel was published. Stoker mentioned that the book's idea come after a small disturb generated by a crabs/seafruit salad. But we know that he studied books and maps in British Museum, looking for legends and traditions about the vampires. Seems like his interest in vampires started when he found out about the Wallachian ruler Vlad III (Vlad Dracula). The presentation of Vlad III (well, here I disagree with the expression Vlad Tepes III while Vlad III has been given the names Tepes and Dracula. So there was no Vlad Tepes I or Vlad Tepes II ) starts at min. 2:54, with the presentation of Sighişoara, were Vlad was born in 1931.
Life of Vlad Dracula is then placed in the historic context, all presented with maps of the XV-th century Europe. Seizing of the Wallachian throne is than presented.

Then Bran castle is presented as Dracula Castle, with mention that he used to impale people in front of the castle. In my research I never found any proof that Dracula would've spent longer time in Bran. As we know today, his princely residence was at Târgovişte and then in Bucharest, never at Bran.

1 comment:

trelk said...

You can check out a documentary that my friend and I made in Trasylvania about strigoi, the mythological creature that Bram Stoker wedded with Vlad Tepes to create Dracula at:

www.acrosstheforest.com

You can see a portion of that film here:

http://current.com/items/90029798_real-stories-of-vampires-from-transylvania.htm