WESTFIELD-A special treat during the Halloween season will be a presentation on Dracula by writer Barry Deitz at the Westfield
Barry Deitz will discuss Dracula at the Westfield Athenaeum.
Athenaeum.
“I have been fascinated with Dracula and vampire fiction all of my life,” said Deitz, a “transplanted southerner” who now resides in Bernardston. “Many, like me, have grown up with the Dark Count.”
His Athenaeum presentation titled “Children of the Night: A History of Dracula in Literature and On Screen” is planned Oct. 29 at noon in the Lang Auditorium.
Deitz said he remembers watching Christopher Lee’s 1968 movie “Dracula Has Risen From the Grave” one Halloween night in his hometown’s community center on a giant wall behind the gym.
“The story of Bram Stoker pouring over old books in the British Library and stumbling across the story of Vlad Dracul and Romanian history is fascinating,” said Deitz. “How did a mostly hack writer produce one of the greatest and most enduring characters in popular fiction?”
Deitz noted that Dracula looks at all of the big questions – life, death, the price of immortality.
Barry Deitz will discuss Bram Stoker’s Dracula as part of a program at the Westfield Athenaeum.
“The vampire will not go away,” said Deitz. “Books, movies, comic books, computer games, we seem as captivated by the figure of the vampire as were the 19th century readers who first read “Dracula” back in 1897.”
Deitz expects his lecture to run about an hour, punctuated with 50 images that will chart the history of the book and will also be an introduction to the 1930 black and white film directed by Tod Browning. The film runs approximately 70 minutes.
“I have some pretty creepy images to show,” said Deitz. “The art of Dracula and vampires is itself an interesting topic.”
Deitz notes that his program is aimed at adults since it will focus on literary history and contain images of vampires and movie stills. Deitz will also look at some of the actors who have played Dracula over the past 80 years.
“Adults will love the program, I think, because the Dracula story has been told so many times in books and movies,” said Deitz. “Teens will be very interested I think, younger kids probably less so. Younger kids will get quite restless I suspect.”
The original movie poster for “Dracula.”
Deitz, who has degrees in literature and has hosted a film review television show in North Carolina called “Meet Me at the Movies,” has done literary programs across Western Massachusetts, ranging from the poets of World War I to the traditions of the ghost story in New England.
For more information on the program, visit www.westath.org or call (413) 568-7833.
