Twilight - Nice film, shame it's not the dawn of cinema

by Rachael Anne Edwards

"When you can live forever, what do you live for?" With fans going to see Twilight in droves, non-fans wondering what all the fuss is about, and the media delighted to spend column inches worrying about the perceived abstinence-pushing in the book, our intrepid reporter watches 'Twilight' on the big screen. Yes, but is it art?

Most of us have heard of Twilight, the book-turned-film that everyone is touting as the next Harry Potter. We might have heard of it through children who have read the book and 'fallen in love with it', or through elder teenagers seething because it puts the vampire genre to shame. We all know what it's about; vampires. Plain and simple, right? Wrong. The story is more a romance than a nod to the vampire genre, and with the recent adaption of the film in cinemas in the United Kingdom on December the 19th, people just can't stop talking about it - mostly because the media are wailing and gnashing their teeth about the perceived pro-abstinence approach to teenage sexuality in Twilight.

Vampire films have been a part of our culture since before the talkies (the first vampire movie ever was the 1922 silent classic by Murnau, 'Nosferatu'). Vampire literature has been around longer than that. The first vampire appeared in eighteenth century poetry, and the first vampire publication was Polidori's The Vampyre (1819), which was inspired by the life and legend of Lord Byron. Vampires may be able to live for hundreds of years but their fiction has been around for equally long and as a result we all know the basics: They can't go out into the sunlight, garlic is their enemy, a stake through the heart sorts them out...

Because we're so familiar with the vampire ethos, the fictional works of the last few decades have really played about with the elements of the genre to explore the concept of the vampire and bring something fresh, steaming and dripping with blood to the table. Modern vampires have been updated, for example, in Ultraviolet , a superb British TV series and not the thing with Milla Jovovich in it. The Twilight trilogy by Stephanie Meyers also bends the vampire rules. Meyer's vampires don't fear sunlight - they blatantly walk around in it, so hiding in bright sunlight from them isn't an option this time, girlies. Vampires in sunlight - doesn't that just ruin the entire vampire image? Then again, doesn't that just make it more terrifying?

The movie stars Kristen Stewart as the lovesick Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson as the drop-dead (look! A pun!) gorgeous vampire that falls in love with her, Edward Cullen. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, Twilight brings the creatures of the dark into a whole new light. Like most vampire males, Edward hits the screen with a brooding sexiness that makes most girls swoon, and those eyes that are very good at staring into your soul.

Pattinson's portrayal of Edward Cullen is awkwardly and humourlessly perfect, whereas Stewart, whose monologue runs through most of the movie, captures Bella's unsociable nature and manages to make it work on screen, breathing some life into what otherwise could be classed as a very boring character.

It isn't just Stewart and Pattinson that make the movie, of course - there's the sexy evil vampire, James, and the rest of the Cullen family, all cast well from the point of view of a fan of the original books.

'Twilight' does leave out a few scenes from the books but it keeps most of the important ones, and fans should be delighted to see their literary imaginings realised on the big screen. As an example of the vampire genre, 'Twilight' isn't an earth-shaker. As a love story, however, it'll pull at the heart strings of any truly romantic teenager. Non-fans are unlikely to see what the fuss is all about, but fans will be delighted to sink their teeth right into it.

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