SusannahBRAM STOKER'S DRACULA
September 28th 2011 08:45
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Starring: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves, Sadie Frost, Tom Waits.
Directed By: Francis Ford Coppolla
Bram Stoker's Dracula, one of the most authentic adaptations of Stoker's novel, bar a few alterations, is a melodramatic fever-dream of sumptuous gothic visuals, and a love that never dies that Andrew Lloyd-Webber can only dream about.
Following faithfully the characters and events of Bram Stoker's novel, the film's major addition is that Mina (Ryder) is the reincarnation of Dracula's dead wife, Elisabeta, which explains the fascination Dracula has with Mina in the original novel. In a prologue to the events of the novel and film, Dracula is shown as being driven to become a vampire by Elisabeta's tragic suicide. When she is tricked by the Turks into thinking her husband has died in battle, she is unable to live without him, and so commits suicide by throwing herself off a cliff. Told by the church priest (Hopkins) that his wife is damned because suicide is a sin against God, Dracula vows to renounce God for taking his wife from him, especially as he went to war in God's service. When Dracula stabs the church cross it gushes blood, which he drinks, and his eternal life as master of the undead begins.
From the beginning the film is shot in a hyper-visual, gothic-teeming style, both evocative of earlier horror adaptations, such as Hammer, but thoroughly modern at the same time. Watching this nearly 20 years on it does not look dated. The stylised sets (Dracula's castle that defies physics where it is perched on a cliff top), sumptuous costumes and incredible transition shots (vampire bites becoming wolves' eyes, a peacock tail becoming a train tunnel) all contribute to the larger than life hyper realism that nudges melodrama, but never crosses over into camp. All effects (bar the blue flame) were also achieved in-camera, something unheard of now with the ease of CGI.
After the prologue the film follows the events of the novel, which are well known to any Dracula fan. Jonathan (Reeves), who is courting Mina, must travel to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula. In his absence Mina stays with her friend Lucy (a red-haired Sadie Frost), who is being wooed by three suitors. One of whom, Dr. Seward, is the doctor at an asylum where Renfield (Tom Waits) is interred. Here there is another deviation from the novel: Renfield's connection to Dracula is explained by his having worked at the same law firm as Jonathan, and been sent to Transylvania before him to conduct business with Dracula, but been driven mad while under Dracula's power. This is not from the novel, but rather a narrative device taken from that great and classic copyright infringing adaptation of Dracula, Nosferatu. But it makes sense as an explanation of how Renfield, a man in England, has come under Dracula's sway.
The sequence with Jonathan in Dracula's castle is horrifying in the true sense. From the creepy carriage ride where he is literally picked up by an unnaturally extended arm (an unaccredited Dracula!) and loaded onto the carriage at the Borgo Pass, and then driven past blue flames, only arrive at the gothic gates to be greeted by Gary Oldman's Dracula; an old man with Kabuki style twin grey beehives, and flowing red robes, who speaks with a thick Transylvanian accent, and whose shadow moves independently of his body. Despite the legacy cast by Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Max Schreck, this is another iconic portrayal of Dracula that Oldman has managed to craft. His loneliness and longing for his dead wife permeates the character and adds a humanity and pathos that perhaps Stoker did not intend, but which gives the film a human heart, and explains, to an extent, how the brilliant man (Prince Vlad) became a malevolent monster. Mina, after meeting Dracula, never refers to him by that name, but only as "prince." So, despite his horrific acts (feeding a baby to his wives, the fate of Lucy) the audience feels his tragedy while knowing that he cannot be allowed to continue his reign of horror.
Chief in the bringing about of Dracula’s destruction is Van Helsing (Hopkins), who, having made the pursuit and destruction of Dracula his life-long obsession, is able to rally Lucy's three suitors, as well as a white-haired Jonathan (finally having escaped the clutches of Castle Dracula), to team up to bring about Dracula's destruction. But this is not a kindly old man. Hopkins' Van Helsing is borderline insane: a lecherous, garrulous, gleeful pursuer of the ultimate evil being, who is also an admirer of Dracula the man when he was alive. As Hopkins says in the DVD Special Features, Van Helsing is as evil as Dracula. Having convinced Lucy's three suitors to assist in her bloody despatch, his insensitivity is displayed when Mina asks him over dinner if Lucy was in great pain before she died. He says that she was in very great pain, and proceeds to describe the gruesome manner of her execution to Mina, before tucking into his dinner. Later, he beheads all three of Dracula's vampire brides with relish, resulting in a promotional image of him holding the three heads by the hair, together in one hand, that was widely used with the film's release.
Winona as Mina fares well. She looks luminous in the period costumes, all cool blues and greens, changing to a wardrobe of red and black as she falls further under Dracula's power. Sadie Frost makes a sweet, flirtatious Lucy, who transitions into a carnal, sexually charged woman as she slowly, and painfully, transforms into a vampire. Her wardrobe mirrors the transformation, changing from virginal white, to carnal red, to finally wearing her white wedding dress as her garments of the grave, making her appear as a ghostly, undead vision, against which the blood of her feeding stands out all the more starkly.
As well as being horrific, this film is erotically charged, directly equating the act of blood drinking with sex. This is depicted numerous times: Jonathan being beset by the vampire brides; Lucy's seduction by Dracula in wolf form, (his taking wolf and bat form emphasising his bestial side) and the converting of Mina to vampirism, where she drinks from a self-inflicted wound on Dracula's chest. Like the novel, the act of drinking blood restores Dracula's vitality, and he de-ages once he has fed vigorously on the voyage over from Transylvania, and arrives a young man, ready to woo Mina in London. She is drawn to him (rather than repulsed as in the novel) for reasons that she cannot explain; from a love she feels for him remembered from her time when she was Elisabeta. To her he is all charm and kindness, the closest he gets to being still human; to everyone else he is bestial and monstrous, a thing that must be stopped.
Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a horror cinema classic that satisfies both fans of the novel, and Dracula films, but also fans of vampire films in general. It deserves to be rediscovered in the light of the new vampire craze sweeping film and television, brought on by Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries. But it surpasses those vampire entries, maintaining its place as a benchmark for modern vampire cinema.
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Starring: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves, Sadie Frost, Tom Waits.
Directed By: Francis Ford Coppolla
Bram Stoker's Dracula, one of the most authentic adaptations of Stoker's novel, bar a few alterations, is a melodramatic fever-dream of sumptuous gothic visuals, and a love that never dies that Andrew Lloyd-Webber can only dream about.
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Following faithfully the characters and events of Bram Stoker's novel, the film's major addition is that Mina (Ryder) is the reincarnation of Dracula's dead wife, Elisabeta, which explains the fascination Dracula has with Mina in the original novel. In a prologue to the events of the novel and film, Dracula is shown as being driven to become a vampire by Elisabeta's tragic suicide. When she is tricked by the Turks into thinking her husband has died in battle, she is unable to live without him, and so commits suicide by throwing herself off a cliff. Told by the church priest (Hopkins) that his wife is damned because suicide is a sin against God, Dracula vows to renounce God for taking his wife from him, especially as he went to war in God's service. When Dracula stabs the church cross it gushes blood, which he drinks, and his eternal life as master of the undead begins.
Winona Ryder
From the beginning the film is shot in a hyper-visual, gothic-teeming style, both evocative of earlier horror adaptations, such as Hammer, but thoroughly modern at the same time. Watching this nearly 20 years on it does not look dated. The stylised sets (Dracula's castle that defies physics where it is perched on a cliff top), sumptuous costumes and incredible transition shots (vampire bites becoming wolves' eyes, a peacock tail becoming a train tunnel) all contribute to the larger than life hyper realism that nudges melodrama, but never crosses over into camp. All effects (bar the blue flame) were also achieved in-camera, something unheard of now with the ease of CGI.
Gary Oldman as Dracula
After the prologue the film follows the events of the novel, which are well known to any Dracula fan. Jonathan (Reeves), who is courting Mina, must travel to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula. In his absence Mina stays with her friend Lucy (a red-haired Sadie Frost), who is being wooed by three suitors. One of whom, Dr. Seward, is the doctor at an asylum where Renfield (Tom Waits) is interred. Here there is another deviation from the novel: Renfield's connection to Dracula is explained by his having worked at the same law firm as Jonathan, and been sent to Transylvania before him to conduct business with Dracula, but been driven mad while under Dracula's power. This is not from the novel, but rather a narrative device taken from that great and classic copyright infringing adaptation of Dracula, Nosferatu. But it makes sense as an explanation of how Renfield, a man in England, has come under Dracula's sway.
Lucy and Mina
The sequence with Jonathan in Dracula's castle is horrifying in the true sense. From the creepy carriage ride where he is literally picked up by an unnaturally extended arm (an unaccredited Dracula!) and loaded onto the carriage at the Borgo Pass, and then driven past blue flames, only arrive at the gothic gates to be greeted by Gary Oldman's Dracula; an old man with Kabuki style twin grey beehives, and flowing red robes, who speaks with a thick Transylvanian accent, and whose shadow moves independently of his body. Despite the legacy cast by Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Max Schreck, this is another iconic portrayal of Dracula that Oldman has managed to craft. His loneliness and longing for his dead wife permeates the character and adds a humanity and pathos that perhaps Stoker did not intend, but which gives the film a human heart, and explains, to an extent, how the brilliant man (Prince Vlad) became a malevolent monster. Mina, after meeting Dracula, never refers to him by that name, but only as "prince." So, despite his horrific acts (feeding a baby to his wives, the fate of Lucy) the audience feels his tragedy while knowing that he cannot be allowed to continue his reign of horror.
Dracula and Jonathan
Chief in the bringing about of Dracula’s destruction is Van Helsing (Hopkins), who, having made the pursuit and destruction of Dracula his life-long obsession, is able to rally Lucy's three suitors, as well as a white-haired Jonathan (finally having escaped the clutches of Castle Dracula), to team up to bring about Dracula's destruction. But this is not a kindly old man. Hopkins' Van Helsing is borderline insane: a lecherous, garrulous, gleeful pursuer of the ultimate evil being, who is also an admirer of Dracula the man when he was alive. As Hopkins says in the DVD Special Features, Van Helsing is as evil as Dracula. Having convinced Lucy's three suitors to assist in her bloody despatch, his insensitivity is displayed when Mina asks him over dinner if Lucy was in great pain before she died. He says that she was in very great pain, and proceeds to describe the gruesome manner of her execution to Mina, before tucking into his dinner. Later, he beheads all three of Dracula's vampire brides with relish, resulting in a promotional image of him holding the three heads by the hair, together in one hand, that was widely used with the film's release.
The Brides of Dracula with heads....
Winona as Mina fares well. She looks luminous in the period costumes, all cool blues and greens, changing to a wardrobe of red and black as she falls further under Dracula's power. Sadie Frost makes a sweet, flirtatious Lucy, who transitions into a carnal, sexually charged woman as she slowly, and painfully, transforms into a vampire. Her wardrobe mirrors the transformation, changing from virginal white, to carnal red, to finally wearing her white wedding dress as her garments of the grave, making her appear as a ghostly, undead vision, against which the blood of her feeding stands out all the more starkly.
....And without
As well as being horrific, this film is erotically charged, directly equating the act of blood drinking with sex. This is depicted numerous times: Jonathan being beset by the vampire brides; Lucy's seduction by Dracula in wolf form, (his taking wolf and bat form emphasising his bestial side) and the converting of Mina to vampirism, where she drinks from a self-inflicted wound on Dracula's chest. Like the novel, the act of drinking blood restores Dracula's vitality, and he de-ages once he has fed vigorously on the voyage over from Transylvania, and arrives a young man, ready to woo Mina in London. She is drawn to him (rather than repulsed as in the novel) for reasons that she cannot explain; from a love she feels for him remembered from her time when she was Elisabeta. To her he is all charm and kindness, the closest he gets to being still human; to everyone else he is bestial and monstrous, a thing that must be stopped.
Dracula in wolf form
Mina & Dracula
Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a horror cinema classic that satisfies both fans of the novel, and Dracula films, but also fans of vampire films in general. It deserves to be rediscovered in the light of the new vampire craze sweeping film and television, brought on by Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries. But it surpasses those vampire entries, maintaining its place as a benchmark for modern vampire cinema.
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