Bram Stoker's DraculaJust as every person has the capacity for terrible evil, even vile monsters may cling to the vestiges of love in their black hearts. Bram Stoker's Dracula is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by--you guessed it--Bram Stoker, and is directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is mostly faithful to the novel, with substantial narration befitting the epistolary format of the book. It is a tragic interpretation of the classic movie monster, reflecting on a complicated romance between Dracula (Gary Oldman) and a young woman named Mina Murray (Winona Ryder), who he sees as the reincarnation of his lost love, Princess Elisabeta, whose death sent him down his path of damnation.
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Bram Stoker's Dracula is filled with bold visuals, recalling the stylized expressionism which popularized vampire films in the formative years of cinema--notably F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu and Dracula (1931). The prologue is filled with striking imagery, from Dracula's full suit of body armor that looks like it was made of the exposed muscle of some man-beast to the depiction of his battle with the Turks--all silhouette, like a visceral puppet theater. The scene sets the stage for Dracula's fall from grace as a warrior of God, and depicts his transcendent act of heresy that led to his punishment--the curse of undeath. This vivid aesthetic saturates the movie in its perfume of dreamlike intensity, seductive and even erotic in its languid phantasmagoria. To approach Bram Stoker's Dracula from a rational-minded standpoint would be to rob it of its poetry and opulent ripeness; it is like a laudanum-laden dream infused with the gothic appeal of Henry Fuseli's "The Nightmare". This sensation is expressed in more subtle ways, from wide-angle lenses to the theatricality of the costumes and set design--there are few costumes for Dracula in any film as breathtaking as those worn by Gary Oldman in this one--at once garish and decadent, in keeping with his decaying nobility. During the production of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Coppola is said to have produced a rough work from storyboards to set the tone of the film, including splicing in footage from Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast. Both films evoke the same mood and possess the same eerily entrancing elements of the supernatural, and both are steeped in metaphor. Coppola's film avoids computer-generated special effects--remarkable considering the sumptuous amount of visual richness and unreal imagery in it. This recalls the special effects from the time when Bela Lugosi was Dracula--it also recalls his other films, like White Zombie--and a time when monster movies would become the legends that would inspire this remake in the first place. Coppola directly calls attention to this at one point when Dracula--in his alias as the youthful Prince Vlad--accompanies Mina to visit the "marvel of the modern world", a prototype cinema projector.
The phrase emblazoned on the striking movie posters for Bram Stoker's Dracula was "love never dies". While the film accentuates the eternal love that crosses "oceans of time" between Mina and Dracula, the more prevalent theme running through the veins of the film is the persistence of "sin" as the proverbial "curse of Dracula", and how it influences those in proximity to the Prince of Darkness like a virulent plague. All of those who are touched by Dracula are stricken with a sinful awakening of the dark part of their soul. Dracula's "original" sin is to scorn the god to whom he pledged his allegiance after a priest judges Elisabeta's soul to be damned for her suicide. His reaction is more than mere grief; it is a protest against a god who would heartlessly refuse to acknowledge the inherently sinful nature of humanity, and hold someone as innocent and fragile as his beloved to an unfair standard for eternity. Like all great villains, Dracula sees himself as a rebel and as a revolutionary at this moment, even if four hundred years have turned his passion into hatefulness and cruelty. The Transylvania of Bram Stoker's Dracula is drenched in a reddish glow, as though the blood that flowed from the cross Dracula defiled has remained an open wound on the face of the Earth. This hellish landscape is the first thing Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) sees en route to Dracula's castle, summoned to finish the work of his predecessor, R. M. Renfield (Tom Waits), now committed to an asylum.
Even before Jonathan is called away, the devilish presence of Dracula affects all who will be touched by his darkness and sin. As Mina kisses Jonathan passionately in the garden before his departure, the "eyes" of assorted peacock feathers are watching them, just like the eyes of Dracula that glare down on Jonathan's train as he makes his way out of Budapest and into the Carpathian Mountains. When Mina goes to stay with her flirtatious and rich friend, Lucy (Sadie Frost), she teases Mina with an illustrated copy of "1001 Arabian Nights", complete with graphic sexual imagery. Lucy also shamelessly engages in innuendo with her three suitors--Dr. Jack Seward (Richard E. Grant), Sir Arthur Holmwood (Cary Elwes), and Quincey P. Morris (Billy Campbell). And when Dracula takes Lucy by force, he afflicts her with a disease which transforms her into a "Bride of Dracula", and her spasms and moaning unquestionably resemble an orgasm. Many other characters engage in unorthodox behavior; for instance, Seward is a very nervous administrator of his filthy sanitarium, and gives himself shots of morphine. Even his mentor, the famed scholar of the occult, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins), behaves with a shocking lack of tact, as though he were devoid of sympathy or is looking to provoke others. Jonathan seems to be the most virtuous of the group, especially considering that he is tempted by the depraved Brides of Dracula; this makes him seem like a "boring" love interest, which suggests that Mina's affair with Dracula is also a cry for a more invigorating lover. Bram Stoker's Dracula devotes significant screen time to establishing a deep and meaningful romance between Mina and Dracula. Although Mina is reluctant at first, she is smitten by his power and his command over creatures like an escaped white wolf, --even his poetic, mystical description of the absinthe they share. Beyond these superficial elements, she gradually understands that her soul is filled with the lost love of Elisabeta--a longing that makes Dracula/Vlad a vital need for her, a love that pains her when removed. The musical score by Wojciech Kilar that accompanies these scenes is full of heartache--a sonorous combination of strings and melancholy--and gives depth and vitality to this adaptation of a doomed love that is centuries old.
Recommended for: Fans of a gothic romance focusing on the despoiling effect the Prince of Darkness has on the purity of others, as well as the all-consuming desire that lingers in his corrupted soul. Striking visuals and dreamlike scenes make Bram Stoker's Dracula a distinct interpretation of the iconic vampire.
The phrase emblazoned on the striking movie posters for Bram Stoker's Dracula was "love never dies". While the film accentuates the eternal love that crosses "oceans of time" between Mina and Dracula, the more prevalent theme running through the veins of the film is the persistence of "sin" as the proverbial "curse of Dracula", and how it influences those in proximity to the Prince of Darkness like a virulent plague. All of those who are touched by Dracula are stricken with a sinful awakening of the dark part of their soul. Dracula's "original" sin is to scorn the god to whom he pledged his allegiance after a priest judges Elisabeta's soul to be damned for her suicide. His reaction is more than mere grief; it is a protest against a god who would heartlessly refuse to acknowledge the inherently sinful nature of humanity, and hold someone as innocent and fragile as his beloved to an unfair standard for eternity. Like all great villains, Dracula sees himself as a rebel and as a revolutionary at this moment, even if four hundred years have turned his passion into hatefulness and cruelty. The Transylvania of Bram Stoker's Dracula is drenched in a reddish glow, as though the blood that flowed from the cross Dracula defiled has remained an open wound on the face of the Earth. This hellish landscape is the first thing Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) sees en route to Dracula's castle, summoned to finish the work of his predecessor, R. M. Renfield (Tom Waits), now committed to an asylum.
Even before Jonathan is called away, the devilish presence of Dracula affects all who will be touched by his darkness and sin. As Mina kisses Jonathan passionately in the garden before his departure, the "eyes" of assorted peacock feathers are watching them, just like the eyes of Dracula that glare down on Jonathan's train as he makes his way out of Budapest and into the Carpathian Mountains. When Mina goes to stay with her flirtatious and rich friend, Lucy (Sadie Frost), she teases Mina with an illustrated copy of "1001 Arabian Nights", complete with graphic sexual imagery. Lucy also shamelessly engages in innuendo with her three suitors--Dr. Jack Seward (Richard E. Grant), Sir Arthur Holmwood (Cary Elwes), and Quincey P. Morris (Billy Campbell). And when Dracula takes Lucy by force, he afflicts her with a disease which transforms her into a "Bride of Dracula", and her spasms and moaning unquestionably resemble an orgasm. Many other characters engage in unorthodox behavior; for instance, Seward is a very nervous administrator of his filthy sanitarium, and gives himself shots of morphine. Even his mentor, the famed scholar of the occult, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins), behaves with a shocking lack of tact, as though he were devoid of sympathy or is looking to provoke others. Jonathan seems to be the most virtuous of the group, especially considering that he is tempted by the depraved Brides of Dracula; this makes him seem like a "boring" love interest, which suggests that Mina's affair with Dracula is also a cry for a more invigorating lover. Bram Stoker's Dracula devotes significant screen time to establishing a deep and meaningful romance between Mina and Dracula. Although Mina is reluctant at first, she is smitten by his power and his command over creatures like an escaped white wolf, --even his poetic, mystical description of the absinthe they share. Beyond these superficial elements, she gradually understands that her soul is filled with the lost love of Elisabeta--a longing that makes Dracula/Vlad a vital need for her, a love that pains her when removed. The musical score by Wojciech Kilar that accompanies these scenes is full of heartache--a sonorous combination of strings and melancholy--and gives depth and vitality to this adaptation of a doomed love that is centuries old.
Recommended for: Fans of a gothic romance focusing on the despoiling effect the Prince of Darkness has on the purity of others, as well as the all-consuming desire that lingers in his corrupted soul. Striking visuals and dreamlike scenes make Bram Stoker's Dracula a distinct interpretation of the iconic vampire.