One of the highest grossing films of all-time, Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an operatic attempt to faithfully adapt the writer’s masterpiece to the big screen. However, Coppola failed to ask one crucial question prior to green lighting the Zoetrope production: How well does the novel, if followed line-by-line, transverse the written page? Answer, not well. As such, Coppola intuitively grasps at straws as he supplements the work’s unbalanced narrative and sporadic pacing with spectacle and theatricality (almost to the point of camp), resulting in an epic piece of Gothic eye candy.
Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) is sent to Transylvania to finalize a large London land purchase by one Count Dracula (Gary Oldman). Upon his arrival at the Count’s castle, Harker’s host insists he remain for the month prior to the Count’s formal immigration to England. Meanwhile, Dracula–having become smitten by a picture of Harker’s fiancée, Mina Murray (Winona Ryder)–flees to the city, leaving his guest captive. Once in London, the Count seduces Mina’s friend, Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost), before courting Mina. Jack Seward (Richard Grant), the local doctor, unable to diagnose the recently afflicted Lucy, calls upon his mentor, Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins), who quickly identifies the situation as being that of a vampiric infestation. It is at this time that Harker returns, only to have Mina go missing along with the Count. A race across the continent will determine the fate of Harker’s bride-to-be.
The source material for both Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Coppola’s production prove that their success is due largely to having originated in their proper medium. As such, any attempt to faithfully transverse artistic forms is bound to failure as a consequence. Obviously, James Whale’s Frankenstein and Tod Browning’s Dracula succeeds where their successors falter due to the fact that the former pairing liberally adapted their gothic source material. On this note (and in this humble critic’s opinion), perhaps Branagh and Coppola would have been well advised to be more mindful of their forerunners in their respective fields first and foremost, while allowing the source material to merely serve as an influence if, for no other reason, due to the potency of the cinematic image (to say nothing of the seemingly perpetual influence of their directorial forefathers and their respective masterpieces).
Having said this, Coppola and screenwriter James Hart do take the liberty of attempting to, not only substantiate the titular character’s existence, but create a juxtaposed theme of unrequited Shakespearian love to counter the predominate motif of lust in Stoker’s novel. Opening the film in 1462, we watch Elisabeta (Winona Ryder) commit suicide after receiving the false news that Vlad Tepes (Gary Oldman), her husband-to-be, has died on the battlefield. Upon returning home and finding Elisabeta’s corpse, Vlad renounces God (after having fought in his name) and is subsequently condemned to eternal undead damnation on Earth.
Excusing the inconsistency of having an inserted prologue introduce a “faithful” adaptation of a work, we watch as–to no greater ends than his predecessors–Coppola presents Stoker’s dread of Victorian sexuality as an unholy infestation as society’s chaste, vestal females become prey–upon their own volition mind you–to their properly sublimated desires and urges. In this respect, Stoker’s novel has become slightly dated in that the viewer must be cognizant that a soiled female served no purpose in “proper” society during the author’s life and, as such, used this confliction between mores and innate biology as the catalyst and central conflict within his novel. Once understood, we can then understand why Lucy, having become a servant to Dracula, cannot be saved and, for her–as well as society’s–own good, must be put to death. However, the director does align female wantonness with what was described at the time as “hysteria,” a predominately female affliction under the guidance of Sigmund Freud himself, which is briefly, yet cleverly, placed alongside a very striking depiction of the Great Confinement.
Amid trudging along a narrative that isn’t exactingly conducive to the silver screen, it seems as if Coppola, stunningly aware that the story itself wasn’t boding as well as he might have liked, supplements the mood and atmosphere in the novel with arresting spectacle and visceral imagery as he gives us the most gruesome, blood-soaked Dracula to date as special effects and wardrobe precede, not only the storyline, but the acting as well. (The film won Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, Sound Effects, and Makeup but was not nominated in any major category.)
Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as the box office returns attest, stands as a figurehead for audiences being willing to have their eyes filled while leaving their brains empty. In this regard, Coppola’s foray into the most famous vampire narrative of all time will undoubtedly stand as a symbol for its time rather than a masterpiece of the period.
Trivia tidbits: Steve Buscemi and Juliette Lewis were the first choices to play the roles of Renfield and Lucy respectively, Coppola took a scene directly from Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (seen during Harker’s voyage to the Count’s estate), and the iconographic image of Oldman licking the straight razor that the character of Harker cut himself with while shaving was filmed while the former was noticeably intoxicated.
-Egregious Gurnow
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