DS and Bram Stoker's Dracula

[Zahir]

Be warned, this is bound to contain spoilers... 

When Bram Stoker's Dracula was first released, I saw it with a whole bunch of DS fans in San Francisco.  And of course, one can easily see how that movie resonated with us!

Elizabeta committing suicide by falling...Dracula's curse...the paintings, the ring, the cane...Dracula seeking his beloved across "oceans of time"...the sexuality of the vampires...the triangle between Dracula, Mina and the nice-but-dull Harker...even an asylum, complete with jealous doctor!

But more than that, the film captured the heart of what the whole Barnabas love story was all about.  Gary Oldman's Dracula, like Frid's Barnabas, was a man who loved "not wisely but too well" and gave in to despair, rage, even madness.  He was stubborn, passionate, courageous and ruthless.  Sound like anyone we know?  He was made into something he loathed ("My life, at its best, is misery") by an act of betrayal--not by a witch but by a man of the cloth. 

I'm not sure how many people notice in the prologue that Anthony Hopkins had an uncredited role as the priest who declared Dracula's beloved "damned."  Whatever the reasoning behind that casting, what I presumed upon viewing the movie was that Van Helsing had been reborn just as Mina was.  That he was sent back to undo what he had done, with his harsh words and lack of compassion in a holy place.  Just as Mina had come back to achieve Dracula's salvation.  Just as eventually Angelique was the one to lift the curse from Barnabas, when you think about it.

Anyone else have a similar reaction?  Care to share them with us now?

[Gerard]

I really enjoyed that movie; very atmospheric.  I always figured that Van Helsing was a descendent of the priest who, well, didn't exactly use pastoral sensitivity and caused the whole thing (because Hopkins played both parts).  Centuries later, the priest's (and don't forget that Eastern Orthodox/Catholic priests can be married) great-great-great-great-et. al. grandson had to "fix" what his ancestor hath wrought.

Gerard

[Mark Rainey]

I'm not particularly fond of Coppola's DRACULA, one reason being that it borrows too heavily from DS, rather than its ostensible source material. Another reason is that, for all its spectacle, it all looks like it takes place on an elaborate sound stage, which for this film seems inappropriate (though that aspect, perhaps, is a different animal altogether). In many respects, Dan Curtis himself did DRAC better than Coppola, although his version still misses too many marks to be altogether satisfying. (For what I consider the all-time the best version, check out the 1978 BBC production of COUNT DRACULA, starring Louis Jourdan; it's closer to Stoker's vision than any other, with added bonus that the shot-on-video and eerie musical score resonates of DS more than any other.)

I don't -dislike- Coppola's DRACULA to any great degree. Gary Oldman does a fair job with the material, and some of the cinematography is superb. Nothing against paying homage to DS, but when I watch DRACULA, I'd rather see -DRACULA-, rather than something inspired by something that was inspired by DRACULA.

[Nelson Collins]

Overall I enjoyed Bram Stoker's Dracula. I saw it on it's first release and saw immediately the DS connection.  In its favor it's one of the last sfx films before cgi became the defacto sfx, and I really enjoy watching the cleverness of how filmmakers employ the tricks of the trade to make the various effects work.

OTOH, Keanu Reeve's accent is HORRIBLE, Ryder's not much better.  That more than anything continually breaks my suspension of disbelief.

And while the shadows moving independently of their casters is cool, we trip merrily over line into camp when Dracula's reaches over to Harker's to choke him.    It made me laugh for all the wrong reasons.

The film also has the misfortune of being one of a spate of period films made when the closing credits feature modern pop songs, a marketing ploy I particularly detest.

[retzev]

OTOH, Keanu Reeve's accent is HORRIBLE, Ryder's not much better.  That more than anything continually breaks my suspension of disbelief.

So true. Those two knumbskulls ruined an otherwise watchable film. Why Keanu Reeves ever became a movie-star is a complete mystery to me.

[arashi]

I am onboard the Reeves & Ryder dissatisfaction train for that movie. Casting someone else in both roles would have made it 100 times more enjoyable for me.

I have one thing to say - BEUW-Da-Pest.

Thanks for the heads up on the BBC production Mark, I'm going to hunt it down immediately!

[Zahir]

When you look at Keanu Reeves' career, he's actually done a lot of really good work--the best of it when he's playing 'character parts.'  But of course since he looks the way he does, he keeps getting cast in romantic leads--which, imho, he's fine at.

He was not, however, in the same acting league as Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldman, etc.  And it showed.

But I thought both Harker and Mina in that film were putting on somewhat 'high brow' speech.  Upward mobility in Victorian England and all that.  My biggest complaint was that movie was so busy--the writer had written it as a cable miniseries to include as much of the original novel as possible (adding the whole love story, which does have a few tiny hints in the novel--albeit more like loopholes from which to explore something).

Count Dracula with Louis Jourdain took similar liberties, with making Dracula an urbane seducer when in the novel he's little more than slavic aristocratic rapist.  It is, however, an excellent adaptation.

In 2006 Marc Warren and David Suchet starred in another BBC Dracula, one that took a completely different direction than other recent versions.  It took extreme liberties (which I don't mind) including having Arthur the one who helps bring Dracula to England for tragic reasons of his own--and portraying the Count as a very byronic Beast.

But one of the best Draculas was also from the BBC, the 1968 adaptation with Denholm Elliot and Susan George.  It is very, very difficult to find.  I was lucky to get a copy, because it has never been officially released on either VHS or DVD.  But while done on a tiny budget by our standards--and like the stageplay pretty much focusing entirely on events in England--it was the best of the three by far.  This one also, while making the Count rather compelling and attractive, portrayed him as essentially an evil creature without hope of redemption (which of course was one of the things I loved about the Coppola film--in keeping with the novel, especially when Dracula is killed and Mina notes his face held an expression of peace such as she never imagined it ever could).