bramstodracula

I’m a big stickler for original source material. I admit it. And I know that Hollywood has a tendency
to do nothing original, so they often pick stories from other mediums and other time periods to
adapt for the screen. This often leads to major additions or omissions and large fundamental
changes to the original work, with varying results. Most people are of the opinion that movies rarely
do justice to the source, be it a comic book, a play, a historical event or a novel. How many times
have you heard: “Well the movie was okay, but the book was better.” Probably a lot. If you are a
big reader, like me, than you’ve said it a good few times as well.

With a source like the 1897 novel, “Dracula” it gets more complicated. Not only do you have the
original text to consider, but also the scores of other film adaptations that have been made over the
100+ years since its publication. However, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version of the story
makes it a little easier, because he had the guts to title his film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” You
opened the door Francis, so you gotta take what comes.

It’s not Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” I’ll go ahead and get that out of the way. It certainly incorporates
a lot more plot aspects and characters from the novel than previous films, but the many stylistic
choices made by Coppola transform it into his off the wall vision of the story. So basically what you
get is Stoker’s story on the surface, but that is quickly lost as Coppola’s direction and visuals boil
over the source material.

The most major departure from the book is Coppola’s insertion of Dracula’s origin at the film’s
opening. In the film, Dracula was a penitent medieval Count that went to war against the Turks for
the Church, leaving his wife behind in Transylvania. He was victorious in battle, but a cruel trick
played by his defeated enemies led his wife to believe him dead so she committed suicide. Count
Dracula comes home triumphant, but upon finding his bride dead, renounces God and basically
says that he will become a vampire to spite the Lord. That’s right, he just sorta chooses to become
a blood-sucking creature of the night. How he knows how to do this is beyond me and is never
explained. In the flashback, Winona Ryder plays Dracula’s wife and Anthony Hopkins plays the
Count’s priest. Both of these actors also play major roles in the main story of the film, so what we
get is a weird “Wizard of Oz” thing where everybody in Dracula’s past has an alter ego in his
present. Four hundred years after Dracula’s drastic career change, he moves to London and
discovers the spitting image of his long dead wife in Mina Harker.

This small addition changes the whole theme of the story. Dracula and Mina begin a not so innocent courtship that involves violent outbursts from the Count,
drinking absinthe and a lot of weeping. The story ends up being about their whacked out love affair and it just doesn’t work. In the novel, Mina was very
resistant to Dracula’s wiles and though she did pity him, the word “love” never entered into it. She certainly wasn’t his long lost love reincarnated.

Stoker’s novel was about decent, innocent people whose lives were torn asunder by the blood lust of a supernatural demon. No one in Coppola’s film is
innocent. Mina is unfaithful to her husband, Lucy is a shallow coquette, Dr. Seward is crazier than his asylum patients and Van Helsing is sexually tempted by
Mina! The only real “hero” in this film is Jonathan Harker and he is so horribly played by Keanu Reeves that you can’t even take him seriously. It is cool to see
Bill Campbell AKA The Rocketeer in the role of Quincy Morris, but the action in this film is so crappy that he doesn’t have much effect.

The film has virtually no narrative structure. Instead the plot points play out seemingly at random and are nothing more than setups for Coppola’s complicated
visuals, which are, I must say, artfully crafted. This film is a catalogue of weird shadow play, trompe l'oeil, super imposed images and even footage purposefully
run backwards. Aesthetically the film is a masterpiece and the horrific scenes are very memorable. The shot of Lucy coming down the stairwell of her crypt in
her white burial dress haunts my dreams.

The only other saving grace is Gary Oldman’s performance as the title character. The Count is given a major overhaul by the always-brilliant Oldman and is
intensely creepy, especially during the first act when he’s a withered old gargoyle with the strangest hairdo since David Bowie in “Labyrinth.” He does give a nice
homage to Bela Lugosi with some of his line deliveries, but past that the similarities end.