Dracula Mania: Dracula (1992) aka Bram Stoker's Dracula

This is it boys and girls.  I feel like after watching these different incarnations of the tale this film is what it was all building towards.  A definitive version that puts the characters in their proper places, an inclusion of all events, it’s dark, scary, crazy, romantic, epic, you name it they did it. 

This is the one that follows the novel the closest but even Francis Ford Coppola couldn’t resist making some changes.  There are two that I would consider major and the rest minor.  The biggest minor change would be the prologue.  The film attempts to explain why and how Dracula became who he is and it’s actually a pretty good little illumination so I actually like this inclusion.  As for the majors we have Mina being the reincarnation of Dracula’s dead wife so therefore she kind of wants to be turned into a vampire instead of being repulsed by it; and the ending is different.  In the novel it’s cut and dry while the movie finishes on a more confusing note (is Mina a vampire or not?  An early edit shows that she’s not but what they ultimately went with doesn’t make it so clear).  So as you can see even the big changes aren’t ridiculous.

Stoker wrote his book in an epistolary format meaning that the story is told through documents like diary entries, letters, news clippings, etc.  So not your usual narrative work.  This is important to know because this picture keeps that format intact whenever it can.  There will be times when Harker is reading from his diary or Mina is reading from hers or whatever.

Gary Oldman was perfectly cast in the title role.  He lays on the accent thick, displays the various moods extremely well, is maniacal as shit and handles the man/monster thing great.

Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing is wonderful too.  Resolute as always and he’s got a couple of badass subtle scars on his face implying that he’s dealt with some nasty forces in the past.  There’s one time that he almost falters and that’s towards the end when Mina tries to seduce him.  Pretty interesting to see Van Helsing give in for a split second.  With this installment Van Helsing doubles as the comic relief.  It may have been how the character was written this time but I want to say that this is Hopkins’ doing.  He likes to ham things up a bit but in a charming, deadpan and, admittedly, often funny way.  Hopkins’ temperament doesn’t take away from the weightiness of the material though.  Certainly not.  In fact I think it only adds another layer to an already very cool character.  Van Helsing is sort of eccentric in this and I like the notion that it takes a madman to catch a madman.  He’s jaunty and thrilled by the hunt but deadly serious when it’s time to get down to business and kill some fucking vampires.

The two big blunders of this production however are Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder.  I don’t think I need to go into why Reeves was a pretty bad choice.  After watching him for ten seconds you’ll get it.  Ryder also doesn’t turn in a good performance.  But then again I don’t think she’s a good actress in general.  She’s not what this movie needed.  This film needed someone who would be totally absorbed by the part like Gary Oldman did with his role or even Sadie Frost (Shopping) did with hers (she plays Lucy here).  Ryder looks like too much of an amateur next to her costars only playing Mina on the surface and not digging deep enough.  But this was Winona’s ride.  She brought the script to Coppola’s attention and they agreed to work on it together.  She also gave suggestions of who to cast which Coppola went with.  Ryder definitely doesn’t ruin the movie but she seems to get worse every time I see her and I just wish they cast someone better.

My favorite parts (and you’ll know this if you read the ’31 Dracula review) are the journey to castle Dracula and the scenes inside the castle.  That shit creeps me the fuck out.  When Harker is waiting for the carriage out in the wilds of Transylvania and gets picked up by the all black coachman in that totally weird physics defying way (Coppola’s idea was that physics don’t work right in the presence of a vampire) I just sighed and shook my head.  The castle itself is also hell on earth.  Everything is so dark, old and remote.  Imagine being trapped there and drained of your blood just enough to keep you weak but not enough to kill you.  Goddammit, somebody finally brought these truly freaky images to life in a balls out way.

The one criticism I have of the castle though is that they incorporated steel into the structure.  It’s supposed to resemble the painting “The Black Idol” by Frantisek Kupka which is the image of a human figure sitting on a throne with its claw hand out.  That’s a fucking great idea and I’ll admit that I do think the gate looks cool made of sharp metal spikes but the rest of it doesn’t fit.  This is supposed to be an ancient building and having the steel in there makes it look sorta like a stupid steampunk castle.

My other favorite part of the movie is the vampire Lucy scene.  Damn does she look scary in that oversized wedding gown, glass coffin, ghastly white makeup and huge fucking ruff neckwear.  Most of the vampire Lucy stuff was shot in reverse too which definitely makes the scene look abnormal and off.  And the shot of Lucy’s head rolling away in slow motion against a black backdrop looks phenomenal.

For the first time we actually get the ending that’s laid out in the novel.  It’s done well too with a lot of tension and gypsies being taken out as our heroes go after Dracula.  It’s nice to finally get this sequence and see the original conception of how this story was meant to end.  But it’s also strange that Coppola came up with his own final moments instead of just going with what Stoker wrote (SPOILER: although, Coppola does credit George Lucas with the suggestion that Mina behead Dracula as he thought a sword through the heart wasn’t definitive enough).  But like I said earlier this is totally fine and doesn’t ruin the movie at all.

Now on to the shit I found really fascinating about the making of this Dracula.  There’s an extra on the DVD that talks about how all of the effects except for one were done in-camera.  What?!  Yes.  The blue flames were the only things done as a post-production effect.  Everything else was done as a practical real effect.  That’s un-fucking-believable.  And it seems like almost every shot has some sort of effect going on which must’ve been a huge undertaking.  Coppola brought in his son, Roman (who wasn’t even 30 yet), to do the work and boy oh boy did he do a bang up job.  Like for instance there’s a part where Harker is first reading from his diary on a train and there’s a shot of the train going across the top of the diary.  They built a large diary and used a model train to go across the top.  And when Harker is shaving in the castle the shot is done straight on and we should see the camera’s reflection.  Well that’s a very old trick that involves using a double whose back is turned to the camera with Reeves standing on the other side of the “mirror”.  Coppola also says on the commentary track that when Dracula is shaving Harker the walls move in a little as the scene progresses to give a claustrophobic feeling.  This is what makes this film so incredible not only from a technical standpoint but doing the effects this way gives the whole thing this very mysterious and unnerving feeling.  A bunch of the time you can recognize that there’s all sorts of crazy shit being put in front of you but the amount of it and the execution makes for a fucking bizarre viewing experience.  With Jurassic Park signaling the start of the digital age just one year later this is sort of a last hurrah for old fashioned effects.  They used every trick in the goddamn book and it’s astonishing.

Also as part of the extras Coppola says he originally wanted this to be even weirder than it already is with almost no sets or props.  It would be very impressionistic with shadows and essentially just actors in their unbelievable costumes.  The costumes would be the sets.  I couldn’t help but think of Cool World when I saw that and I’m so glad the studio put their foot down.  I don’t know if any movie should ever look like Cool World.  Man that was awful.  There’s a scene in this though that demonstrates what Coppola was talking about and it’s when Mina is going to marry Harker in Europe and she’s tearing out pages of her diary and throwing them into the ocean.  She’s supposed to be on a ship but all we see in the shot are a lantern and a rope.  I never realized that that’s all there was until Coppola pointed it out on the commentary track.  My brain had filled in the rest of the ship without me even realizing it.  I never found that scene confusing or weird with only a lantern and a rope.  It was always very clear that Mina is on a ship throwing diary pages into the water.  Then I startlingly realized that Coppola most likely would’ve made the whole costumes-are-the-sets thing actually fucking work.

The Japanese inspired costumes did turn out spectacular though.  Holy shit guys.  The dragon samurai-like red suit of armor that Dracula wears in the beginning is one of the most amazing getups I’ve ever seen.  To me it looks like muscles with the skin stripped away.  And the helmet with those conic horns puts it over the top.  I also love in particular Lucy’s wedding dress that I already mentioned.  That and the old Dracula’s red robe with the really long trains creep me out.

Another interesting angle to this production is that everything was filmed on a soundstage.  The only part that wasn’t was the wedding ceremony with Harker and Mina.  They filmed that at a Greek Orthodox Church in California.  But everything else was done on a set including all those Transylvania and London streets shots.

After hearing the commentary track with Coppola it seems that he has mixed feelings about this film.  He loves the special effects aspect of it, that he was faithful to the book and he certainly did want to take this project on but I think at the same time sort of felt he had to.  Coppola’s studio, American Zoetrope, was about to go under if he didn’t make another couple of hits which forced him to do The Godfather Part III and Dracula.  He was hoping to retire and work on small personal projects.  Again, the material was something Coppola was interested in but it comes across that he couldn’t do it on his own terms exactly and that bothered him.  He doesn’t give high praise to Winona Ryder for instance saying that she was too smart for her own good and that she didn’t give it her all.  Oldman and Hopkins were reportedly a bit hard to work with because they don’t like rehearsing.  Remarkably Coppola makes no mention of Keanu Reeves or his performance.  Because there were so many effects shots and just shooting to do in general the schedule was pretty strictly enforced with the studio execs keeping Francis on a tight leash.  This led to Roman Coppola basically co-directing the picture.  Remember, all of the effects were done in-camera so Roman had to be there and take a very hands on approach.  And in addition to this Francis also says that Roman shot a lot of the prologue and ending.  With the soundtrack only three pieces of music were written and recorded for the entire film much to Francis’ dismay.  Fortunately because the score was recorded with several mics he was able to drop out or add in whichever instrument sections he wanted giving the illusion that variations on the lone three themes had been laid down.  All of this shit made for a bittersweet experience and hearing the commentary track it seems like Francis hadn’t thought about it in a long time and therefore hadn’t totally resolved his feelings towards the film.  Sometimes he’ll get very into the notion that he envisioned and executed nothing but in-camera effects and at others he’ll talk about his frustrations that things were rough on set.  I was surprised to hear all of this because none of these complications come through in the final product.  When I see this thing I marvel at how wacky, over the top yet cohesive it is.  It works amazingly well.   

The more I think about it and every time I see this version of Dracula I like it more and more.  In fact I love it now.  This is the film that keeps on giving.  With each viewing I notice something new or find yet another scene spookier than before.  And this was Coppola’s intent.  He said he knows that not every single thing will be caught by the viewer but the accumulation of peculiar instances and camera tricks will amount to an off-putting feeling.  This piece is so beautifully, meticulously and fucking crazily crafted that it demands respect.  Everything from the freakish hairdo that Drac wears when he’s old to the shadow that has a mind of its own to the camaraderie of Seward, Quincy and Arthur to the human sized bat and wolf creatures that the Count turns into to the vampire brides seducing Harker scene to the buckets of blood that are showered on Lucy when she dies (that’s an homage to Kubrick by the way) to young Dracula looking like Jesus…this is a masterpiece my friends.  There will be other movies made in the future that tackle this story but it’s difficult to imagine this one being topped.  This is the Dracula to watch.  I kind of want to go back and see it again right now.

Creep factor: Off the fucking charts.  I understand that what someone finds scary is very subjective but the things in this picture are the kinda shit that sticks with me.

Romance factor: High.  Dracula is both an extreme monster and an extremely tragic figure here.  Very difficult to get both across but I think they do it.  At times I fear his wrath and at others I feel his pain.