Bram Stoker’s Dracula: American Zoetrope/ Columbia Pictures Corp.
Rating: USA: R/ UK: 18

I can sum up director Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in two words: Eye candy. For those of you not familiar with the phrase "eye candy", allow me to elaborate. Film is a largely visual medium—images are more important than sound or the other sensory perceptions when watching a movie (of course, for a complete film experience, you need to have a melding of all the elements). Eye candy is a term used to describe a film that has some very interesting visuals—images that make the viewer want more, even—despite the fact that just like real candy, they’re ultimately empty. Eye candy is the cinematic equivalent of junk food—it tastes good, but it’s not very filling. And that pretty much explains how I feel about Coppola’s film.

For those not familiar with the story of Dracula, here’s a rundown. In Victorian England (around 1897 if I’m not mistaken) Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves: The Matrix) and Mina Murray (Winona Ryder: Alien 4, Heathers) are engaged to be married. Harker, who works as a clerk in a law firm, is sent to Transylvania to handle the business affairs of one Count Dracula (Gary Oldman: True Romance, The Professional). It seems that the previous clerk the law firm sent, an R.M. Renfield (Tom Waits), has gone mad. Harker arrives at castle Dracula, finalizes the Count’s plan to buy several London locations, then is asked to stay for another month—which Harker does…with a fair degree of trepidation.

The Count, who’s really a centuries old vampire, has seen Harker’s photo of his bride to be—and realizes that she’s the reincarnation of his long lost love (who committed suicide centuries before after receiving false information of Dracula’s death in battle—an act that this film uses to show us Dracula renouncing God and deciding to become a vampire.) Dracula sets out for England to reunite with his lost love, and winds up infecting her best friend—Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost: The Krays). As Lucy begins to transform into a bloodthirsty member of the undead, her physician (Dr. Jack Seward, played by Richard E. Grant) her fiancé (Arthur Holmwood, played by Cary Elwes) and kind-hearted Texan Quincy Morris (Bill Campbell) decide that she needs more help than they can give her. Seward calls in Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins: Silence of the Lambs), his mentor, and a doctor with a vast knowledge concerning blood diseases. Van Helsing concludes that Lucy’s become a vampire.

Meanwhile, Dracula and Mina are courting—running about town like two kids in love, having a grand old time…that is, until Jonathan escapes the castle and is taken in by an order of Transylvanian nuns. These nuns send a letter to Mina and she heads for Transylvania to marry her fiancé—something that bugs Dracula big time.

From there, the film turns into a chase flick, with the vampire hunters (led by Van Helsing) chasing Dracula across Europe and back to Romania—all leading to an inevitable climax that I won’t spoil for you here.

Prior to its release, Coppola (The Godfather 1, 2, 3) went around promising that his film would be the most faithful adaptation of Stoker’s novel to date—and while it is fairly faithful, it takes a few liberties with the story as well—and these liberties are ultimately the film’s undoing. Screenwriter James V. Hart is clearly familiar with the source material, yet he chooses to take what was essentially a Victorian horror novel and turn it into a Victorian romance—as if he’d not only read Stoker, but a healthy dose of Anne Rice as well. Stoker’s novel never featured the lost love angle—Dracula was evil because it pleased him to be evil. Dracula’s only love was for himself, never anyone around him, and certainly not humans. He left for England in order to infect a new world with his vampirism, not to find lost love. There was no redeeming this monster—so any theme concerning the power of love being able to free one from the darkness is solely a creation of Hart and not Stoker.

The films other major flaw is that it is indeed eye candy. Coppola assaults the viewer with a never-ending barrage of surreal and mind-boggling imagery. This is perhaps the most beautifully shot film I’ve ever seen—yet he fills this visual smorgasbord with the most dull, uninspiring, uninteresting actors he could find. No, not everyone is terrible here, but the three leads are. Keanu Reeves is awful as Harker—he’s as wooden as we’ve come to expect, and it certainly doesn’t fit with the character. Factor in that he affects an accent in some scenes and loses it in others, and well, his performance will leave you rolling in the floor with laughter. Of course, Ryder’s not much better. Her accent is a bit more consistent, but the performance itself vacillates between understated and melodramatic—with some of her line readings so over-the-top that it’s impossible to take them seriously.

However, no one is more awful than Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins again turns in one of his maniacally over acted performances ala William Shatner—with the main difference being that Shatner is generally fun to watch. Hopkins takes the Van Helsing character and turns him into Captain Ahab—a lunatic obsessed with the notion of battling his immortal enemy. Stoker’s Van Helsing was a far more cautious and restrained character, and never out and out maniacal. It is, by far, the biggest disappointment in this version. Van Helsing was my favorite character from the novel, and Hopkins’ portrayal here makes him almost unrecognizable.

The film does feature some good performances, though. Tom Waits is fun to watch as Renfield, and Richard E. Grant makes a decent Jack Seward. The real show stealer is Oldman—who certainly chews some scenery, but does so in that cool Gary Oldman way.

Coppola’s direction and the film’s production design are brilliant. These two things are the film’s strongest points by far. Coppola pulls out all the stops in terms of visuals, giving us one strikingly beautiful image after another, finally leaving us in a state of near visual drunkenness by the film’s conclusion. Coppola uses matte paintings, elaborately designed sets, blue screens, montage, superimposed images and a lot of primary colors to give the film its lush look. I couldn’t begin to describe all the beautiful imagery in this film—just watch it and see for yourself. The film looks like a big budget Dario Argento movie, and you’ll feel as though you’re back in late 19th century England for sure.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is also well known for having more continuity problems than just about any big budget picture in recent memory. Keep an eye open to see Jonathan Harker’s hair color turn varying shades of gray during different scenes of the film, Seward grab the wrong side of his neck after being bitten by Renfield, and Winona Ryder twitch her eye in a scene where she’s supposed to be dead. Those are just a few of the most obvious—there are others, but I’ll leave them for you to discover on your own.

The film won three Academy Awards, including one for the costumes. It’s easy to see why, as the film boasts some fantastic outfits—particularly the wedding gown/funeral dress Lucy wears in the scene where she comes back from the dead.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is available on DVD, and while the sound and picture are incredible, this was one of Columbia’s early DVD releases—which means you get nothing extra other than a trailer. It’s a shame really, I’m sure Coppola could have added a lot to a commentary track. Heck, even a short documentary on the film’s production would have been better than nothing.

Ultimately, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a technical marvel—a film filled with lavish visuals, intriguing sets, and a general flair for the artistic. Unfortunately, the decision to depart from the novel’s Victorian horror story roots and turn it into a romance is one that hurts the film by making it less than faithful to the source material that it wanted so desperately to emulate (at least according to Coppola). Factor that in with the poor performances from the main cast, and you can see why this film is generally regarded as cinematic fluff as opposed to a film masterpiece. Visuals alone cannot make a film—it’s a collaborative medium between writers, directors, and actors (and honestly, a whole lot of other people as well). Failure at any one level, and your film can still be a flawed masterpiece—failure at two or more levels and you’re consigned to the land of films that aspired to greatness but floundered in a sea of mediocrity. Bram Stoker’s Dracula falls into that category. You’ll gorge yourself on the visuals in this film, but in the end, you’ll come away unfulfilled.





Recommended: Yes