Bram Stoker's DraculaRating:
Release Date: 30 September, 1997 Retail Price: $27.95 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (13 total) |
Bram Stoker's Dracula Reviews
A Gothic Romance
This is a classic film, which refers closely to the original novel. If you love gothic romantic films this will be perfect for you. It is visually stunning with an evocative soundtrack that seamlessly engages your emotions. I absolutely loved the scene where the count(Oldman) first meets Mina(Ryder)in the picture theatre and almost immediately they are drawn to each other dispite the fact that mina tries desperately to resist the count. Francis Ford Coppella weaves a beautiful story, with tiny incisions of horror,breathtaking backdrops, and costumes. By the end he leaves us totally consumed by the romantic tragedy. The film was so wonderful I feel like picking up a copy of Bram stoker's Dracula and reading it again. And Gary oldman is totally charming in the Lead. A definitely must see movie!!
Actually, I come down on this as James V. Hart's "Dracula"
"Bram Stoker's Dracula" or, more properly, "Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula"? The assumption was that the title was chosen to stake a claim to being the film adaptation closest to Bram Stoker's original gothic novel, but the reason was more mundane. Another studio had the rights to the title "Dracula," so a qualification was necessary. Since this 1992 horror film would have the same characters along with the same general plotline as the novel, this seemed reasonable enough. But screenwriter James V. Hart added a significant element to Stoker's novel that justified the movie's potent tagline, "Love Never Dies." As director, Francis Ford Coppola provides the stylistic flourishes, which are this movie's best parts, but Hart is the one who is responsible for the derivations.
In the novel Count Dracula only makes vague reference to the historical Vlad the Impaler, son of the prince known as Dracul (the Dragon), hence the name Dracula (son of the Dragon), when he tells his guest Jonathan Harker of the history of his family. Hart takes advantage of what we know about the historical figure to craft the film's prologue. Vlad (Gary Oldman) is fighting the Turkish invaders, not simply as a prince of Wallachia, but rather as more of a true Christian knight. He succeeds, but the exaggerated rumor of his death reaches his beloved Elisabeta (Winona Ryder), who throws herself to her death from the castle walls. As a suicide she cannot be buried on consecrated ground, and an outraged Vlad renounces God and is somehow transmorgraphies into a vampire as a result of his blasphemy. Then we get to the beginning of the novel.
Harker (Keanu Reeves) is traveling to Transylvania to Dracula's castle to complete a series of real estate transactions that will allow the Count to come to London and live in style. Something not very nice happened to the previous member of Harker's firm to make this trip (can you say Renfield?), but the old Count only seems eccentric. However, when he sees a picture of Harker's fiancée, Mina Harker (Ryder), the Count knows that she is the reincarnation of his beloved Elisabeta. Now Dracula has reason to not only travel to London, but to make himself young again so that he can woo his woman.
Once we move from Transylvania to London, we meet the rest of our cast of characters. Mina's best friend, Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost), is being courted by Dr. Jack Seward (Richard E. Grant), who runs his own little asylum, Lord Arthur Holmwood (Cary Elwes), a handsome nobleman, and Quincey P. Morris (Bill Campbell), who hails from the American West. However, before Lucy can choose from amongst her beaus, she becomes the new bride of Dracula instead. Fortunately, Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) knows more about medicine than what is found in science books and knows what is to be done in this situation. Meanwhile, Count Dracula manages to run into Miss Mina, and the seduction is on.
The production design on this film is fantastic. When it first came out on DVD I would use it as a prime example of what could be down with sets and decor: Thomas E. Sanders and Garrett Lewis were nominated for an Oscar. The film won Oscars for Eiko Ishioka's Costume Design, and the Makeup of Greg Cannom, Michèle Burke and Matthew W. Mungle, as well as the Sound Effects Editing by Tom C. McCarthy and David E. Stone. Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus deserves to be mentioned despite similar notice. The bottom line is that this is a great looking film, which is one of the things we come to expect in Coppola's work.
Oldman's performance as Dracula is interesting. Given all the actors who have come before from Max Schreck and Bela Lugosi to Christopher Lee and Frank Langella, it is hard to stake out new ground in the role. But Oldman bases his characterization on not only the romantic but also the tragic elements of this particular Dracula. Unfortunately, the performances of the cast are the weakest part of the film. Reeves is far and away the most wooden, but Ryder does not create a woman worth waiting for as far as I am concerned, which is the true weakest point of the film. Hopkins follows Laurence Olivier in the Van Helsing role and in a similar vein creates an eccentric ethnic know-it-all who spends a lot of time basically telling the gang of fearful vampire slayers to shut up and do what he says.
When "Bram Stoker's Dracula" is over you will be struck by how gorgeous the film is from start to finish. That will make up for so many of the actors being as wooden as the stakes used to dispatch the vampires. Hart's twist on the tale helps improve Stoker's original ending, which was basically a race to kill Dracula before the sun sets. The tragic element established by the prologue is adequately played out in the ending. This film might be another example of the triumph of style over substance, but given the depths that some vampire movies can reach, it is nice to have one that aspires to such artistic pretensions.
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