To some degree it’s disingenuous to refer to this film as Bram Stoker’s Dracula since it makes some changes that fans of that novel will despise. Coppola’s Dracula might’ve been a more apt title.
If you can put aside the “authorship” of the film you will find a very stylized film and you have to give it credit on those counts [insert rimshot here].
In 1462 Transylvania, Vlad the Impaler (Gary Oldham) is defending his country against the Turks. He handily defeats them with his superior army, but in one final parting act of vengeance the retreating Turks put a message on an arrow and shoot it into Castle Dracula. The false missive is given to his beloved wife Elisabeta (Winona Ryder) who reads that her husband has been killed battle. She cannot stand to be without him so she leaps from the castle’s battlements to the river below.
Vlad returns to the castle to find his wife dead and the priest stating that she cannot enter into heaven because she committed suicide. Dracula, in a fit of rage, renounces God for damning his beloved and goes to the side of the devil becoming a vampire. In 1897 England, Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves – why, oh why?) is being sent to Transylvania to assist in a real estate deal for a certain Count Dracula. It seems the previous agent, Mr. Renfield (Tom Waits), had gone insane trying to do the deal earlier and is now under the care of Dr. Seward (Richard E. Grant) in his asylum.
Harker sees this trip as an opportunity to move ahead in the company and finally be able to afford to marry his fiancé Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray (Winona Ryder). Harker arrives in the old country and finds the Count a creepy old man, but during the deal the Count notices a picture of Mina and recognizes his dead wife. While Jonathan is away, Mina is staying with her best friend Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost).
Lucy is being courted by Dr. Seward, Texas Quincey Morris (Bill Campbell) and Arthur Holmwood (Cary Elwes). A mysterious ship founders and Lucy picks up another admirer in the wolfish form of Count Dracula. She begins to grow more and more anemic and Seward calls in his old friend Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) who recognizes the sign of the vampire.
It might be more accurate to call this film Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula or even screenwriter James V. Hart’s Dracula. Coppola considered just called the film D, and that might’ve also been acceptable. In some ways the film is very faithful to Stoker’s novel but in others it creates plot points out of whole cloth.
This film is one of the few that actually uses the character of Quincy Morris, most other adaptations either drop the character altogether or combine his character into Seward and Holmwood. The use of this character is one of the good things about the film in my opinion. This version also introduces D as an old man and has him age backwards as the novel portrayed.
However, what gets most fans of the novel up in arms is the invented gothic romance between Mina and D, which is nowhere to be found in the novel. “Love never dies” was the tagline of the film and those that have read Stoker’s novel know that its anything but a romance and portrays Dracula as a monster and not the smitten lover of Coppola’s film.
The association of Stoker’s bloodsucker with Vlad Tepes may also cause some to bristle, but since Stoker used him as the basis for the character this doesn’t really bother me. However, again the romance has its beginnings in this flashback and may be why it also comes under derision.
The other downer is that Keanu Reeves is woefully miscast and sounds like Englishman Jonathan Harker spent some time surfing in California. Well, I suppose that’s enough staking of the Count. I now move on to the positives (depending on your blood type). The film is one that revels in its sumptuous costume design and won Academy Awards for both the costume design and makeup (sound effects editing was the other).
Gary Oldham is extremely powerful as the Count and Anthony Hopkins is just as powerful as his nemesis. The film also doesn’t rely on CGI and performs all of it’s trickery “old school” with tried and true camera techniques from the golden days of cinema, which is rather refreshing in our CGI saturated cinema.
I’ve read all of the fan’s complaints and do agree and sympathize with the majority of them but the film is still one that has many good points and although it’s certainly different than Stoker, but as a cinematic experience I’ve always thought it an excellent film. If you wanted a straightforward adaptation of Stoker’s novel then you’ll probably disagree. Sony has finally given the devil his due and presents Coppola’s film as a two-disc special edition.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Disc one contains an audio commentary with director Francis Ford Coppola. If you choose the “Watch Dracula with Francis Ford Coppola” a 4-minute video introduction plays before the film and then the movie plays with the same audio commentary.
Disc two contains four new documentaries that you can watch separately or use the play all function (totaling 72 minutes this way). The 28 minute “The Blood is the Life: The Making of Dracula” is assembled with 1992 interviews with Coppola, screenwriter James V. Hart, Richard E. Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Sadie Frost, Keanu Reeves, Gary Oldham, Bill Campbell, and Cary Elwes. The 14 minute “The Costumes are the Sets” has vintage footage of Academy Award winning costume designer Eiko Ishioka and both new and vintage interview footage with Coppola.
The 19 minute “In-Camera: The Naïve Visual Effects of Dracula” features new interviews with Roman Coppola (Francis’ son and who worked on the effects of Dracula), visual effects camera operator Christopher Lee Warren (no not THAT Christopher Lee) and his father visual effects supervisor Gene Warren, Jr. about the ancient techniques that they used in the film. The 12 minute “Method and Madness: Visualizing Dracula” is hosted by Roman and has current interview footage with storyboard artist Peter Ramsey about the artistic inspiration behind the film. A text article called “Heart of Darkness” from a 1993 issue of Cinefex magazine is also presented. There are also 27 minutes of deleted scenes, trailers for Dracula (theatrical and teaser), and trailers for other Sony DVDs.
I may be losing my chance at the Bram Stoker Award for DVD reviewing, but I find Dracula an excellent film, but still one with faults. Sure it’s not exactly faithful to the novel and in some ways is exceedingly unfaithful but the production design is a wonder and has wonderful performances by some of the cast (excluding Keanu). This edition adds some great special features that make it well worth the purchase for fans of the film. If you hated the film to begin with then you may not want to apply.
Bram Stoker's Dracula (Collector's Edition) is now available at Amazon . As of yet, this version of the DVD is not available in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
Your Talkback on this Story