Francis Ford Coppola certainly brought the operatic intensity that was evident in his previous film, The Godfather Part III, to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This isn’t a staid literary adaptation of the Merchant-Ivory variety. Coppola’s film unspools like an erotic nightmare, dredging up all the pent-up and sexually charged energy that roils (sometimes barely) below the surface of Stoker’s novel. The film is definitely a bodice-ripper, literally so on several occasions, that unabashedly traces out the arc between sexual repression and erotic liberation.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula offers a study in sexual contrasts between the (at least verbally) wanton and aristocratic Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost) and the buttoned-down working-class Mina Murray (Winona Ryder). The difference is evident in everything from their comportment to the very clothes that they wear. So it should come as little surprise that, in the film, the sexually available Lucy is Count Dracula’s (Gary Oldman) first victim. Meanwhile, Mina’s journey finds her developing many of the same erotic tendencies as Lucy under Dracula’s tutelage, the ramp up in her seductiveness once again mirrored in the costumes that she wears.
Coppola’s film also functions as religious allegory, ultimately in support of so-called Christian civilization, but one that’s unafraid to plumb society’s dark underbelly, as when Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) claims that “civilization and syphilization have advanced together.” Dracula is depicted as a fallen angel, an avowed renegade against God. He chooses eternal perdition because his beloved wife, Elisabeta (also Ryder), has committed suicide, thus incurring her own damnation. After all, “Tis better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,” as John Milton once put it. So it’s oddly fitting, but also somewhat ironic, that Dracula ultimately becomes a Christ figure. His last words quote Jesus’s in John’s Gospel: “It is finished.” Mina’s pure (non-erotic) love lifts his curse. All can return to what passes for normalcy.
Interestingly, two of the film’s more innovative narrative conceits—the conflation of Dracula with his historical analogue, Vlad the Impaler, and the idea that Mina is somehow the reincarnation of Dracula’s beloved wife—can be traced back to the Dan Curtis adaptation of Dracula that was made for television in 1974 (though in that version it was Lucy who had been Dracula’s bride). Nevertheless, the ways in which Bram Stoker’s Dracula chooses to implement these aspects are very different. The use of shadow play to show Vlad’s victories in battle is in keeping with the film’s overall reliance on deliberately old-fashioned camera trickery and the aesthetics of early cinema. And Bram Stoker’s Dracula uses the resemblance between Mina and Elisabeta to position Dracula as a tragic hero in the Byronic mold.
Unlike many adaptations, Bram Stoker’s Dracula follows the novel not only by (at least partially) utilizing an epistolary approach, but also by embracing communications technologies that would have been considered newfangled in 1897. On several occasions, Mina uses a typewriter to keep her diary, or to compose her correspondence with Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves). Dr. Seward (Richard E. Grant) records his medical findings on a phonograph. Another phonograph can be seen in the Westenra living room, playing a popular ditty of the day.
In keeping with the operatic and overly histrionic approach to the material, the film’s performances are almost uniformly dialed up to 11. Hopkins and Oldman regularly compete to see who can devour the most scenery in a given scene, and they both bring oddball flourishes to their roles, like the moment where Hopkins suddenly sniffs Ryder’s face like a bloodhound. Above and beyond all the dramatic grandstanding is the deliciously overripe look of the film, rife with swooping camera movements, abundant superimpositions, and the routine use of forced perspective. All of this allows Coppola to bring something new and delightfully decadent to the material, akin to the bottle of absinthe Dracula and Mina share, even if Bram Stoker’s Dracula, like the Stoker novel, ultimately reconciles itself with the status quo.
Image/Sound
This UHD disc improves on the already handsome Blu-ray presentation of the film in the anticipated ways: Colors are brighter and more densely saturated, clarity of fine detail more evident, and black levels deeper and darker. The Dolby Atmos mix is a marvel, really opening up the film’s quite active soundscape, with all its resonant ambient effects, and also excellently putting across Wojciech Kilar’s majestically resonant score. Additionally, there are Master Audio 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo mixes available for those who desire them.
Extras
The UHD disc offers two new (albeit relatively minor) new supplements. There’s a music video for the Annie Lennox song, “Love Song for a Vampire,” that plays over the film’s end credits, and a behind-the-scenes piece that has relatively little overlap with the making-of featurette on the Blu-ray disc that’s included in this set. The latter, incidentally, carries the preponderance of the previously available extras. In the first of two commentary tracks, the always voluble Francis Ford Coppola goes into every aspect of the film’s creation, covering his visual inspirations, reasons for shooting entirely in the studio, keeping the special effects practical, relations with cast and crew members, and the film’s overarching themes.
The second commentary track stitches together comments from Coppola, visual effects director Roman Coppola, and makeup supervisor Greg Cannom to give a comprehensive account of the film’s more technical aspects. Also included are two compelling conversations between Coppola and film critic F.X. Feeney; the second also features Roman Coppola, and delves into the process of his collaboration with his father. Elsewhere, there are several thorough pieces on costume designer Ishioka Eiko, in-camera effects work (with a lovely nod to Mario Bava), and the production of elaborate electronic storyboards.
Overall
Operatically outsized and erotically charged, Bram Stoker’s Dracula gets a gorgeous new UHD presentation from Sony that you can really sink your teeth into.
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