BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA
A film review by Jon Webb
Copyright 1992 Jon Webb
I liked DRACULA very much, almost enough to see it again. It is a film devoted to visual imagery, as usual with Coppola, but unlike some of his earlier films (like COTTON CLUB) where the images seem added on (and somewhat inappropriate) to a more or less ordinary plot, in this film the plot is so fantastic that the images merely hint at the plot, so giving viewers the opportunity to fill in details themselves, and creating for themselves a richer experience, in the same way that a painting may create a richer experience for the viewer than a photograph of the same scene.
This is largely a special effects movie; actors are secondary. It is interesting to note that this film eschews the increasingly popular computer graphics techniques like morphing in favor of more traditional methods. This gives the film an older feeling, and also fits the mood of the film, which is set in Victorian England. The point of the film seems to be the conflict between two cultures, the ancient one of Transylvania and the war with the Turks and the (then) modern England. Computer graphics would have placed us *in* Victorian England and made us a participant in the culture rather than an outside observer, able to see the conflict going on.
I thought Gary Oldman did a fine job as Dracula, but it must be noted that the makeup does an awful lot of the work for him in many scenes. One doesn't get any feeling of depth from any of the actors, except Hopkins as Van Helsing; but that's probably the way the book was written. (Hopkins is great, by the way -- funny, exuberant, and overjoyed at finally discovering his nemesis.) Still, I would've liked to see Winona Ryder display a little more quirkiness than she did here as Mina; I think she has the potential, but perhaps she felt too constrained.
There are a lot of references to other Dracula films; any film buff will enjoy these. For example, the many forms Dracula takes are undoubtedly references to the many shapes he's taken in different films; I recognized him from NOSFERATU, for instance.
All in all, this is a fun film, something like STAR WARS in its quality and effective use of imagery, but also like it in its lack of substance.
-- J
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