BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA

US, 1992, 123 minutes, Colour.
Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves, Richard E.Grant, Cary Elwes, Bill Campbell, Sadie Frost, Tom Waits, Jay Robinson.
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is an excellent version of the often-filmed story. Stoker wrote his novel in the 1890s (though Polidori concocted a vampire story in the famous night in 1817 when Shelley, Byron and Mary Wolstonecraft wrote their horror stories. Stoker researched his story extensively.

F.W. Murneau filmed the story as Nosferatu, using German expressionist styles, light and darkness and shadow. Coppola is indebted to Murneau's style for his version (as was Werner Herzog for his 1978 Nosferatu). Bela Lugosi was the star Dracula at Universal in the 1930s (and the stage version was written by John L. Balderstone). Christopher Lee was a significant Dracula in the Hammer Studios films and many other actors, both serious and comic, have performed the role.

Coppola wanted to go back to the original and the screenplay was written by James V. Hart, writer of Steven Spielberg's Hook. Hart wanted to be faithful to the novel and has adapted it with expertise. He has provided a historical prologue which gives a great deal of information about Vlad and the religious background leading to his becoming Dracula. There is a great deal of psychological truth dramatised in this story of sexuality, love and death, freedom from inhibition, repression. Hart also capitalises on the 1890s in England, a decade of the emergence of many inventions. Dracula comes into a world with phonographs, record players, the telegraph, microscopes and, especially, the cinema.

Francis Ford Coppola has made a number of significant films including The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now. British actor Gary Oldman is effective in the many guises that Dracula is given. Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves have English accents, which gives their performances some authenticity and credibility. Anthony Hopkins is wild and eccentric as Van Helsing. Sadie Frost is introduced as the sensual Lucy. Richard E. Grant, Cary Elwes and Bill Campbell are the English and American suitors for Lucy who join with Van Helsing in the destruction of Dracula.

The film was advertised with the caption, "Love never dies." It has been presented as a love story as well as a horror story. Gary Oldman's performance, Hart's writing and Coppola's direction make this credible as Dracula seeks his dead wife in Mina and is even prepared to let her live a human life, so much does he love her. The pathos of his destruction with Mina and their becoming mosaics in the dome of the house ends the film appropriately. Score, set design, costumes, photography are all significant.

1.The work of Francis Ford Coppola? Style? Perceptions? A Dracula for the '90s?

2.The work of Bram Stoker, his novel, life in London (and his work for Henry Irving - alluded to in the visuals of the film)? The adaptation by James V. Hart, the structure of the novel, letters and diaries, characters, themes? Bram Stoker's perception of Britain in the 19th century, the 1890s?

3.The strength of the cast - playing in type, against type?

4.The stylised presentation: the use of sound studios rather than locations? The strong colours? Light and shadow? The atmosphere of Transylvania, Dracula's castle, exteriors and interiors? London, affluent society? Dr Seeward's asylum, Carfax Abbey, the busy streets? Travel by sea, train, mountain paths? Night and day, the sunset? The visual design of the film?

5.Sets and decor, costumes? Make-up? The characters defined by costume and make-up?

6.The important visual effects: the initial battles and the shadows, the impaling, the defeat? Dracula and the crucifix bleeding? Candles and blood, rats and creatures appearing upside down. Dracula's shadows not corresponding to the reality? The eyes in the sky? The artificial sea? Dracula and the variety of monstrous presentations? The quality of the editing?

7.The musical score, its range - horror, battles, drama, romance themes?

8.Audience knowledge of the Dracula story, expectations? The literary tradition, the film tradition? Nosferatu, Bela Lugosi, the Hammer films? The tradition of Dracula, the women, Van Helsing? Similarities, differences?

9.The use of religious and psychological symbols: crosses and crucifixes, for protection, religious trinket? The diabolical wayside cross? The cross as a light in the convent for Harker's refuge? Candles and blood, the many candles for Dracula dancing with Mina? Blood and life, the massacres, the blood from the cross, Harker's blood, the vampire women, Dracula himself, Lucy's blood, spewed on Van Helsing? Mina and Dracula's chest? Dracula's blood?

10.The prologue and Van Helsing's voice-over, Vlad the Impaler, Romania in the 15th century, going to battle, the red and black visuals and the silhouettes of the battle? The role of the church, the Turks, the fall of Constantinople? Vlad's victory? Kissing the cross? The betrayal of his wife, the letter with the false information, her suicide? Vlad's grief? The condemnation of the church? His stabbing the cross, the blood flowing, the blood from the candles? His vow against God? His rising from the grave to avenge his wife?

11.The transition to London of 1897? The late Victorian era, culture, manners? The aristocracy? Surface respectability and repression? Freedom from inhibitions? Conventions in marriage? The British (and Quincy giving a different perspective from the American west)? Sanity and insanity, the treatment of madness? Science and technology developments? Religion and legends? Superstition?

12.Science and technology? The presentation of the typewriter, the phonograph, the record player, the telegraph, microscopes, surgery? The cinema (documentary - and the possibility of pornography)? The contrast with tradition and superstition, religion? Van Helsing and science, his lectures, his medical knowledge? And yet his knowledge of the Undead, reading the books on Dracula? His knowledge of the techniques?

13.Gary Oldman as Dracula: the plan for buying houses in England? The age of Dracula with his hairstyle, his red train? Welcoming Harker, the dinner, taking umbrage at the insult to his ancestors, the League of the Dragon? The map of England, Harker and the letters? Holding him in his room, Harker's blood shaving? The sinister shadows? The women vampires? His control of them? Packing the earth to take him to England? The voyage, the animal appearances, the animals loose at the zoo? Dracula as monster? His eyes and the sky, his face over the behaviour of Lucy and Mina? The Undead, evil, blood?

14.Jonathan Harker, his politeness, the opportunity for a clerk, travelling and his diary, the coach to the castle, the wolves in the night, the blue light, the mysterious diabolical coachman? Entering the castle, with Dracula? Insulting him? Dracula's threats? The sexual onslaught of the vampires, his weakening? His final escape, the fall, the light of the cross in the convent?

15.Renfield and his madness? With Dr Seward? In the cell, talking to Dracula, eating the insects and his explanation? Ominous feelings of Dracula's arrival? Madness and sanity? Watching Carfax Abbey? Meeting with Mina, trying to save her? Dracula in the green mist, accusing him of betrayal, killing him?

16.Dracula and the earth on the ship, the images of the monster, his attack on Lucy? Growing younger? The animals loose in London? On the street, dressed as a gentleman, the dark glasses? Searching for the cinematograph? Meeting Mina, asking her directions, her hostile reaction, her apology? The film, the taming of the wolf? Taking her to the restaurant? His hold over her, the meal, drinking the absinth? Telling his story, her identifying with it? Mina and the reincarnation of his wife? Growing in love, the romantic theme music, the tenderness? How credible the love between Dracula and Mina? Yet Dracula with Lucy, the savagery and sensuality of his attack, the animal incubus? Possessing and destroying Lucy?

17.Winona Ryder as Mina: prim, her diary, the typewriter? The poor teacher? The curiosity of the sex imagery from Burton's Arabian Nights? Talking frankly to Lucy, the fascination with sex, Dracula's face and the control and the sexual behaviour in the garden? Her concern about Jonathan, his letters? The coldness of the information? The party and Lucy's freedom with her suitors? The shadow of Dracula over Mina? Her seeing Lucy go into the garden in the night, the incubus and rescuing her? Her meeting the count in the street, her haughtiness, the apology, the cinematograph? The discussion about culture and science? The wolf and her fright, Dracula calming it, her fondling it? The restaurant, the meals? The drinking of the absinth, her love for Dracula, the mystery? Her remembering? The letter from Jonathan, her message to Dracula and going to Romania? Lucy's illness, her meeting with Van Helsing, trying to comfort Lucy? Van Helsing and Lucy's death? The meal and her decision to go to Romania? The wedding (and its being intercut with Lucy's suffering)?

18.Lucy, free and uninhibited, sexuality? Her suitors, her ambiguous talk, Quincy's knife, Jack falling at her feet? The experience in the garden, the incubus? Her decline? Her wanting to marry Arthur? With Mina, possessed by the Undead? Her death, the funeral? The tomb, her absence, with the child? Arthur having to strike her? Van Helsing beheading her?

19.Jack, his running the asylum, his drug-taking, his concern about Renfield? Falling at Lucy's feet? Caring for her medically? Quincy as the gentleman from the west, his western style and manner of speaking? Arthur and the aristocracy? The successful suitor? Lucy's illness, Jack's concern, Van Helsing's arrival? Arthur and his concern, the blood transfusions? Lucy's death, the wake and the funeral? In the tomb, his having to kill Lucy? The three suitors confronting Dracula with Van Helsing? Carfax Abbey and the rituals of exorcism, the fire? Pursuing him to Romania with Harker? Van Helsing and Mina on the train? The plan, Dracula outwitting them? Present to Mina and reading her mind? The ride from the coast, the pursuit, the fight on the mountain path? Sunset?

20.Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, appearance and manner, speech? Voice-over? His lecture and acclaim? Science, blood in the microscope? The genius? Hastening to London, the fascination with Lucy, meeting Mina and his eccentric dancing with her? The three suitors - and the talk about superstition, his disappearance behind the pillar? The appeal to what is beyond the physical? Reading the book about Dracula? Blood? Treating Lucy, the blood transfusion? Her death, going to the tomb, his beheading her? The transition to the meal, his warning to Mina and Jonathan? The exorcisms? The confrontation of Dracula in Mina's room? Hurrying to Romania, on the mountain path, the sexual attraction to Mina? The three vampires? His pursuit into the castle and the beheading of the women? His having to let Mina confront Dracula? The mad scientist? The quest? Psychological insight?

21.Mina and Dracula, her love for him, his appearing in her room in Dr Seward's institution? The love, the talk, her wanting to drink his blood? His loving her so much that he would not kill her? Her wanting to die and be with him? The credibility of this passion and love? Van Helsing and the men appearing? Dracula's diabolical appearance, the confrontation, his transformation into the rats and their escape? Mina and her weakness, her love for Jonathan, travelling to Romania, possessed by Dracula and his knowing her mind? Travelling the mountain road, in the cave with Van Helsing, the attempt at seduction? Her going to the castle? Going to Dracula, his appearance, pierced with the knife? The love scene, the final talk? Her appeal to Van Helsing and Jonathan to kill her? Her transfixing Dracula? Beheading him?

22.Dracula and his travel back to Romania, hurrying into the safety of the castle, appearing in his robes, stabbed, declaring his love for Mina? The fulfilment of his quest? The quotation from the Gospel about God's abandoning him? Killed by Mina and returning to his youthful appearance?

23.Mina and Dracula in the mosaic in the roof?

24.The dramatising of myths and legends, themes of love and death, men and women, religion, guilt? Psychological themes, sexuality, repression and wholeness? A 19th century story interpreted for the late 20th century?