Dracula in Tones of Grand Opera

Rating: 9/10 (21 March 2006)

When one looks at the works of director Francis Ford Coppola, horror-opera doesn't quite enter the mind, but in 1992 that's just the route he took and it paid off in some ways, while in others, not quite.
Coming off the critical and commercial failure of THE GODFATHER III, which itself closed a decade peppered with cinematic ups and downs, the decision was considered controversial. Throughout the film community (if it may be called so) there was the thought he'd either run out of material or that maybe this was going to be another of his incursions into insanity much like with APOCALYPSE NOW. Either-or, he made the film he wanted to make, and the results are of a director in full command of his talent, his vision, his cast, and even his excess.
And thank God for Coppola's dramatic excess, which is his view. This is the first time I've seen Dracula treated as an opera in which every moment held sway the power of flourish. I enjoyed it. It's very close in style and substance to Andrew Lloyd Webber's THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in lush atmosphere, shadowy visuals, grand gestures, and over the top music. A definite feel for silent Hollywood in which effects were made the hard way, from exaggerated postures, sequences filmed backwards -- every trick in the bag is present, and every one of them is a stroke of brilliance.
I loved that throughout Dracula there is a strong element of Fate, not Chance, from the very moment we see Vlad and Elisabeta being separated through actions not entirely of their own accord. This is vital for a story about romantic horror to work, because it's clear that at some point in the future they will cross paths again, even if the road to this re-encounter will be a bloody one. Had matters been left as they were in the novel -- Dracula being this one-dimensional evil -- this would have been a much darker, grim monster story. Under Coppola he becomes human, the true romantic anti-hero.
And as is with many anti-heroes, he comes with so much baggage and centuries of marinating in his self-absorbed ego within the ruins of his castle in Transylvania it's a wonder he's able to seduce Mina Harker when he catches up with her in 1897 London. Of course, not being quite human in flesh, he is able to manipulate his own energy into the form of a beast or a mist. Knowing his Elisebeta is out there after all, he begins extending his subtle self by one hapless Jonathan Harker (Mina Murray's fiancée). He creates a storm while being transported on the Demeter from his native land to London. As he approaches the new land, Mina feels a shadow move around her, and soon Lucy Westenra, her best friend, is a victim (in more ways than one) of a horrible vision equal parts lust and terror. Mina of course will not see Dracula until later in a beautiful sequence where both meet on the streets of London and converse in a museum where chaos erupts around them, maybe in reaction to his own dark nature. Even so, their acquaintance is formed and evolves until Mina can almost see herself in her prior incarnation. Yes, it departs from the novel but Coppola knows what he's doing: making this horror accessible. Making Dracula a tragic figure, and resolving that which was left in shambles.
At times, though, Coppola's love for grandiosity turns shrill. Scenes in which Winona Ryder must express difficult emotions -- such as her realization of who Vlad really is, and that he killed Lucy -- falters. Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing overplays his role and in trying to bring the wry humor his character was written as possessing he hams it up. Keanu Reeves... well. Could he be more bland?
Adding to this, there are one too many emotional/visual/musical climaxes: deleting just one would have been more than enough as long as they were not Lucy's death scene intercut with Mina's wedding or the tour de force that is the actual climax in itself as the blood-red Sun hurdles down to Earth while two parties race towards Dracula's castle. Just on this basis, BRAM STOKER'S Dracula as per Coppola is a great tale of star-crossed lovers bookended by his forbidding castle.