Francis Ford Copola directed the Godfather trilogy. The most lauded, respected set of three movies ever created, with most people (albeit mostly unaware people that have never sat through a movie devoid of the English language) rank the first two movies of the trilogy in the top five films of all time. Even those that have a broader sense of cinema (and the resulting better taste) will rank both films in the top 25 or 30 at the very least, with one of the two near the top 5 each time. Not that these rankings really make much of a difference, as they are people's opinions, and will never cease to be such and therefore arguable, any director ought to be thrilled to have one film in the place of either "The Godfather" or "The Godfather part II," to say nothing of the two that Copola clearly has on most lists:
http://www.imdb.com/chart/top
http://www.totalfilm.com/features/total_film_presents_the_top_100_movies_of_all_time
http://www.cinemafusion.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/the_online_film_communitys_top_100_movies/
Copola, however, has had a prolific career featuring more than his three gangster movies. While it is to be expected that his other work would not be as well received or as brilliant as those movies, his other films should be laudable as well, right? Well, perhaps some of them, but certainly not his adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Dracula is a ridiculous film. The plot is watered down to nothing (although with some additions?) It doesn't make sense that it would be possible, but, while adding a more present back story to the Dracula character, Copola opted to leave out the psychological development of any of the characters, leading to a flat film with no emotional appeal. Ironically, the extra information on Dracula's character ought to have added to the emotional appeal of the film, as it turned the main plot device into one of love transcending the ages.
This is not to say that the film is not artistic. While many costuming choices were bad decisions, the film is otherwise visually pleasing. Blood and darkness are clear visual motifs for Copola, and their presence on screen is felt and toyed with sufficiently. Employing creative transitions, including many overlapping fades and scenes emerging from inside other scenes, the film folds into itself in a manner that allows the viewer to take part in the vampire ethos. Each shot in the film could be folded into one, as suggested by the transitions between scenes, and the resulting solitary item represents the unity of life and death. Any character could become a vampire, and any vampire could be killed, in the same manner that any human could be killed without becoming a vampire. The circuity of the death-life and vampire-human (as well as any number of dichotomies...chaste-sexual, holy-unholy, male-female, nature-science) binaries suggests a deconstructive nature to the plot. This makes the film sound infinitely interesting, I know, but that is the fault of Copola's ability to craft visual masterpieces and still make bad films in doing so. Perhaps the poignant and reciprocal transition takes place in the "Absynthe" scene. Mina, in her intoxication, vows her love to the prince. In doing so, she is remaining human but becoming vampire, becoming Dracula's lost love, and betraying her husband. Dracula, in seducing Mina, is becoming more human (as he is already in human form), betraying his dead wife, and reverting to his former self as someone driven by love instead of fury and despair. These plot occurrences are visually summed up in the repetition of a transition featuring blood cells, but this time with the liquid being the yellow absinthe. The blood and absinthe have become one, just as the characters and the individual scenes themselves have collapsed into each other.
All of this being said, the casting could not have been worse. It is not that the actors chosen for the roles were not meant for the roles; Tom Waits as Renfield is an apparently logical and brilliant decision. For whatever reason, however, Copola was incapable of eliciting compelling performances out of any of his actors or actresses. Because the actors and actresses onscreen could not, for whatever reason, summon the ability to be convincing, an otherwise passable script seems awkward and redundant. This may not actually be the case, but, the way it is delivered, it seems that the film was written without any real emotion or intellectual interest.
Ultimately, Copola's take on Stoker's Dracula is nothing short of dissatisfying as a film almost entirely to the inability of the cast to act. When the cast cannot act, everything else falls apart, as the viewer losese interest and cannot concentrate on anything else the director may be attempting in the film.
-Zachary R. Belcher
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