The traditional view of Dracula as an old man who is played by Gary Oldman in the film is a man who is almost invincible and completely ruthless. Dracula’s appearance in the film compared to the novel by Bram Stoker is quite similar in some ways. The appearance of Dracula doesn’t differ that much and gives roughly the same picture as to how Dracula would look like in comparison from the film to the novel. Dracula is portrayed as an old man in the first scene; Jonathan goes to visit Dracula in his castle which is based on the border of Romania. As Jonathan is on the train, he reads out the letter which Coppola allows the audience to hear non- diegetically. As Jonathan is reading the letter, Dracula’s eyes appear in the sky as if he is watching Jonathan. The mise- en- scene is again clear. The music changes into the ‘’ war music’’. This is to show that danger is approaching. The sky is red and also shows danger. Jonathan is dropped off in a deserted, scary forest. The colours used are dark and consist of black and blue. The music used is natural sounds e.g. wolves howling, animal sounds. The sounds are diegetic. He is dropped off by a few gypsies who are dressed peculiarly. The woman gives Jonathan a Cross and says it keeps the evil away. Jonathan then waits for a carriage to come and he doesn’t have to wait long. When Jonathan asks if the carriage is going to Dracula’s castle, the mystery man who doesn’t show his face grabs Jonathan and unrealistically puts Jonathan in the carriage. This was as if the driver was expecting Jonathan. The driver then takes Jonathan on a ride he was very uncomfortable with! The carriage was centimeters away from falling off a 300 foot cliff, chased by wolves and passed through a blue inferno as Jonathan approached the castle. Jonathan finally arrives at Dracula’s castle and as he enters the doors, they open by themselves- this is what would happen in traditional Dracula movies. There are sounds of water dripping to make the castle feel cold and empty. As the doors open, there stands Dracula with a lamp in his hand. The camera angle on Dracula is a close-up. This is to show Dracula’s facial expressions and the way he reacts when he finally sees Jonathan. The use of lighting e.g. the lamp, shows that Dracula’s castle is very dark, dull and mysterious. When we first see Dracula, he is an old man. Normally, an audience would think he is weak and has no power but as revealed later on in the film, we see that Dracula has an immense amount of power and can do almost anything. The director uses the lamp to show Dracula’s whole figure. This symbolizes that the castle is very dark. A major thing in the whole story of ‘’ Dracula’’ is the shadows. As Jonathan is filling out some forms for Dracula, Dracula’s shadow moves completely differently to how a normal person’s would. At one point, Dracula creates a shadow of him craving for Jonathan’s head. This shows that Dracula is interested in Jonathan’s blood. This happens when Dracula realises Jonathan is engaged with Mina. As Dracula’s shadow moves differently to his own, this symbolises that Dracula is not amongst normal people, but in a dark, unnatural world of his own.
When Dracula is a wolf, this represents him being full of lust and his main victim is Lucy. Like any other traditional Dracula film, the women are the main victims and rely on the men to save them. This is exactly the same in Copppola’s film. Dracula transforms into a wolf when he thinks about Lucy and when he sees Lucy, he sees red blood. This is shown by a close-up on red blood cells. When Dracula turns into a wolf, the colours turn very dark to represent evil and death. If Dracula is unable for any reason to come to Lucy, he uses his powers to bring Lucy to him. This is shown in the garden where mina is trying not to let Lucy lose her mind over Dracula. Yet still Lucy gets deeper and deeper into her hypnotic trance and Mina can no longer help. Lucy arrives before Dracula in the centre of Lucy’s Garden maze. This is where Dracula seduces Lucy and sucks her blood.
Another representation of Dracula is when he is a lover. When Dracula is a lover, his appearance, the music and the colours totally change. Dracula is dressed in a smart gentlemen’s suit and his representation is as a beautiful prince. His facial features are blue glasses, long curly hair, a moustache, clean shaven and fair skinned. Mina is dressed in red and her hair is loose like the vampire women. The denotation of red is a color and the connotation is love. Mina is the reason Dracula came to England from Transylvania, to love and reclaim the one women who he every loved in his life, Mina. When they are having dinner, Dracula looks into Mina’s eyes and sees champagne. They’re both drunk on love and also on each other. There is a close-up on the champagne particles. The movements of the characters are almost in slow motion and the editing is blurred. The director has done this because he wants to show that Dracula’s view is explicit. The music is also very important in this scene as it shows what mood the characters are in. At the beginning of the scene, the music is harmonious. Mina begins to tell the tale of how Dracula transformed into a beast and described everything about Dracula’s castle as if she’d seen it before. As she starts to talk about the castle, the music changes into the dark, low pitched Dracula music as they are thinking about Dracula’s home. Dracula stays calm and controls himself not turning into a vampire. He does this the first time when he meets Mina in the cinema. When Mina finishes talking about the castle, mina cries a tear. As her tear drops from her eye, Dracula catches it and turns her tears into diamonds. The scene finishes with a close- up on Mina’s eyes to show emotion and love. This scene has a major effect on the audience as this is the first time they see Dracula as some-one who is not evil. This differs hugely from the traditional view of Dracula.
In horror films, women are most commonly the victims and always rely on men to save them which is also one of the plots in this movie. However, there is one key scene where the women aren’t the victims but the seducers. When Jonathan stays round Dracula’s castle, he explores the massive, evil mansion and finds a room where he hears seductive voices. He hears Lucy’s seductive voice saying things like, ‘’ come Jonathan, lay down’’. As Jonathan isn’t realising that he is in Dracula’s castle, he does what Lucy’s voice tells him to do and lies down on quite a big bed. Then, three vampire women appear from out of the bed. They seduce Jonathan. One of the Dracula women had her hair like medusa to represent their inner- selves as evil and dark women. One of the vampire women also looked like Mina. This might have been one of the reasons why Jonathan didn’t do anything while he was being seduced. As they are seducing Jonathan, Dracula appears out of nowhere then uses his powers to get rid of the women. He joins two of the vampire women’s bodies together. Dracula then brings a baby for the vampire women. They do the unthinkable and eat the baby. This shows the women aren’t human as a mother or a woman would never do anything so cruel to a baby. The scene ends with Dracula laughing.
In conclusion, I think the director has made the choices of different characters representations to express how that individual character feels at times. I think this is for the women aswell. For example, when Dracula sees Mina, he sees love and when Dracula sees Lucy, he feels lust. This is also to inform the audience about what sort of character the person is and to get the audience more involved. The director also added extra and different things to make his version of Dracula Stand out over any other versions. Bearing in mind, this movie isn’t only horror, there is love included also in it which is different from other horror/ vampire films.
