The film I will be discussing is Dracula. The director of Dracula is Francis Ford Coppola;

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Dracula

Gothic horror can be very appealing to many people. People may like to watch these films for various different reasons such as the graphical nature which can make it look extremely realistic. The blood, guts and gore effects make the film very entertaining as well as alarming; also the thrills these horror films give to the audience can be very appealing. Mainly in horror films there is always good v evil and the audience will almost always want to see the good defeat the evil and this will always happen.

It will always be expected.

The film I will be discussing is Dracula. The director of Dracula is Francis Ford Coppola; he is a very talented director and had six Oscars by the time he was 36. Astonishingly, he had won many more awards after that as well. This shows that the director would have been exceptionally famous and this would have made the film very popular indeed.

The actors that participated in the film ‘Dracula’ were; Garry Oldham who played Dracula, Winona Ryder who played Mina Murray & Elizabetha, Anthony Hopkins who played Professor Abraham Van Helsing and Keanu Reeves who played Jonathan Harker. Personally, I think they all did a fantastically good job.

In this essay the devices I will mainly be focusing on are; the signifiers of genre, the camera angles, the characters, the sound effects, the lighting techniques and the setting. I will explain these devices in great depth.

In the most vampire films there are always stereo typical characters and I think that ‘Dracula’ has stereotypical characters like all vampire films do. For example the way Dracula has been acted out may not come as a surprise to the audience as they have probably seen it somewhere else before. There will also be bats and cobwebs to set the scene and the vampires in this case Dracula, will feed by draining the blood of humans; this would show the audience straight away that the film is a horror.

Obviously.

Basically ‘Dracula’ is a film about vampires and the crazy things love can make you do.

The term signifier of genre gives the audience the impression of a gothic theme. These are subtle hints that make the audience automatically associate with the gothic horror genre. Many things from the film ‘Dracula’ signify to the audience that it’s from a gothic genre such as blood, darkness and the effect of tension the film has.

The film Dracula comes from a gothic background, this would be obvious to the audience, as there are many things that show this for example, the start of the film starts off with a lot of fog and mist which may indicate to the audience that it has got a gothic genre. It also shows that it may also be a mystical, secretive type of film. The director might want something to be hidden behind the fog for now; so that it isn’t obvious to the audience straight away. This may interest the audience and want them to carry on watching to find out what happens. Their minds will ask them questions and will also tell them that something frightening and unexpected might happen. This links to the gothic conventions.

At some point at the start of the film a map of Transylvania is shown, this would straight away give the impression to the audience that vampires are part of the film as vampires originate from Transylvania. So this would be a great big clue for the audience that the film has some sort of connection with vampires. This is also because vampires always tend to have a link with Transylvania in films. This would also signify that it has a gothic genre.  This is because people consider vampires as ‘frightening’ so this would also indicate to the audience that it is a horror.

There is also a lot of attention on religion as the film starts off. A close up of a cross is shown, then straight after it moves on to a falling cross which then crumbles up in to pieces. This may have happened to signify that in the film ‘Dracula’ Christianity is going to start off as very important and then move on to being destroyed and be weakened somehow; so the director has cleverly used this technique so it can be referred back from later in the film. This also has some link to the gothic genre as it may reflect how evil weakens Christianity.

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Further on in to the film, there is a lot more religious iconography shown. For example, there are also quite a few priests in the background. This would show that they have extreme faith in Christianity. It also shows this when Dracula goes to fight in the battle and he still has a cross close to his heart. This shows his love and affection for his religion. This is important as it shows how Dracula’s faith changes.

When Dracula finds out Elizabetha is dead he is really furious, blood pours out of the letter as he reads. Elizabetha also ...

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