Bram Stoker's Dracula (first half)
Oct. 30th, 2018 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI was getting too tense not knowing AT ALL what was going to happen next, and multiple people recced this to me as a good adaptation. I'm definitely going to keep reading the book since half the point is to research how to write 19th century gothic prose.
(and then I stopped watching before I got to anything very new, oops)
**Content warning: rape**
We open on a gloomy vision of a cross falling off a church in dark smoke.
Narrator: The year, 1462. Constantinople has fallen.
Me: WHERE IS MY CHEERFULLY RACIST VICTORIAN TRAVELOGUE? WORST ADAPTATION EVER.
*mutters and unpauses with a glower*
Dracula (played by Gary Oldman, who I considered 100% creepy and gross when I was 12 but I can sort of see the cuteness of at 38) is a Romanian knight fighting off the Ottoman Turks. He kisses goodbye to his wife Elisabeta... played by Winona Ryder! Who also plays Mina!
I see, we're doing the Vampire Diaries thing, I wonder if that's a book plot I haven't encountered yet or added for the movie (But I don't think Dracula has a nicer, more moral brother he has foeyay with. UNLESS THAT IS JONATHON'S SECRET BACKSTORY)
These fight scenes are very...1960s movie being Mystery Science Theatre-d. His armour is SUPER creepy it looks like a flayed body.
Elisabeta dies, thinking Dracula is dead.
Priest: She killed herself, so she's going to hell. Such is God's law.
Dracula: THEN FUCK GOD. *stabs stone cross*
Me: Dracula, I understand the sentiment, but that's not going to...
Cross: *Starts dramatically spouting blood*
Dracula: BLOOD IS LIFE *drinks*
Me: ...fair enough
And we flash forward several centuries to...London. WHERE IS MY TRAVELOGUE.
Renfield is TOM WAITS???
Movie you are forgiven, carry on. Also the two most visible members of Lucy's harem are played by Richard E Grant and Cary Elwes, plus of course there's Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, this movie has a nice array of 90s actors.
Waaait, Renfield was Jonathon's predecessor as Dracula's lawyer? Ohhhh. (I'm not sure that's the case in the book?)
Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder do make a VERY pretty couple in 19th century clothes. I look forward to seeing them get Actually Married :D
TRAVELOGUE. With a GIANT BOOK.
Aw, the peasants give him a rosary but are then like OK BYE GOOD LUCK WITH THE VAMPIRES and drive off without even warning him he's screwed!
Haha, what, Dracula just THREATENED JONATHON WITH A SWORD within MINUTES of meeting him, and keeps making tacky jokes to himself about "taste" and "drinking". This is SO much more heavy handed than the book. The way Dracula's shadow doesn't always match his movements is A+ though. Also sometimes you'll just see a random shadowy, clawed hand just...around on a wall in the background, it's very effectively creepy.
Dracula sees Mina's portrait and gets excited! Yeah I think this whole "Mina is Dracula's wife reborn" thing is new.
Back to London! Mina is looking at porn and saying it is gross? Haha I think it's Lucy's porn, she is very 90s Oversexed Bad Girl.
Now they're...looking at porn...together...ok then
Oooh Dracula shadow OVER MINA AT THE PARTY.
Dr Seward is all disheveled and shouty and over the top at Renfield, which is less interesting than him being all restrainedly weird.
Dracula is shaving Jonathon. Ok! Jonathon is also way too shouty and over the top, though for a dude in this movie he's relatively restrained.
WHOA BOOBS
The "Jonathon almost gets sexily eaten scene" is...way more sexy and eating-y than the book. Also one of these topless girls seems to have a snake in her hair?
Did she just bite his dick? I feel like that's what just happened.
One of these girls seems to be...a torso attached to another torso, walking on the second torso's hands? I mean the weirdness actually works for me here since it's a dreamlike sequencealso I got distracted by Monica Bellucci's boobs.
You know, movie, you had a chance to avoid the gratuitous anti-Roma prejudice of the book. But no, time to DOUBLE DOWN ON THE CREEPY ROMA MINIONS.
Some time has passed and Jonathon is still wandering around half shirtless spattered in blood with his pretty floppy hair in his face. I'm not complaining just...taking note.
Movie are you implying Lucy only chose Arthur for his money? LUCY WOULD NEVER.
Then it starts raining and the two girls run laughing in wet dresses through a hedge maze and...kiss? While Dracula's superimposed head laughs in the sky like he's possessing them to yuri. And yet I don't really ship these versions, the fanservice feels kind of hollow.
Also we see the wolf escape and it just...walks out between the bars. I am seeing a design flaw in your zoo here, guys.
Dr Seward is taking....heroin? Or something? His mental hospital is 100% Creepy Asylum Tropes with nurses wearing cages on their heads because ok.
Is that a werewolf?? I think it's Dracula, they just decided "he can turn into a dog" means "he is a werewolf" which I guess makes sense (and may even be true in the book, he's often seen in the shadows looking ambiguously beast-like). And now he is...straight up having sex with Lucy. As a werewolf. Mina chasing a sleep-walking Lucy through a literal maze was some nice symbolism though.
And now Dracula is all young and pretty and hitting on Mina. She shuts him down :D Uuurgh but then she apologises and is nice to him. Are we supposed to ship this at all? Because I do NOT.
Lucy is being mean to Dr Seward about him being into her. LUCY WOULD NEVER.
Ok I don't think I can watch bad things happening to Lucy in a narrative that doesn't love her and feels more slut-shamey than a Victorian male novelist. Also all the not-always-consensual sex is hitting some bad buttons for me, I prefer that sort of thing to be metaphorical. So I am stopping here! I may finish watching once I have finished the book, since at this point that seems like the less painful, if slower, option.
I mean it is a very interesting movie, and I'm glad I saw some of it. Asides from the crappy Victorian attitudes (which the movie is largely better about) the original book is more to my tastes, with it's understated good nature. But the movie is doing it's own darkly surreal expressionistic thing and I can respect that.
(and then I stopped watching before I got to anything very new, oops)
**Content warning: rape**
We open on a gloomy vision of a cross falling off a church in dark smoke.
Narrator: The year, 1462. Constantinople has fallen.
Me: WHERE IS MY CHEERFULLY RACIST VICTORIAN TRAVELOGUE? WORST ADAPTATION EVER.
*mutters and unpauses with a glower*
Dracula (played by Gary Oldman, who I considered 100% creepy and gross when I was 12 but I can sort of see the cuteness of at 38) is a Romanian knight fighting off the Ottoman Turks. He kisses goodbye to his wife Elisabeta... played by Winona Ryder! Who also plays Mina!
I see, we're doing the Vampire Diaries thing, I wonder if that's a book plot I haven't encountered yet or added for the movie (But I don't think Dracula has a nicer, more moral brother he has foeyay with. UNLESS THAT IS JONATHON'S SECRET BACKSTORY)
These fight scenes are very...1960s movie being Mystery Science Theatre-d. His armour is SUPER creepy it looks like a flayed body.
Elisabeta dies, thinking Dracula is dead.
Priest: She killed herself, so she's going to hell. Such is God's law.
Dracula: THEN FUCK GOD. *stabs stone cross*
Me: Dracula, I understand the sentiment, but that's not going to...
Cross: *Starts dramatically spouting blood*
Dracula: BLOOD IS LIFE *drinks*
Me: ...fair enough
And we flash forward several centuries to...London. WHERE IS MY TRAVELOGUE.
Renfield is TOM WAITS???
Movie you are forgiven, carry on. Also the two most visible members of Lucy's harem are played by Richard E Grant and Cary Elwes, plus of course there's Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, this movie has a nice array of 90s actors.
Waaait, Renfield was Jonathon's predecessor as Dracula's lawyer? Ohhhh. (I'm not sure that's the case in the book?)
Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder do make a VERY pretty couple in 19th century clothes. I look forward to seeing them get Actually Married :D
TRAVELOGUE. With a GIANT BOOK.
Aw, the peasants give him a rosary but are then like OK BYE GOOD LUCK WITH THE VAMPIRES and drive off without even warning him he's screwed!
Haha, what, Dracula just THREATENED JONATHON WITH A SWORD within MINUTES of meeting him, and keeps making tacky jokes to himself about "taste" and "drinking". This is SO much more heavy handed than the book. The way Dracula's shadow doesn't always match his movements is A+ though. Also sometimes you'll just see a random shadowy, clawed hand just...around on a wall in the background, it's very effectively creepy.
Dracula sees Mina's portrait and gets excited! Yeah I think this whole "Mina is Dracula's wife reborn" thing is new.
Back to London! Mina is looking at porn and saying it is gross? Haha I think it's Lucy's porn, she is very 90s Oversexed Bad Girl.
Now they're...looking at porn...together...ok then
Oooh Dracula shadow OVER MINA AT THE PARTY.
Dr Seward is all disheveled and shouty and over the top at Renfield, which is less interesting than him being all restrainedly weird.
Dracula is shaving Jonathon. Ok! Jonathon is also way too shouty and over the top, though for a dude in this movie he's relatively restrained.
WHOA BOOBS
The "Jonathon almost gets sexily eaten scene" is...way more sexy and eating-y than the book. Also one of these topless girls seems to have a snake in her hair?
Did she just bite his dick? I feel like that's what just happened.
One of these girls seems to be...a torso attached to another torso, walking on the second torso's hands? I mean the weirdness actually works for me here since it's a dreamlike sequence
You know, movie, you had a chance to avoid the gratuitous anti-Roma prejudice of the book. But no, time to DOUBLE DOWN ON THE CREEPY ROMA MINIONS.
Some time has passed and Jonathon is still wandering around half shirtless spattered in blood with his pretty floppy hair in his face. I'm not complaining just...taking note.
Movie are you implying Lucy only chose Arthur for his money? LUCY WOULD NEVER.
Then it starts raining and the two girls run laughing in wet dresses through a hedge maze and...kiss? While Dracula's superimposed head laughs in the sky like he's possessing them to yuri. And yet I don't really ship these versions, the fanservice feels kind of hollow.
Also we see the wolf escape and it just...walks out between the bars. I am seeing a design flaw in your zoo here, guys.
Dr Seward is taking....heroin? Or something? His mental hospital is 100% Creepy Asylum Tropes with nurses wearing cages on their heads because ok.
Is that a werewolf?? I think it's Dracula, they just decided "he can turn into a dog" means "he is a werewolf" which I guess makes sense (and may even be true in the book, he's often seen in the shadows looking ambiguously beast-like). And now he is...straight up having sex with Lucy. As a werewolf. Mina chasing a sleep-walking Lucy through a literal maze was some nice symbolism though.
And now Dracula is all young and pretty and hitting on Mina. She shuts him down :D Uuurgh but then she apologises and is nice to him. Are we supposed to ship this at all? Because I do NOT.
Lucy is being mean to Dr Seward about him being into her. LUCY WOULD NEVER.
Ok I don't think I can watch bad things happening to Lucy in a narrative that doesn't love her and feels more slut-shamey than a Victorian male novelist. Also all the not-always-consensual sex is hitting some bad buttons for me, I prefer that sort of thing to be metaphorical. So I am stopping here! I may finish watching once I have finished the book, since at this point that seems like the less painful, if slower, option.
I mean it is a very interesting movie, and I'm glad I saw some of it. Asides from the crappy Victorian attitudes (which the movie is largely better about) the original book is more to my tastes, with it's understated good nature. But the movie is doing it's own darkly surreal expressionistic thing and I can respect that.
