I haven't seen this in a while but when the women are going after Jonathan and Dracula pulls them off, he hands over a crying baby and they eat him. That was wicked. I forgot it went that hard core.
shareYeah. I myself was surprised when I read the unabridged version of the book and that scene was in it. The book also has a scene the following morning where Jonathan looks out his window and sees the baby's mother outside the castle crying.
shareYeah that was fucking disturbing and that's one of my nitpicks about this adaptation. Are we supposed to feel sympathy for Dracula/Vlad? Because it's kind of hard to when he feeds his brides a baby. Of course while this adaptation was fairly faithful to the novel one of the things they changed was they tried to make Dracula a misunderstood being at the end who only wanted love, if that's the goal of Coppola then he should have removed the baby eating.
shareConsidering I just watched it today, I am totally on board with you. In the beginning, he was pure evil - even halfway through. At the end when Maya barks at Jonathan asking if he would kill her the same way if she turned, I almost threw my controller. This is the bastard that traumatized and murdered your best friend, lady. He also killed dozens of other people and fed a baby to his concubines.
shareI’m fairness I’m am guessing when Mina said that it was actually the side of her that was Elizabeta who was actually talking. But yeah Dracula didn’t deserve redemption, I don’t care if he found love he was evil.
shareNobody deserves redemption..... that is the whole point of redemption in the first place otherwise you wouldn't need redemption if you weren't bad/evil.
shareHe didn’t even do anything to deserve redemption, finding your long lost love doesn’t make up for the thousands of people he killed. (I don’t know the actual body count so that is a guess but regardless it’s pretty damn high)
shareCoppola and writer James Hart decided to add a redemption angle to the story and there's no need for redemption unless the person is first lost, corrupted in some way. The message is that Love conquers all and the light of God's presence brings redemption to those whose hearts still blip with a glimmer of hope, faith and love, no matter how mired in darkness. Freedom & forgiveness are there IF you want it. Nevertheless, Vlad still paid for his transgressions since he dies at the end, despite spiritual redemption. As it is said, "the wages of sin is death."
While the movie basically follows the novel -- and more so than most versions -- the story had been done to death and so Coppola & Hart naturally wanted to add something innovative and more meaningful rather than be rigidly faithful to the book.
You're very, very right. They should have either deviated from the book more (a LOT more, but, yes, the baby killing is part of that) or ignored the "he's just misunderstood!" angle.
My money? They should have stuck with a faithful, decadent, gothic adaptation of the story. When they're close to the book, it's such a good movie (Reeves' performance notwithstanding).
I can understand why some people have a problem with the movie. I read Stoker's book just before seeing it and so naturally didn't like the changes, i.e. the love story and sympathetic portrayal of Drac. Over time, however, I came to see that these changes gave the movie more depth and meaning. It's not the same old Dracula story, nor is it just another monster movie. It is that to a point, but it's more.
shareI would have really liked those changes if they changed other things to match. They want me to sympathise with Dracula, but in all other ways he's a horrible, soulless monster. They want me to care about the "relationship" between Mina and Dracula, but Mina spontaneously starts falling for him because of some underwritten "date" scenes, and in all the other scenes she and Jonathan are devoted and in love.
Revisions, retellings, re-imaginings: all great, but they'd have to try harder or else it doesn't add depth, it's just a shallow new-paint-job.
Interview with the Vampire is a much better sympathetic vampire story. Anne Rice did a great job of making monsters relatable (without sacrificing the monstrousness of the characters). Here it's just a middle section and a bit of a tag at the beginning and ending that just don't work. Like trying to contain the blood from a severed artery with a bandaid: the original just gushes through.
Revisions, retellings, re-imaginings: all great, but they'd have to try harder or else it doesn't add depth, it's just a shallow new-paint-job... They want me to sympathise with Dracula, but in all other ways he's a horrible, soulless monster.
I hear your points. I, too, enjoy complex characters, potential for redemption, and sympathy for the devils in these stories.
But, that's why I think this adaptation was, in a way, too close to the original. By supplying Bram Stoker's vision for much of the movie, we get a picture of the diabolical evil they are up against, but then the movie wants to eat its cake and have it, too: it says that this monster is "good"...? I think the two sections create a narrative inconsistency rather than a complexity or juxtaposition. It contradicts itself and undermines its own theme.
If Coppola had strayed more from Stoker's vision, he would have allowed himself room to follow his own.
All that is not to say it's a bad movie. I quite like it, too. I just see it as a flawed gem.
They weren't saying the monster -- Dracula -- is good, but rather that this monster -- who was provoked to take the dark path due to religious lies & abuse -- still had a trace of goodness & love in him. Mina's love brought this to the surface and he was redeemed at the end. "Love conquers all." However, he still had to pay for his transgressions via death.
Like I conveyed in my other post, this relates to millions of people today around the globe. For instance, I have a friend who stabbed & killed an abusive piece of sheet in a fit of rage in 2007 (he stabbed him over 20 times). After ten years in prison he got out in late 2017 on probation. He was obviously a changed man, humble and penitent. What he did was barbaric and troubling, but he's clearly repentant.
To be expected, some former friends want nothing to do with him. He's a savage monster to them, unworthy of forgiveness. I can understand their viewpoint to a degree, but I feel it would be a sin not to do my best to help him move on to a positive, productive life after paying for his crime according to law. It's been two years now and he's doing really well; he's more of a benefit to society than a detriment.
He is Vlad/Dracula in the movie.
This is why I say the film has more depth/meaning than the typical Syfy monster flick where the monster is simply diabolic and must be destroyed, the end.
But I understand your perspective and even agreed with it for many years. It's all good.
There was NO need to add this “lost love and redemption” angle to this story. NONE.
shareYes, there was, as explained in my discussion with Ace_Spade above.
With the "lost love and redemption" angle the film has more depth/meaning than the typical Syfy creature feature where the monster is simply ee-vil and must be destroyed, the end.
I did see that, and I don’t agree with you.
shareYou see this with all Dracula adaptations adding some twist like making him a sympathetic monster, cause you see this all the time with movies based on a book or play and especially superhero movies, when they change something for the movie people think that the movie is how the source material is.
shareIt was also stupid to bring in the idea of Dracula having no heartbeat which essentially made him a reanimated corpse, which Mina would have remembered once she was freed from his control. She never would have kissed him then.
shareI read that when they were filming the scene where Lucy was going to devour the blood of a little girl, the little toddler actress they'd chosen had a really hard time. She was terrified of the older actress in her costume and makeup, and they had to work really hard to calm her down enough so they could get the shots they needed.
shareActually if you watch the Making of...documentary you will see that they never could get her calmed down. They simply filmed the scenes very fast and then took the screaming child away.
shareI'm going to disagree and say that I don't think there was enough baby eating in this movie. Drac should have carried around sacks of babies to snack on like trail mix.
shareOne of those things I hate seeing in films that I can't stomach is putting babies and young kids in harm.
shareThen you really better NEVER watch A Serbian Film. It truly crosses a line.
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As cruel as the scene is (which, as others have said, is also in the novel), it is still important for understanding the plot, as it also reveals why Dracula wants to travel to England - he can no longer find prey in his country due to the superstitious and protective peasantry! A baby is all that Dracula, the hunter, can still capture with any luck. The great book The New Annotated Dracula writes about this:
“[Dracula] is reduced to stealing children to provide for his ‘family,’ for the local peasantry are all wise to the vampires’ ways.”
That was actually in the original novel. When the mother came looking for the baby, Dracula sicked a pack of wolves on her.
shareThey needed a snack 🤷🏻♂️
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