MovieChat Forums > Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) Discussion > Very strange ...

Very strange ...

posted 2 years ago by Cherubino1 (101)
9 replies | jump to latest

One little thing that bothers me about this movie is the dates given during the Demeter scene.

In the book, the Demeter departs on July 6 and passes Gibraltar on July 22 (= 16 days). A newspaper clipping of August 8 reports the Demeter’s grisly arrival at Whitby; however, it may be the following day’s newspaper, so let’s assume the Demeter arrived at Whitby on Aug 7 (= 16 days).
So the Demeter took about 32 days for the whole journey, with the help of Dracula’s storm.

In the film, we learn that the ship departs on June 27 and approaches Gibraltar just 6 days later, on July 3. The newspaper shown, reporting on the Demeter, is dated July 7 - the whole voyage took only 10 days.
I don’t quite understand why they went to the trouble of giving different dates, similar to the novel, when they shortened the voyage so much. It wouldn’t have changed anything in the plot to keep the original dates, would it?

I also found a small error: during the Demeter sequence, you see a full moon in close-up, which is apparently meant to suggest that there was a full moon at some point during the trip. However, a lunar phase calendar shows that there was no full moon in 1897 between June 27 and July 7. On the contrary, there was a new moon during this period and a half moon at the end of the journey; the next full moon was not until about a week after Demeter’s arrival.

Again, I don’t understand why the film dates the action to 1897. In the novel, you never find out what year it is. There are annotated editions that try to determine the year of the action based on the descriptions of the moon, the sunrises and sunsets, and the times of high and low tide, but again there are contradictory statements that do not allow for precise dating.

[–] Ace_Spade (9654) 2 years ago

This is all speculation, but here goes:

I'd guess that the truncated travel time has to do with the screenwriters working out their own timeline for the film, and trying to keep the events happening according to their story. I'd have to rewatch the film to catalogue everything, but basically I'd be looking when Jonathan is meant to leave Castle Dracula, stacking up against Mina and Lucy's tragic tale. They maybe felt they had to line everything up and changed the dates to make the travel time way too short.

Movies often try to ratchet up tension by keeping timelines tight, so maybe they didn't want to give the impression that the heroes have months to accomplish tasks, but rather weeks, days, or even hours; that keeps the tension higher, generally (if anybody's paying attention).

Finally, it's possible that they just didn't check the dates in the book, and/or got erroneous information on travel time. Maybe they looked up how long ships take to make that journey and got the wrong number from a more modern ship. Or, perhaps, they discovered that ships in that day could make the trip much faster than Stoker realised. Is it Stoker's error or Coppola's?

Then we come to the year. The year is pretty arbitrary, and the filmmakers felt they had to include one. Why? I don't know. Maybe they tried to map out when Dracula was set and came up with 1897.

My best theory here: they moved the year up to coincide with the early cinema stuff that Coppola shoves into the middle of the film for Dracula's "date" with Mina. I'm guessing 1897 was necessary for the projectors.

Finally, as you point out, the book isn't super clear with the full moon timing, nor is the film. The full moon is there for atmosphere, not for astronomy.

In-universe, perhaps Dracula's presence reveals more of the moon, or gives the illusion of a full moon? Perhaps it is supernatural?

[–] Cherubino1 (101) 2 years ago

Reply 1/3

Hello Ace_Spade,

thank you for your answer! Unfortunately, there is not much space to write here, so I have to split my answer into several parts.

“I’d guess that the truncated travel time has to do with the screenwriters working out their own timeline for the film, and trying to keep the events happening according to their story. I’d have to rewatch the film to catalogue everything, but basically I’d be looking when Jonathan is meant to leave Castle Dracula, stacking up against Mina and Lucy’s tragic tale. They maybe felt they had to line everything up and changed the dates to make the travel time way too short.”

I can also well imagine that this is the main reason for these changes. In the bonus material of the Blu-ray, there are many cut scenes that were apparently thought to slow down the film.
However, in this specific example (Demeter), I don’t understand these changes, because basically other dates could have been given without the pacing of the film suffering.

I think the whole storm sequence seems very surreal anyway, and as a viewer you don’t quite get the chronology. Mina and Lucy are playing in the maze, and later Lucy is attacked by Dracula - in between we see different things (Seward, Zoo, Demeter). Is this all happening on the same day? On different days? I think even if the movie had said that Demeter’s journey only lasted 3 days, you wouldn’t know when and in what order the things shown happen.

[–] Ace_Spade (9654) 2 years ago

I'll defer to you on a lot of this, since I haven't watched Coppola's Dracula in some time.

I will say this, though: the storm sequence is definitely surreal and Dracula's presence indicates that it must come after the Demeter has crash-docked, since Dracula is on-board the ship and incapable of getting to land prior to that. Indeed, the facts are that we see his wolf-dog form leap from the boat (so we know he was on it) and the crew were all dying. So, we know he used them for feeding, as opposed to his floating away as mist, draining Lucy, and then returning - what would the point of such a sallying even be? What implications for the rest of the film?

I'd take the chronology as a guideline or unreliable.

[–] Cherubino1 (101) 2 years ago

Reply 2/3

“Movies often try to ratchet up tension by keeping timelines tight, so maybe they didn’t want to give the impression that the heroes have months to accomplish tasks, but rather weeks, days, or even hours; that keeps the tension higher, generally (if anybody’s paying attention).”

If the film had aspired to film the novel as faithfully and realistically as possible, I would definitely think that some of the cuts were very bad. For example, after Lucy receives her first blood transfusion, you see the men talking in the garden, and one of them says that Lucy received the blood from several men. The editing makes it seem as if the garden scene takes place immediately after the blood transfusion, but in fact several days must have passed, as in the book.

“Finally, it’s possible that they just didn’t check the dates in the book, and/or got erroneous information on travel time. Maybe they looked up how long ships take to make that journey and got the wrong number from a more modern ship. Or, perhaps, they discovered that ships in that day could make the trip much faster than Stoker realised. Is it Stoker’s error or Coppola’s?”

In the novel, it is said that Dracula helps the ships he travels with to move faster by means of storms he summons. (“There we saw the Captain, Donelson by name, who told us of his voyage. He said that in all his life he had never had so favourable a run.”)
But even with this storm, the ship in the novel takes about a month to make this journey, and even when he escapes from London, Dracula’s ship takes a longer time to make its journey.
There are many errors in content in the novel (which are pointed out in the annotated editions), and one can assume that these errors were to a large extent deliberately inserted to make the reader wonder if the information in the diaries, etc., is even correct. Also, the dates given by the characters in the novel sometimes contradict each other.

[–] Cherubino1 (101) 2 years ago

Reply 3/3

“My best theory here: they moved the year up to coincide with the early cinema stuff that Coppola shoves into the middle of the film for Dracula’s ‘date’ with Mina. I’m guessing 1897 was necessary for the projectors.”

That’s a good theory! On the other hand, if you didn’t specify a year and show a cinematograph, then it should be clear anyway in which period the action must be set approximately.

“Finally, as you point out, the book isn’t super clear with the full moon timing, nor is the film. The full moon is there for atmosphere, not for astronomy.”

I know, and I also like the full moon from an artistic point of view. My only point was that by specifying a concrete year it can be checked whether there was a full moon or not, and that this creates an easily avoidable film error. Of course, it’s only a tiny error that you can only find if you do research, but such research is fun :)

“In-universe, perhaps Dracula’s presence reveals more of the moon, or gives the illusion of a full moon? Perhaps it is supernatural?”

This can definitely be ruled out. On the one hand, because Van Helsing lists Dracula’s powers and this power is not one of them, on the other hand, because Dracula can cross waters only at certain times:
“It is said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood of the tide.”
“he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature’s laws—why we know not.”

If Dracula had power over the moon, he could make sure the waters were always the way he wanted them to be.

[–] Ace_Spade (9654) 2 years ago

That's exactly my reason for generally not caring for title cards in films! A few little words in the bottom corner of the screen saying, "1969, Woodstock, New York" or "1888, London, England" are hardly necessary for films about hippies or Jack the Ripper. Most information is contained in the film itself, and I don't think filmmakers need them as much as they seem to think. I suspect these title cards are the meddling work of producers who don't trust audiences to understand.

Then again, maybe they are sometimes necessary to give context?

Agreed 100% on the full moon stuff.

Excellent point about Dracula's limitations. I didn't mean to imply he could change the moon itself, nor its actual phases, but perhaps just its appearance? So the tides would be the same, but the moon would appear full?

Still, I would agree with you that it's not one of his powers.

I would chalk it up to an imagery thing and slip it into the same category as the surreal dream-like sequences that you mention in your other posts.

[–] Ace_Spade (9654) 2 years ago

Again, I'll defer to you, generally here, and trust that you know the dates in book and film better than I. Consequently, I don't think I have anything to add to your insights into the blood transfusion scene.

To the extent that I remember both novel (pretty well) and film (slightly less), I don't recall thinking about the timeframe between transfusions so much as the danger Lucy was in, so both Stoker and Coppola - as far as I'm concerned - accomplished their motive of maintaining tension.

As to the ship's speed, I will say first of all that that's a good bit of quoting which sheds some light on to the voyage of the Demeter. Dracula's supernatural augmentation of the winds helps.

I'll make further speculations, then:

With Stoker's novel, I think it's possible that he was aware of how long a ship would take to make that trip, either having heard of it, researched it, or experienced it himself, and he gave the ship the best possible, believable speed.

In the film, perhaps they increased the speed of the ship to give a greater impression of Dracula's power, even if they didn't actually include the quote about the favourable winds that you provided. Once again, your observation of the two versions of the story seems fresher than my own, so do let me know if the film includes the line.

Oftentimes I find Hollywood will make things even bigger than in source material, not just real life, so instead of fighting off three thugs, a superhero will face down two dozen, or something similar. That could be the case here.

There is another option, of course, with book and film: one or the other didn't do too much research and just wrote the scene. Odd, non-conforming dates could be Stoker creating unreliable narrators, but I don't get the impression that that's what he's doing. My reason is that all of the different narrators in the novel might not share timelines, but they do share feelings about the story.

So, it might simply be that Stoker wasn't as meticulous with dates as he might have been. We see such problems crop up in fiction even today when a quick search on a map program can show travel lengths, let alone in the 19th century.

[–] Cherubino1 (101) 2 years ago

“To the extent that I remember both novel (pretty well) and film (slightly less), I don't recall thinking about the timeframe between transfusions so much as the danger Lucy was in, so both Stoker and Coppola - as far as I'm concerned - accomplished their motive of maintaining tension.”

My point in this case was not the dates or the time between transfusions, but that the editing makes it seem as if the conversation in the garden takes place immediately after the first transfusion. For the fact that the film likes to insert dates, a strange and confusing time jump takes place here.

“There is another option, of course, with book and film: one or the other didn't do too much research and just wrote the scene. Odd, non-conforming dates could be Stoker creating unreliable narrators, but I don't get the impression that that's what he's doing. My reason is that all of the different narrators in the novel might not share timelines, but they do share feelings about the story. So, it might simply be that Stoker wasn't as meticulous with dates as he might have been.”

This is quite possible, but the annotated editions show that Stoker prepared for this novel very carefully and even had a kind of calendar in which he wrote down when which events in the book should take place and on which days which letters etc. should be written.

Here you can see a page from that calendar with notes by Stoker:

https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/image/transf/dimension=661x10000:format=jpg/path/s3b481dd254694964/image/i690c7bf0bf5bbdcb/version/1580870714/bram-stoker-s-timeline-of-events-from-his-preparatory-notes-eighteen-bisang-miller-mcfarland-2008-page-98.jpg

[–] Ace_Spade (9654) 2 years ago

An excellent primary source; then we can assume that Stoker put a lot of thought into it and any re-dating errors in the film are likely the results of a lack of similar research on the account of the screenwriters and/or Coppola.