MovieChat Forums > Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) Discussion > Feels different to watch over a 20-year ...

Feels different to watch over a 20-year period

posted 8 years ago by yugfaed
2 replies | jump to latest

I was always a fan of this movie for a long time. I always liked the atmospherics of and it stayed close to the Bram story of Dracula. I saw it recently and things have changed for me somewhat. Keanu doesn't work in his part - miscast and the fake accent is...fake.

Winona also doesn't work neither. It just seems off for me with her now. As I watch it, it almost seems like it's a play on stage vs a film. Gary does a nice job but some of his mannerisms - for example when he's talking to Keanu holding the sword...he runs it over his hand, reaches down to take a drink of blood, realizes nothing's there, and then continues to talk - I don't know, that kind of acting seems more for the stage vs a film.

I still like it but it just seems different in my eyes compared to 20 years ago.

Because I've worked in the business for 30 years, I'm allowed to change my mind on how I feel about a movie. Unfortunately, no one else is allowed to do that because they do not understand the nuances and intricacies of film critiquing. I do so I'm allowed.

[–] debtfull 8 years ago

Yeah, but I am allowed to pick my toes in Poughkeepsie. So, there.

[–] roman_g 8 years ago

Keanu doesn't work in his part - miscast and the fake accent is...fake.

Agree.

As I watch it, it almost seems like it's a play on stage vs a film. Gary does a nice job but some of his mannerisms - for example when he's talking to Keanu holding the sword...he runs it over his hand, reaches down to take a drink of blood, realizes nothing's there, and then continues to talk - I don't know, that kind of acting seems more for the stage vs a film.

Well, in a way it IS very theatrical, for two reasons.

1) Coppola wanted this movie to be an "erotic nightmare", not a historic drama or something like that. It´s just about the pictures, the way one picture blends in to another, etc. etc.

2) Coppola also wanted to use only effects that were used on the stage in the theatre or by magicians in the late 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s. For example, he used a stage trick called "Pepper´s Ghost" (google it, it´s worth it ☺) for his movie. In a way this is really more of a stage production, that tries to bring you back to the 1890s, as if you were watching a play or a movie back then.

The scene where Dracula cuts his hand: I don´t think that he wanted to drink his own blood (would be quite conspicuous, and later during the shaving-scene he also tries to HIDE that he licked the blood from the razor blade). He just wanted to smell the blood, not drink it. And: during the love scene with Mina, he also cut his chest and there IS blood coming out.