Compare Stoker’s and Coppola’s Dracula
by bobbyg
There are some notable differences in Stoker’s and Coppola’s Dracula. To begin I noticed that in Coppola’s Dracula there is a tagline written ‘love never dies’. Initially this was a bit confusing for me as the Dracula in Stoker shows no love for Mina or any other women; furthermore I would guess this tagline to be for Mina and Jonathan Harker. The Dracula in Stoker’s book was more of a villain/ monster as he did not display any emotions towards his victims. The thrill the book brought was that Dracula would stalk and kill as a murderous cannibal, leaving no room for character development. This was not the case for Coppola’s Dracula as he seemed to have much greater character development and emotions. This is probably the major difference in the protagonist between the two Draculas. Coppola’s Dracula seemed for the most part a normal human being who was out to find his love. This is the case in the film as Dracula falls in love with Mina believing she is the reincarnation of Elizabeta. Another example is when Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood in the novel, whereas the movie Dracula leaves it up to Mina to drink the blood or not. I also felt that Mina had a stronger role in the novel compared to the book due to her character role. In the novel she does not seem to have interest in Dracula and remains faithful to her husband, as in the movie she slowly falls for Dracula. Overall I enjoyed both the novel and the film and cannot say one is better than the other as they are very different from each other.
Hi Bobby!
I agree, there was definitely a big difference in how the reader/viewer felt about Dracula and any emotions towards his victims or to humans in general. One thing I also noticed about the movie as opposed to the novel, is that Mina was more sexualized and had more of a “character”- such as your mention of her “slowly falling for Dracula” in the movie. It appears that Mina was much more vulnerable to men in the movie and at the liberty of Dracula- whereas in the novel, she was allotted at least a little bit of autonomy over her decisions. Thanks Bobby!
I agree with your point on the difference between character development in the story and film. I felt there was very minimal in the story compared to that in the movie. I felt this was done due to the differences in society when the book was published compared to that of the movie. They are appealing to different audiences. Modern society lives for sappy love stories, and drama and the purpose of Stokers movie is to sell tickets to the audience that would be attending in 1992, not an audience of the year 1897.
Hi, I like how you point out how Stocker doesn’t develop the character of Dracula. It definitely seems that he sets him up to be the villain without trying to portray his perspective at all. I definitely agree that the movie personifies him much more, it would have been interesting to see the same level of perspective in Stoker’s narrative.