It's been a long time since I published one of these, but welcome to another installment of Cinema Showdown, here at Enuffa.com, where I compare and contrast two films of similar subject matter and pick which one I like better, and you all must agree with me....
Today I'll be discussing two of my favorite film versions of Bram Stoker's timeless novel
Dracula. It's been a long time since Hollywood gave us a serious adaptation of this story - everything since 1992 has been either satirical or a pointless reinvention of the wheel - and it's the two most recent high-quality versions I'm here to talk about.
1979 saw the release of three
Dracula films - a Werner Herzog-helmed
Nosferatu remake/homage (an excellent film in its own right), a modern-day spoof called
Love at First Bite (starring a hilarious George Hamilton), and on the heels of a massively successful revival of the Broadway play on which it was based, a remake of Universal Studios' 1931 production of
Dracula. As they'd done in the 30s (after the sudden death of their first choice Lon Chaney), Universal cast the star of the Broadway production - in 1931 it was Bela Lugosi, in 1979 it was Frank Langella. Reimagined as an extravagant, atmospheric horror-romance, this new version of
Dracula was critically well-received but underwhelmed at the box office (no doubt hampered by the George Hamilton comedy released only a few months earlier). It was perhaps even further removed from the novel than its 1930s counterpart, removing most of the first act and changing some characters around. Still the Langella
Dracula is a pretty excellent update of the Lugosi classic, with a more explicit emphasis on the sensuality of vampirism, and a romantic, minimalist portrayal of the immortal Count. My wife affectionately refers to this version as
Disco Dracula due to Frank's very 70s hairstyle. This moniker is actually very fitting since John Badham had previously directed
Saturday Night Fever....
Thirteen years later Francis Ford Coppola decided to take the story back to its turn-of-the-century literary roots, presenting
Bram Stoker's Dracula as an honest-to-goodness faithful adaptation. All the major characters were restored, the film followed the book's narrative structure (including diary entries in voiceover), and Dracula's extensive supernatural powers were better explored. Sure, they crammed in a romance where the novel did not, but overall the 1992 version is one of the closest to the novel to date. What sets this film apart from other interpretations though is its surrealist, operatic style. The visuals were unlike anything since the 1920s Expressionist period, while many of the performances could easily be classified as "scenery chewing." Carried largely by Gary Oldman's star making lead performance,
Bram Stoker's Dracula was a strong worldwide hit, grossing over $215 million on a $40 million budget (or $473 million in today's dollars).
But which version is superior? I enjoy both films immensely, for different reasons. Let's take a closer look and break these films down, shall we?
Cast
Dracula: Frank Langella vs. Gary Oldman
A
Dracula movie of course will largely stand or fall based on the quality of the titular performance, and both films are on very solid ground in this category. Langella and Oldman each delivered one of the greatest and most memorable portrayals of the immortal Count, in very different ways.
Langella's turn is understated, relying on smoldering sex appeal and a soft-spoken menace. He also skipped the Romanian accent (an odd choice given Drac's nationality, but somehow it works) and refused any sort of vampiric makeup or fangs, telling the filmmakers, "There are fifty other movies where Dracula looks like that, we're doing something different." Instead of a typically monstrous vampire, Langella embodies the Count as a stoic, romantic lead who exhibits no wasted motion, luring his victims to their demise with an almost feline charm. And of course those hypnotic, ever-dancing eyes....
Gary Oldman's performance couldn't be more different from its 1979 counterpart. Oldman, like everything else in the Coppola film, is operatic in his portrayal. This Count is bombastic, charismatic, fully "old world," and depending on the scene either violently carnal or grotesquely terrifying. He shapeshifts no fewer than half a dozen times throughout the film (as in the novel where he appears as an old man, a less old man, a bat, a wolf, an army of rats, and mist), and Oldman's fearsome theatrics shine through the layers of prosthetic makeup. This is the film that made me fall in love with Gary Oldman's acting.
But who's better? It's really up to your personal tastes and what you expect out of the character. Langella goes for romance and a minimalistic sense of evil. Oldman swings for the fences to make the Count an otherworldly demon. Personally I like my Dracula to be a true, unearthly monster, and I think Oldman's larger-than-life version is much closer to what Bram Stoker probably envisioned. Plus it's still one of my all-time favorite film performances.
Point: 1992
