Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Love Never Dies
November this year will mark the 25th anniversary of the movie “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and I wanted to pay a humble tribute to it.
Along with this post, I also published this poem, inspired on the movie’s version of Dracula’s story.
Before continuing I have to confess that I consider myself a foolish romantic: I have always been fascinated by vampire stories, both because of the attraction towards this mysterious mythical creatures and because coincidentally, I was born the same day Dracula dies in the original book: the 6th of November, according to Mina Harker’s diary.
“Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, the 1992 movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and interpreted by Gary Oldman and Wynona Ryder is one of my favourite movies of all times.
Apart from the script, its visual effects and costumes design have won several awards, not to mention the moving soundtrack by Anton Coppola and Wojciech Kilar: listening to “Love Remembered” can make me die of Love a thousand times. Also, it features Annie Lennox’s beautiful “Love Song for a Vampire”.
The movie provides a new background to the vampire’s creation and the reason to Dracula’s macabre behaviour. Unlike the original story written by Bram Stoker (an Irishman, by the way), Coppola’s version shows a man who, after losing his beloved wife, is driven to madness and renunciation of God, turning himself into a beast that needs to drink human blood to thrive, cursed to walk in a twilight world alone and for eternity.
Coppola forces us to see the world through the vampire’s eyes, to feel his pain, his longing for Love and redemption.
The vampire in movies is often depicted as a relentless seducer, but this enamoured Dracula doesn’t want Mina to see him as a beast and a womaniser, but as a polite and cool guy who always offer the best version of himself. That’s why he bids her “See me. See me now” when he’s walking daylight in a busy London street, dressed in his finest clothes, whereas he roars “No! Don’t see me now” when he notices that Mina is watching him ravish Lucy while featured in a nasty beastly shape.
On a deeper, more psychological note, when Dracula renounces God, he is renouncing Light, the Light of Love, the ultimate Truth. Maybe that’s why he cannot stand daylight or the view of a Crucifix, because they represent Love and Compassion, Truth… and he cannot see his own reflection on a mirror because he cannot bear to contemplate his own truth.
But then again, he seeks redemption in Love. Love Never Dies.
When finding Mina’s portrait among Jonathan Harker’s belongings, he says to him:
“Do you believe in destiny? That even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose? That the luckiest man who walks on this earth is the one who finds… true love?”
This quote is often wrongly attributed to Bran Stoker’s novel, but actually it is only part of the movie script, which is far more romantic than the original text, and features also the famous words:
“I have crossed oceans of time to find you”.
Gary Oldman once said in an interview that it was worth playing Dracula just to say that epic line.
Mina could not resist such a compelling appeal…
And who could blame her?
