Murnau's 1922 original 'Nosferatu' as best of breed? No, but that's a false comparison.Ĭoppola's 'Dracula' is probably closer in spirit to an epic fantasy fable like 'The Thief of Bagdad' than to Murnau's astringent classic. Stoker's 'Dracula' is a 100-year-old story, and more than 100 different versions of it have made it to the screen. If you've read that Coppola is attempting to make himself bankable again, he's not doing it by playing safe. This is Coppola the master showman, the conjurer and maestro, directing at full tilt. In making 'Dracula,' Coppola is working out of the back row of his Crayola box his palette is as fantastic as it is obscure, with colors almost recognizable, but simultaneously foreign, richer and more intense than in memory. These operatic emotions are the cornerstones of Coppola's 'Dracula.' They cry out for excess - of blood and spectacle, of design and costuming and makeup, of innovation and imagination - and that's precisely what Coppola and his collaborators have supplied. He curses God for his betrayal and (ooooops!) himself by promising to bedevil God for all eternity, sentencing himself to a timeless existence beyond the grave, without life, without love, without end. Vlad, it's fair to say, does not take the news well. He is, in fact, the ultimate romantic - love's goriest victim.Īs Vlad the Impaler (Gary Oldman, in the dread Count's root incarnation), he wielded a bloody scythe in defense of God and Christendom, slaughtering thousands of invading Turks and defying death 10 times over, only to find that as his reward his beloved Elisabeta (Winona Ryder, in one of her two roles) has plunged to her death in despair over a false report that Vlad had perished in battle.

Dracula is the greatest freak in history - freakdom's Sinatra, its Brando, its Madonna, all in one - but in Francis Ford Coppola's magnificent, astonishing new telling of Bram Stoker's classic horror story, he's also a fool for love.

Bram stoker's dracula gary oldman