A post of Dracula parallels

[thisbluespirit]

So, I've been meaning to share some of this here for ages, and here goes. I've been giffing my way through the Dracula adaptations I've seen so far (6 currently) and have completed five, with Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) still to go. (I got stopped by people spoiling my fun by suddenly making a new Dracula in the middle of all this, which meant people were taking notice of my posts and it was too much. Also now I'm not up to date! Damn them. Couldn't they have waited? ;-p)

Anyway, I'm not a visual person, or not without prompting, which is one of the things I really enjoy about screencapping, iconing and giffing, because it makes me look at visual media in ways I never do otherwise. So this isn't anything profound, but in the process, I noticed some interesting visual nods from one production to one or more of the others, so here is a post about that.


Out of the six I've seen, the 1968 TV Dracula is the one that most obviously references its predecessors, both in the script and visually (to the point that even I noticed it pre-giffage).

It references the Universal 1931 Dracula a lot, with Westenra becoming Weston, Lucy and Dracula both getting their counterparts' lines from the 1931 version and in conflating Renfield and Jonathan (but in reverse), and both counts are the type who will turn up to your house as a dinner guest, even if you wish they wouldn't.

Visually, in particular, Dracula's first biting of Lucy is deliberately shot to echo the 1931 version. (Because the 1968 is longer and I was trying to make concise gif-sets I can't show exactly how much so, because it would take 3 gifs to the 1 from the 1931 to make the parallel as clear as it is watching it). However:



FAKE BATS.





Male fainting duties.

While making the gifs, I also noticed that Suzanne Neve (as Mina reacting to Dracula's influence) mirrors Helen Chandler's performance (as Mina reacting to Dracula's influence):



There are probably more, but those are the ones that jumped out at me. (original tumblr post here.)

The 1968 also makes references to Hammer, and, with Hammer being the more recent, and the version that would, to UK 60s viewers be the current definite version, while it salutes the 1931, it mostly challenges Hammer (although there are also some nods, like Dracula having long wanted to cross swords with Van Helsing (wink wink)), trying to push further where it echoes the 1958:



It's fair to say that James Maxwell's Dr Seward is more an echo of Michael Gough's Arthur Holmwood than either of them are like any of the book characters. (Only, of course, Dr Seward breaks down a lot more as the supernatural challenges his rational world. And cries. And faints. Bless him. *coughs*)

I'm less sure about this one but 1968's Mina/Lucy scene echoes the Gina-Danielle scene in Brides of Dracula, only, of course, the 1968 has an actual kiss.



“Put your arms around me… I want you to kiss me, Danielle.” // "Kiss me, my dearest."

The most obvious bit is the ending:



(Which, again, gets taken further by Mina picking up the ring and her end credits transformation). Original tumblr post here.


The 1977 BBC version is interesting, because I thought that it basically went for a classic lit adaptation without much reference to any of its predecessors. Which I think is mostly true - I'm not sure I agree about the influence of the 1968 over it, save in the characterisation of Lucy, which I think must owe something to Susan George in the previous version - but I did catch one little visual Hammer salute. (As with before, I actually didn't quite gif the best match, because like pretty much all of these, I didn't have a clue it was going to be a thing until I spotted it).



Louis Jourdan says hi Christopher Lee. :-D (tumblr post.)


The one that took me by surprise, though, was that while the 2006 script-wise is its own batshit thing (or riffing on a version I don't know), visually it so constantly references the 1977 BBC version that I don't even think I've begun to scratch at the surface with this selection. (And once I started thinking of them together, I could see that, yeah, there's also a weird echo in the Dracula/Mina interactions, even if they come from a different place.)













original tumblr post here.


It's going to be interesting doing BSD in this light, because, though this blows my mind, the previous version it seems to be most obviously referencing is... my much-loved shaky old 1968 TV version. How very dare. 0_o

Comments

[theseatheseatheopensea]

Ohh, this post is extremely relevant to my interests, thank you for sharing!

[strange_complex]

Haha, I cam to say pretty much the same thing! I basically wish all posts on the internet were along these sorts of lines. I think we'd all be a lot happier.

[theseatheseatheopensea]

I couldn't agree more!

[thisbluespirit]

Happy to be of service!

[strange_complex]

As per my comment above, just basically *love* for this post. You're definitely 100% right that these adaptations are all very aware of each other. On the bit which you were slightly unsure about, in the 1968 Mina/Lucy scene, it's possible there are other missing links in between, like Helen approaching Diana while telling her she doesn't need Charles in Dracula Prince of Darkness. But the basic relationship is clear.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thanks! And, yes, with Hammer, I should have added (as I did in the tumblr post originally) that obviously to comment fairly on any Hammer influence on the 1968, I do need to see more of Hammer's films to that point. (I've actually got Prince of Darkness on my DVR, but I find films more tiring than TV and watching downstairs on my DVR more tiring than upstairs on DVD, so it's been waiting for ages now!)

I was most taken aback, as I said, by the 2006, which clearly decided to base its colour palette on the 1977. So even if the writers were off on whatever syphilitic kick they were into, the director was obv. paying attention to the past!

[strange_complex]

I still haven't seen the 2006 - I think I was a bit preoccupied when it first aired, as I'd just moved to Leeds, started the job I have now and got into a bit of a mess with an attempted house-purchase that ended up with me having to move house twice in three months. But both your caps and your comments about it make me want to, if just for the crack.

[thisbluespirit]

The 2006 is one of those things where in a way I'd enjoy it more if I didn't actually like so much about it! The cast is amazing, it's really pretty even now, and the syphilis thing could have been an interesting idea, just not like this. So perhaps I'm unfair to it. But they could have gone full on batshit & we could all have had fun or done a lovely & more straightforward adaptation with a perfect cast and instead they fell hard in between. The wasting of David Suchet is difficult to forgive, though, it has to be said.

[strange_complex]

I know exactly what you mean. I think the 1992 Coppola version has a similar issue - parts of it are an avant-garde art film, parts a fairly pedestrian straight adaptation, and they don't mesh well together. And you are right, David Suchet does not deserve to be wasted!

[thisbluespirit]

But it is also 100% an inexplicable 80s pop video that got turned into a film by mistake, and I feel that explains everything. :-D

[moon_custafer]

I’m keen to see your take on the newest version, as I watched it last month and quite liked it, but it’s different enough from all previous versions that I can’t really discuss it without spoilers. Let’s just say that the first two episodes take sections of the story that are usually skimmed over or entirely left out, and has great fun developing them.

[thisbluespirit]

I've read a fair few reviews on it, so I'm aware of quite a few spoilers, but I don't know when or if I'll get to see it. I actually don't really like horror as such, but simultaneously have quite a deep love of the gothic/Victorian ghost stories/sensation novels and the like, which is kind of misleading of me! So I think it might be too much for to watch easily - Steven Moffat is one thing, Mark Gattiss's brand of horror goes way, way past my limits. I gather that it also has the 1968 beat on intertextuality, too, but knowing MG, I'm not surprised!

If I can ever pick it up cheaply on DVD and feel better enough to tackle it, I probably will, but in the meantime, I'll probably hang about picking up old versions until then!

[liadt]

Coo, I wonder how much is deliberate and isn't. There's only so many ways to play a scene but then is there cultural osmosis like Olivier's R3? I could bore you further on this and H6.

[thisbluespirit]

I'm confident enough that most of these are deliberate - the 1968 version is quite clearly referencing both its main predecessors repeatedly throughout; Christopher Lee iconic enough that a brief nod even in the 1977 is hardly surprising. The 2006/1977 one is odder, but certainly visually, the director seems to have gone for the same palette and a lot of the same sort of images in a way that feels to me as if they must have been drawing on it in some way. I stopped and wondered - because you do have several of the same book scenes, but OTOH, so do the others, none of which mirror these two so closely at all.

But, yeah, it is always hard to be sure people didn't do it by accident! I'm not sure about Bram Stoker's Dracula and the 1968, because it seems unlikely on the face of it - and yet, once coincidence starts to stack up, it looks a lot less like coincidence, and it would have been shown in the US, so it's certainly possible it was there consciously or subconsciously in its DNA. But when at some point I finally gif BSD, I can have another look at that...

[moon_custafer]

I think playing spot-the-visual reference is compulsive for me. Yesterday I was looking at some of Norman Rockwell’s later, more political work, and it seemed so obvious, especially in the preparatory sketches, that Rockwell’s composition for ’Southern Justice’/Murder In Mississippi had been derived from Goya’s The Third of May; but the latter is usually cited as the inspiration for Picasso’s Guernica, which I think owes as much to Rubens’ The Horrors of War.

[liadt]

It's possible the 1968 version could have been on repeat on a little local station where the director of BSD once lived?

Maybe the 2006 one thought nobody would have remembered the 1977 one, but hadn't counted on you: rumbled!

[thisbluespirit]

Entirely possible!

Maybe the 2006 one thought nobody would have remembered the 1977 one, but hadn't counted on you: rumbled!

Or they've been waiting 14 years for someone to notice their cunning intertextuality! :-D

[shannonsequitur]

Speaking of vampires, have you seen What We Do in the Shadows? Usually I don’t rec stuff unless I’m really sure that the person will like it, but since I don’t know your threshold for comedic gore, I don’t know how much it would be your thing. Anyhow, I ADORE this movie.

[thisbluespirit]

I saw part of the TV series, but it wasn't really my thing, so I stopped. I have a low-level tolerance for horror, really, despite by Dracula-love. Dracula sits on just the right Gothic level for me, and most other things don't, so me going on about it is misleading!

But I did almost want to continue & I've heard the film is also good.

[shannonsequitur]

For what it’s worth, I liked the film way more than the series and I’m not a horror person at all either. But as I said, it kind of depends on your tolerance for comedic gore.

[singe]

What? No Dracula, Dead and Loving It?

[thisbluespirit]

I've only watched 6 Draculas so far!

[singe]

Is that ALL?! Jeebus, it feels like I've seen all of them, including Bunnicula. (A rabbit that drains vegetables.)

[thisbluespirit]

In my defence, I only started about 2 years ago! ;-p

[singe]

Ah! Me, I've always been a gothic ding dong (starting when I was five and Dark Shadows scared the life out of me.) I really recommend THAT since you like old TV and vampires.

[thisbluespirit]

I don't like horror and scary things, you see. It's taken me a long time to sort out that I nevertheless do have a love for certain kinds of gothic.

Dark Shadows is definitely something on my radar, but I'm trying to be modern now! (Ish.)