Dracula, Culture And Values From MediumsEssay Preview: Dracula, Culture And Values From MediumsReport this essayHollywood in known for making literary adaptations, and such adaptations will exploit context. Movies bring literary properties to the public that otherwise would not bother to read them. However the “marriage” of literature and film holds their own separate qualities.
It is precisely the point that Hollywood distorts and corrupts serious literature for the entertainment pleasures of a mass audience. In the task of comparing and contrasting the novel of “Dracula” to film extracts of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, values, meaning and context discovered lie between discrepancy and similarity. The change from differing mediums, novel and film, reveal characteristics and possibilities of narratives. Through the advancement of technology, modern writers have gained a cinematic approach to their writing. However Dracula, written in 1987 by Abraham Stoker, where the introduction of technology was gradual, forging inventions such as the typewriter and phonograph, made reference to in the novel, had no anticipation of what technology would have an effect on such writings. With society’s fascination with the supernatural, and love of technology, Dracula’s many adaptations, film, stage, have ensured its survival through the passage of time.
To date, the closest adaptation of the original novel is Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The basic overview of the story has the departure of Jonathan Harker from his fiancĩe Mina Murray in London, visiting Transylvania where he has an encounter with the evil Dracula. In England we are introduced to the characters of Lucy, a socialite, and her three suitors. Through terror Jonathan escapes back home, while Dracula arrives in London where he attacks Lucy, Mina’s friend, and Mina herself. Dr. Van Helsing arrives as help with the unknown, and in the end a climatic battle in the Transylvanian Castle Dracula takes place. Dracula is an epistolary novel that consists of journal entries, letters, telegram, phonographic recordings of Dr. Seward, and excerpts from newspaper articles, meaning it was written from a number of perspectives. The film has done its best to this and is witnessed through a variety of viewpoints.
Four key film extracts will be discussed. The introduction of Mina, starting of with a medium long shot of her in the Westenra house, which allows the audience to pay more attention to what is happening in the background, the mise-en-scene being a large decorated room of the Victorian era, including plants, chairs. The setting of the whole room is surrounded by glass, which has the ability to allow natural light. This shot slowly zooms in to the sound of the typewriter and turns into a reverse shot that is a close up on the face of Mina Murray. Her diligent use of the typewriter allows the background noise of chirping birds add to the innocence of her character. Lucy then enters the shot, which goes back to a medium long shot. Lucy and Mina are contrasted; Lucy represents threatening sexuality, whilst Mina represents socially accepted sexuality. Lucy before being vamped contains personality characteristics that are classified as unacceptable in Victorian society. In the film extract, the significance of Arabian Nights reveals Mina’s sexual inquisitiveness in contrast to Lucy’s fantastical application. The neat brown hair and conservative green dress of Mina in comparison to Lucy’s wavy red hair and flowing white dress, emphasize, from Coppola’s deliberate use, the wild passions of Lucy and steadiness of Mina.
This flows on to the evening meeting of Lucy’s three, very different suitors.The scene mentioned, was adapted from the diary entries of Mina, and letter correspondence between the two ladies, the change from medium has kept Mina’s perspective, however not presented in the style.
Lucy’s three suitors are stereotyped in Coppola’s film by the actors clever use of characterisation, where Quincey P. Morris plays the self assured, loud mouthed Texan; Dr. John Seward is the stumbling doctor with a soft heart; Arthur Holmwood her eventual chosen suitor, the man with money.
The “new” woman, sexual woman, posed a threat to Victorian society. This new breed was seen through Lucy Westenra. In this extract she goes “sleepwalking”, suggesting prostitution, for in the film she wears a glamorous red night dress and her movements are smooth and seductive. The layers of sound, including thunder and howling wolves, lighting being the lightning, foreshadow Lucy’s diabolic end. The deliberate use of colour in the night dress worn by Mina, white reflects her purity as the ideal woman, compared to Lucy’s passionate, desiring red.
From the beginning, Lucy is portrayed as a temptress, prone to promiscuity as she wishes to marry three men; however only after Dracula bit her, her sexuality heightened. In this extract, Lucy, in a way, gets what she desired through a blood transfusion. Blood represents the struggle for sexual ownership. Lucy writes that “”Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me”, after receiving her first blood transfusion from her fiancД© Holmwood. The Christian ideals of marriage being a sacred union between two becomes troublesome for Lucy receives further transfusions from Quincey and Seward. Such an act threatens the pious sacred image of marriage, which was maintained in Victorian England; rather Lucy’s desire of promiscuity is achieved.
The Gospel of John [ edit ]
The Gospels of John and His Passion are divided into chapters. There are other aspects to this, but in most cases it is clear that the central theme is the “spiritual mystery of the marriage”. There are many reasons, not least because this is one of the greatest Christian works of literature, and it is not the first time that John’s wife Mary suffered from sexual dysfunctions. This book is full of wonderful, sometimes frightening moments from a troubled marriage. One of the most striking scenes from the reading was where Mary reveals a revelation to John as being not a good man, but an abusive husband. In this chapter, Mary explains her problem and then describes her husband’s abusive behavior at the time. There is little to say about Mary, other than that the woman is angry, frustrated and has always been very, very afraid of Mary. The story concludes with John telling her,
A story of love can destroy, but it never destroy, a lie that, if it is true, we never heard.
It had been my hope that if God did not find out what was going on from his wife, I, Mary, and other women, his love would stop but for me, and I would forgive myself for this terrible mistake. It is true, after all, this story was so different from all of Mary’s, and so different that in the face of such a situation, I am sure I did everything I could to reconcile my conscience, to my spiritual freedom, to be saved from this unhappy story, to be loved.
I have yet to meet with another man, or any other woman, whom I want from Mary. I have not yet met her, but she does not know me; I am not married. I love her. I have met all of her and it still happens to them and it still happens to them. We are each others children, and in the midst of this I see her. Her face is pale, as the sun is setting upon it. She is crying out to God. A thousand years ago she was crying out at God; then suddenly it seems to me I should see her. I am trying to understand, to say something, but in doing so, that I am not the most wise. I have seen her before at the church and when my father was away working, I heard her cry out: “Mary, it is not right, I must leave her. I am a virgin like you, which is what one of us is going through when we are separated: I must go back to my village, and find I shall be reunited with you.” I felt she could not understand me. Perhaps she could not understand me. I knew I did not know her. Perhaps I just did not meet her, maybe she could only answer with a question. I have met others in the church, but none have come together to understand her.