Warning: This piece accommodates spoilers for Nosferatu.
Get your Gothic garb on and maintain your crucifix shut, as a result of Nosferatu is now arriving in theaters. The Robert Eggers-directed remake of the traditional 1922 movie has been a very long time coming, having first been introduced all the way back in 2015. Clearly a ardour undertaking for the auteur filmmaker, it’s dropping into theaters nationwide on Christmas Day to largely stellar reviews, together with a 9/10 rave from IGN.
However, regardless of all of the reward for the movie’s performances, cinematography, and interval set design, Nosferatu continues the custom of variations and reworkings of the unique Dracula novel messing up important parts of the supply materials. This drawback is so endemic that sure facets of the e book have been fully overwritten within the fashionable creativeness by adaptational modifications being echoed in model after model over the many years.
So as we speak, let’s check out what these modifications are, and why the unique novel nonetheless doesn’t have a definitive movie adaptation.
An Ancient Evil
To guarantee everybody’s on the identical web page, let’s begin with a short refresher: Dracula, by Irish creator Bram Stoker, is a Gothic horror novel printed in 1897. The e book is written in epistolary format, which means that the textual content takes the type of notes, letters and paperwork written in-universe by characters within the story. There’s little argument amongst literary students that it’s not probably the most well-known and influential work of vampire fiction ever written, with Dracula himself changing into one of the recognizable characters in fashionable tradition. But regardless of that, a lot of the context across the novel’s precise plot and characters has been obscured within the fashionable consciousness due to how its variations have warped the widespread perceptions of them, and this started with the earliest movie and stage productions.
The authentic Nosferatu, an unlicensed German movie adaptation from director F. W. Murnau in 1922, condensed and reimagined a lot of the plot and characters. The movie moved the motion from England to Germany and renamed everybody within the forged, with probably the most well-known instance being turning Count Dracula into Count Orlok. This was principally a failed try to keep away from copyright infringement lawsuits. The 1924 Dracula play written by Hamilton Deane (and revised into its extra well-known model in 1927 by John L. Balderston) likewise condensed the plot and forged, eradicating all of the sections exterior of England and merging Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra into one character named Lucy Seward in Balderston’s iteration. The play served as the idea for Universal’s 1931 movie directed by Tod Browning, starring Bela Legosi as Dracula, a job he had beforehand performed on stage.
Some of probably the most distinguished deviations from the supply materials that grew to become the default began in these early variations. Vampires dying in daylight? Not within the e book. Dracula is merely weakened by daylight, however he can stroll round in it simply tremendous. The 1922 film launched the concept of vampires being killed by the solar. Dracula being a suave aristocrat who charms his victims? First launched within the 1924 play. In the e book he begins off decrepit and repulsive, and later morphs right into a much less monstrous kind however nonetheless isn’t thought of good-looking or charismatic. Van Helsing being a vampire knowledgeable? Not till the 1931 movie. In the novel, Van Helsing is merely an eccentric professor who’s studied the occult, and he’s by no means encountered vampires earlier than. But most variations now depict Van Helsing as Dracula’s nemesis and a seasoned warrior towards the supernatural, when he’s actually simply guessing his method via it within the e book.
Hell, Dracula isn’t even staked within the e book. He’s decapitated and stabbed within the coronary heart with a knife. But these are particulars. If you need to see the place Dracula variations have really erred, it’s within the depiction of the e book’s two main feminine characters: Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra.
nineteenth Century Women
As a narrative, Dracula has all the time been extra of an ensemble piece, but when there’s one character who deserves to be referred to as the protagonist of the e book, it’s Mina Harker. She doesn’t seem for the primary few chapters, however as soon as she enters the narrative she turns into probably the most pivotal determine within the conflict towards Dracula due to her intelligence, composure, and loyalty to her mates and family members. She doesn’t bodily combat Dracula, however she’s instrumental to his defeat by assembling the letters and paperwork making up the textual content of the e book, offering the analysis materials the heroes want to determine Dracula’s weaknesses. She helps everybody with their private crises as they battle to psychologically endure the scenario. And though she is attacked and mind-controlled by the Count, she turns their psychic connection towards him via pressure of will and divulges his location to her comrades, an act that straight results in Dracula’s demise.
Sadly, this model of Mina merely doesn’t exist in variations. She typically both has her position decreased, is merged or swapped together with her finest buddy Lucy, or is altered right into a helpless (or worse, prepared) sufferer. That final one is what occurs in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 movie, the place Winona Ryder performs Mina. This model is a whole betrayal of the unique character as a result of as an alternative of being outlined by her mind and ethical fortitude, she’s a brainless damsel who falls in love with the Count as a result of she’s apparently the reincarnation of his lengthy misplaced spouse. What makes this particularly egregious is that within the e book, Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood towards her will in an unmistakable metaphor for sexual assault. This means the film takes a personality who’s for all intents and functions raped by Dracula and has her lovingly fawn over him. It’s totally reprehensible and completely misses the purpose of who Mina is.
Lucy Westenra receives related remedy. In the e book she’s outlined by her innate goodness, a pure soul who’s tragically destroyed by Dracula and changed into a vampire, forcing the three males who love her to assist hunt her down and destroy her. In Coppola’s movie, she’s reimagined as a shameless flirt who performs her suitors towards one another and always talks in sexual innuendos. By portraying Lucy on this method, her sexuality turns into one thing she winds up being punished for, which she is by getting changed into a monster that have to be put down. Like with Mina, it’s a whole misunderstanding of the character’s authentic context and what position they’re meant to play within the story’s thematic framework. It’s additionally simply weird to see feminine characters from a e book printed within the Eighteen Nineties be much less regressive than their counterparts in movie variations launched a century later. Sadly, the brand new tackle Nosferatu doesn’t do a lot to vary this.
Symphony of the Light
The new Nosferatu begins with our Mina analogue Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) calling out into the evening, solely to be answered by Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). The thorny and unsettling connection between the 2 kinds the spine of the narrative, with the film’s most attention-grabbing concept being that Ellen isn’t fully turned off by how monstrous and disgusting this model of the character will be. From there, the movie follows a lot of the fundamental plot define of the novel, albeit with the character names from the 1922 movie used as an alternative. However, like with Coppola’s movie, Ellen/Mina’s character traits aren’t stored. She principally screams and cries via the movie fairly than maintaining her wits about her, and he or she clearly betrays her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) via her want for Orlok as an alternative of being loyal like within the e book.
The film tries to get round this by having Ellen be the character who “defeats” Orlok, however the best way it’s accomplished saps the selection of its energy. Ellen sacrifices herself by inviting Orlok into her room and permitting him to feed on her, maintaining him in place lengthy sufficient for the solar to rise and kill him. However, the film by no means reveals her (or anybody else, for that matter) studying that daylight will kill Orlok; it’s one thing the film assumes everybody is aware of due to how distinguished that weak spot is in fashionable tradition. Nor does Ellen forcefully maintain Orlok down when daylight pours via the home windows to make sure she finishes the job, she simply gently caresses him. Orlok’s demise taking place this manner additionally simply makes him appear dumb. Did he not know the solar was rising? The questions on how this ending performs out forestall it from functioning as a significant subversion of earlier Mina variations. It additionally leads to Ellen’s demise, which means she, like Coppola’s Lucy earlier than her, is being punished for her sexuality as a result of she unwittingly unleashed Orlok on everybody by indulging her needs.
To be honest to Eggers, it’s clear his curiosity was extra in remaking Murnau’s movie than adapting Stoker’s e book, however that no different filmmaker over time has accomplished the latter properly seems like a missed alternative. We haven’t even touched on how Terence Fisher’s 1958 movie starring Christopher Lee screws over Jonathan Harker, how John Badham’s 1979 movie starring Frank Langella as soon as once more cuts all of the scenes exterior of England, or how final 12 months’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter from director André Øvredal takes an ideal concept in adapting the boat chapter as a full movie and ruins it by portraying Dracula as a generic slasher monster with virtually no dialogue. It’s past absurd what number of occasions this story has been tailored to stage and display with none of the foremost works actually getting the supply materials. Perhaps sometime we’ll see an ideal model of Stoker’s textual content, however for now, that dream is as illusory because the mist Dracula can remodel into.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can observe his fixations on Bluesky.
