Adaptation Of Dracula

Dracula is the most filmed novel and most enduring literary character why do you think this? The reasons for Dracula’s hugely enduring literary legacy change as society changes, for example early on in its release perhaps it would have been consumed by an audience who wished to be scared, and so ‘Nosferatu’ was made where all themes of sexual ambiguity, lust and self consciousness are removed allowing the focus to be shifted on the sole horror of Dracula. As audiences progressed from simply being fascinated the elements of pure horror to Stoker’s more lurid themes of sexual frustration, homosexuality and his own emasculation.
‘Nosferatu’ was the first motion picture adaptation of Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ and one of the first films altogether. Although
Stoker saturated his text with such widespread techniques of horror – both new and old – that ‘an entirely true adaptation’ to Stoker’s original would be tremendously difficult albeit impossible to execute as there are so many different interpretations, and a film is only meant to be contained within a few hours at most. Coppola’s adaptation for example is more sympathetic towards Dracula, portraying him as a handsome but sad, lovesick warrior miserable in his immortality. Whereas in the original adaptation of ‘Nosferatu’ Dracula is portrayed as an unsympathetic monster who is terribly ugly and seeks only to feast on his prey. Dracula’s character is very unique and interesting, and in film character is arguably the most important element of storytelling, without it all the lines of dialogue that go through an audience member’s head will be meaningless – they won’t care and so by this rationale, filming Dracula allows the filmmaker to not have to worry about designing a likeable and interesting character; instead, they can focus on the other elements of the story, and it is through these other elements that an audience can find interest, and why Dracula is able to be recreated year after
However the only reason these themes were so successful within the book was because the majority of them were reflection of Stoker’s own self; up until Stoker was seven he was bedbound by an unknown illness, he wrote an extremely sexually suggestive letter to Walt Whitman, Florence Stoker, Bram’s wife was also apparently ‘cursed by her beauty and her husband tended to retreat from her in to a world of his own’ all of which are very prevalent throughout