More thoughts on Dracula

[cleolinda]

I don't know if Dracula seems so different to me now because I'm older, or because I'm a different reader, or because I'm a different writer than I used to be, but... it was a (say it with me) different experience this time around. (Of course, this is also what happened when I reread Jane Eyre, formerly my favorite book, for the first time in many

Comments

[cupcakery]

1) I always figured the sailors jumped overboard/committed suicide once they realized what was on the ship.

2) There has never been a Dracula film adaptation that I have liked. Boo-urns.

3) However, I do adore Nosferatu, especially when double-billed with Shadow of the Vampire.

[meleth]

I like the remake of Nosferatu, featuring interminable panoramic views of the German countryside, accompanied by Wagner.

[annlarimer]

I remember sitting through it and thinking, Gosh, that Mercer Meyer illustration on the poster sure is pretty.

[meleth]

Mountains! Lots of mountains! Look at the beautiful wildflowers! VATERLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!

[trillianastra]

Abraham van Helsing, the first ever lolcat. Er. Well, you know what I mean...

Also, you may not have seen this but the BBC did an adaptation in 2006 that used the seaside-cemetery scene, though I can't remember how faithful to the book it was.

[meleth]

I think it diverged fairly dramatically from the book at certain points. Like having everybody meet Dracula when he appeared in the cemetery. It was all very odd.

[clutzycricket]

And the syphillis! ...And actually pretty much everything.

(The one with Marc Warren and Sophia Myles, right?)

[meleth]

Yes. And it was all very sexy, but made no sense.

[cleolinda]

I get really bored during the endless traveling back to the castle in the last quarter of the book, although I do stop and slow down for Mina getting vampirish.

Honestly, I do love the Coppola Dracula, but... not because it's anything like the book. I was obsessed with that movie as a young teenager, although, to my credit, I was obsessed with that Hildebrandt illustrated edition for about two years before that, so I came by the Dracula fixation honestly. (I first saw that book when I was 11 or 12, and I was just never really the same afterward.)

The reason I think it would be great to go back to the book is because there would be so many things people never really use, so it would actually be fresh to the viewer, but you can still go back and say, "It's all there, all of this is actually THERE." It's new and it's (reasonably) faithful all at the same time.

[maxineofarc]

I HAVE THAT EDITION

[cleolinda]

IS IT NOT AMAZING?

I checked it out from our library like ten different times as a teenager. I finally was able to hunt down a copy of my very own, courtesy of the internet, some ten years later.

[sunni_sideup]

Van Helsing's lolcatishness was one of the things I adored so much about the book when I first read it. My favorite line: "The milk that is spilt does not cry out afterwards." Oh, Van Helsing. Your language barriers are adorable.

I also love that Mina is the most capable one of all of them.

[cleolinda]

OH MAN, HOW DID I FORGET THAT ONE. That's like the best Helsingism in there.

[meleth]

I also like his rambling about King Laugh. And the version I listened to on tape has the guy doing Van Helsing using this gruff, pseudo-German accent, and it's the best thing ever. Except for the guy who's trying to sound Texan, and managing nothing but a flat affect.

[smu]

You have summed up all my feeling about Dracula and touched on new things to consider. I got this version of Dracula for Christmas, now I will have to pull the tome out and read it!

You're awesome.

[cleolinda]

Heh, thanks. I have one or two older things I've written about the book that I'm including on the M15M Vampires footnotes as well. You could dig them up yourself with careful Google-fu, so I'm really just including them for convenience rather than as new material. But still.