Giant Sucking Sound: Ensemble acting in "Bram Stoker's Dracula"

Get yer garlic out, it's Vampire Blog-a-Thon time! Nathaniel at The Film Experience will spend the day compiling blog entries on vampire films. Check TFE for updates and more posts as the day progresses. Here, I give you my thoughts on the wretched ensemble acting that is Bram Stoker's Dracula.

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My dad and I had a theory about how to tell whether bad behavior was due to an individual or an organization. We figured one jerk was a jerk, two jerks was a coincidence and three jerks was a policy. A similar parallel can be drawn for bad film performances. One bad performance is bad acting; two is bad casting; three or more is bad directing. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, just about every performance is bad to one degree or another, meaning it's a case of bad acting, casting and directing. Trifecta!

Oh, put it away, Gary.

Speaking of which, please read the following in your best bad Romanian accent: "I regrrrret to infuhrm you dat deh wideos herrre are... truncated from deir oritchinal length. Quick-eh-Time and I had a ... differrrence of opinion as to de files. I will... resurrect these files and give dem new and longer life so dat you may glory in de crrrrap of dese ... pehrforrrrmances." (Translation: I'll update the video files later today so they're much longer and feature more examples of bad acting.)

And now, in your best Winona-Ryder-in-Autumn-in-New-York nasal whine, say, "They haaave been updated!" Yeaaa!

There's a kind of shared responsibility for the awful performances in this movie. Let's start with one of the easiest targets, Keanu Reeves. Over the years, I've grown to think that Reeves really isn't that bad an actor. He's quite good at playing the ordinary guy who finds himself in jacked-up circumstances -- and while that isn't much of a stretch, there's also an earnest quality to him that lends itself to roles with a spiritual bent. The archetypal Reeves character is a regular person who truly wants to do good, he just doesn't know how.

Now, based on those qualifications, you'd think he'd be fine as Jonathan Harker, the law clerk who finds himself in a battle for his soul and that of the woman he loves. But the key thing about Reeves is that he's an incredibly modern, American actor. He simply doesn't work in any time period before the mid-1960s or as any other nationality. Even his vocal tone clashes with the English accent he attempted; his entire presence in the movie just doesn't fit. See?

Reeves' bad performance is mostly a result of bad casting. Hell, I felt sorry for the guy, especially when he had to play the straight man to Gary Oldman's over-the-top lunatic Dracula. With Oldman, the problem isn't bad acting or bad casting, it's bad direction and, to an extent, bad screenwriting. (Oh, yeah, the crap runs all the way down to the script.)

Here's one example: at several points, Oldman adopts a kind of crouch stance during times of emotional intensity. It's a very animalistic posture, and was probably encouraged by the director to reflect Dracula's animal nature. And that would be great and cool if they weren't trying to pitch Dracula as a tragic romantic lead. I mean, he becomes a bat-dude, a wolf-man and a tower of rats. Hubba hubba.

There's a major disconnect between the official canon character -- y'know, Bram Stoker's freaking Dracula -- and this swooning goth-boy that director Francis Ford Coppola and screenwriter James V. Hart envisioned for their lead. They didn't seem to think the romantic character through very well, either, especially in terms of his interactions with his reincarnated beloved. If there was any conflict within Dracula between pursuing his One True Love and seducing then envampirating her best friend (tacky!), we never see it, and the result is an illogical, contradictory mess of a lead character.

(Because it cannot be said enough in this movie: Weave!)

Oldman throws himself headlong into every aspect of the portrayal: the heartbroken count, the bloodsucking fiend, the nearly impenetrable accent. This is the danger of having a go-for-broke actor paired with a go-for-broke director; neither of them can be counted on for discretion or subtlety, and sometimes the only way to pull off the ancient freak with hair boobies on his head is to underplay it. If not, you get more Vincent Price than a House-of-Wax-meets-Batman mash-up.

Anthony Hopkins is usually at his best when underplaying a character; he can use the slightest movement of his face to suggest a maelstrom under a character's surface. But when exposed to the madness of Coppola's direction in this film, Sir Tony chomped the scenery like it was prime rib. He's obviously having fun with some moments (who wouldn't want to hump Billy Campbell's leg?), but the contrast these scenes provide to Van Helsing's grim work later in the film doesn't really flesh out the character so much as it makes him seem as inconsistent as Dracula.

That's not to say that all the acting in the film is bad. A few moments in Oldman's and Hopkins' performances manage to sneak through without being cranked up to 11 and are quite affecting in their honesty. Sadie Frost does some very nice work as Lucy Westenra finally succumbs to the Count's disease, although her initial scenes bear the distinct taint of this film's problematic direction. Lucy's early sweetness is amplified to the point of cloying saccharine, which makes the loss of her to vampirism less of a loss, frankly.

This might sound bizarre, but to me the best performance in the whole film is Tom Waits' portrayal of Renfield. Renfield's frequent moments of lunacy make sense, given that he is in an actual asylum. But Waits managed to convey the mannered, precise, somewhat fussy man Renfield must have been before losing his mind to Dracula, and his agony over being betrayed by his master is genuinely chilling. That said, neither he nor the usually impeccable Richard E. Grant escape the film's overwrought tendencies.

(I kinda love the lack of urgency shown by the dudes in cage masks near the end. "Yeah, yeah... okay, peel him off... whap, whap." This kind of thing must have happened pretty regularly at Dr. Seward's Day Spa.)

If you've done a little process of elimination, you can figure out who I'm singling out for the worst performance in the film. Here we hit the jackpot: a bad actor, put in the wrong film, given either no direction or bad direction (or, worse, the takes that made it into the finished product were the best they could possibly be). I give you... Winona Ryder as Mina Murray Harker.

I've been racking my brains, trying to think of a Ryder performance that I liked that didn't boil down to "smart-ass teenager." Even in The Age of Innocence, she was a kind of stealth smart-ass teenager. When asked to go outside that boundary, Ryder is a total flatline of an actress. There's just nothing there, and that's more than a little bit of a problem when her character is supposed to be the moral and emotional center of the film.

At one point, Mina has just taken absinthe and begins describing Transylvania (a scene I haven't included in the Ryder video clip because it's so freaking boring). Her voice sounds like she's reading a script for the lamest travelogue imaginable, and her face does ... nothing. Well, there might be an eyebrow movement in there, but I can't be sure. If I were to direct Ryder in this scene, I'd make it clear to her: "You're hallucinating and seeing a place that's familiar to you, even though you've never been there. You're freaked out and homesick and surprised by the homesickness and just generally pretty damn confused." Well, that's assuming I hadn't fired the casting director and gotten a better actress for the part. Ryder plays the scene as if Coppola had told her, "Transylvania is very pretty," and that's it. I can't tell exactly who's at fault here, so I'm going to blame everyone.

In a way, the bad acting in Bram Stoker's Dracula is impressive in its comprehensive nature. You've got some fair actors badly miscast, some good actors given wretched direction and at least one just-plain-bad actor. When taken collectively, they produce one giant sucking sound.

Comments

[Cheesemeister]

I respect the talents of the actors in this horrid piece of crap calling itself a film. But other than watching for a laugh, this is the worst "Dracula" I've ever seen!

[Thom]

When I watch this film I find myself focusing on all of the nifty old-style techniques and camera effects (just finished watching Dreyer's creepy Vampyr (1932) and discovered the inspiration for the my-shadow-moves-before-I-move effect). Your rant provides a possible reason why my focus is on these: I'm trying to avoid the performances! LOL. Good job. Happy Halloween!

[Nathaniel R]

wow. i actually love this film but reading this crystallizes that it ain't the acting producing the love.

it be the costumes/production/gonzo-ness of it all.

p.s. love the clips. god bless youtube. really.

[Bob]

The YouTube takes me right to that bad place of memory you want me to be.

I saw this when it came out, loved the first ten minutes just for their sheer visual brilliance. (I'm a sucker for extreme stylization.) It was all the more impressive given that I'd actually been to see the sets during the production (the storyboard artist was an old junior high school friend).

And then the story set it. I don't remember being bothered by Winona R.'s performance, but I thought it was a downright bizarre (not in good way) work from Hopkins. But yeah, in the fairly full annal of lame Keanu performances, this strikes as one of the lamest. However, I don't think it's really the period issue. He was okay in "Dangerous Liaisons" -- but that was under Stephen Frears who is a more careful director than Coppolla, I think it's safe to say.

Of course, the real villain here, as far as I'm concerned, is the screenplay. Having Drac be redeemed by love was pretty embarrassing -- and I think Coppola was trying to borrow from the Jean Cocteau "Beauty and the Beast" there, which makes it even worse.

BTW -- I've seen Keanu be great twice in offbeat comic roles. Once was a the Che-like wolf boy in Alex Winter's "Freaked" and, more recently, as a new age dentist in last year's "Thumbsucker." Really hilarious stuff.

[Cath]

I absolutely agree that the movie is gorgeous to look at; it won Oscars for costumes, makeup and visual effects. And Coppola can compose some beautiful, fascinating shots. So maybe the key to enjoying this movie is to watch it in Spanish?

[Tonio Kruger]

No, it isn't.

[Oldman All the way]

It can be easily said Oldmans performance is over the top, that goes without saying. Come on. What you have to factor inn is that its Gary (INSANE) Oldman one of the finest original actors to emerge in the last 20 years who brings a vibrant fresh and unsettling, unnerving campness that feels plausible for a man trying to blend his way into an alien society after 400 years. Flamboyant and masterful come to mind every-time he makes a certain gesture, he fills the character with even more mystery which only makes me want more of Oldman. An actor having fun with his character always comes across on screen whether it be Depp, playing Captain Jack Sparow or Brando as the Godfather it makes the audience believe. Every-time Oldman appears, especially as Old Drac, he has that slight glint in his eye, that knowing smile as he makes the deal with Harker (priceless). The way he curls his words tickles me with excitement seeing this old weak pale being teasing Harker only fills me with dread as you already know of what the character is capable of. Having Oldmans Dracula playful and effeminate makes him more unsuspecting to the character of Harker, thats one of the amazing aspects of having something as camp but also unstoppable make him more terrifying and mystical. As for everyone else shit. Except Hopkins he’s cool

[Lesbianj Sexi]

Thanks for taking the time and effort in creating this content to share your knowledge with all of us.

[Kim]

I couldn't have said a word of it better myself. You completely articulated everything I was thinking. Love it.
I really love this movie, despite it being HORRIBLE. By no means is it a GOOD film, but dammit it's entertaining.

[Frekmenjin]

Movie's great, love it so much. One of the best movies I've ever seen. And Gary Oldman,... yeah, horny... smile

[Августа]

Автор[url=http://www.shtukaturki.net][/url] молодца, очень интересная статья!

[Jess]

I type in "Bad acting" in google images and Gary Oldman is what I get? WTF?????