Cocina china

Dracula is a novel of the Irish writer Bram Stoker, written at the end of the 19th century. While taking as a starting point a historical character, Vlad Ţepeş (Vlad III Empaleur), Voïvode of Valachie at the 15th century, the author made a Vampire of it, i.e. an immortal being which repaît blood of the alive ones. The character of Dracula was exploited by other authors and gradually reached notoriety: it is from now on about one of the most known monsters in the western world.

Attributes

The name

The name of the character of fiction merges with that of the historical character. It is derived from the substantive dragon which, in Rumanian, says dracul , the family of Vlad Ţepeş having been named by the historians the Drăculea . Indeed, the father of Vlad Tepes was called Vlad II Dracul - Vlad II the Dragon - because he was member of the Ordre of the Dragon. In addition, dracul does not mean only " dragon" in Rumanian, but also " diable". It is this syntactic ambiguity which was developed in the novel of Stoker, anxious to underline the démoniaque aspect of the character.

Physical portrait

In the imaginary collective, the count Dracula is represented like an aristocrat in the force of the age, large and slender, with fine features, the pale dye and the black hair. He is equipped with a funereal clothing and a large black cape with red lining. Actually, this representation evolved/moved in time. Original Dracula, that of Bram Stoker, did not correspond to this painting: it was about an old man - who renovated throughout the novel - rather ugly and pushing back, having a large and thin body, an aquiline nose, broussailleux eyebrows, rare hair with the temples, a thick moustache, short and strong fingers, hairy palms and a stinking breath. It did not have anything the tempting fop! Bram Stoker, to make the portrait of its monster, took as a starting point the theses of Lombroso, very in vogue at the time: it was then believed, indeed, that the shape of the face of a man indicated his character and the portrait of Dracula corresponds to that of the criminal type. In addition, David J. Skal, who raises several references to work of William Shakespeare in the novel, connects Dracula with Hamlet which, also, was to him vêtu of black. The Nosferatu of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, as for him, is also ugly and worrying, and marries several of the physical characteristics of the character of Stoker.

Moral portrait

One does not count any more the adaptations of Dracula , so much those are numerous. However, none of these adaptations delivers the same reading to us. The character of Dracula has this of attractive which it represents a genuine catalyst: in him crystallize of the very diverse representations according to the personality of the people who evoke it. It seems that he has this capacity to release from the phantasms, of waitings, but also of the cultural representations.

Dracula de Stoker has already this characteristic. The structure of the novel is particular: the majority of the characters hold, indeed, a newspaper and it is the assembly of these various testimonys which constitutes the end result. In these testimonys, the vampire, most of the time, is presented like a monster without heart, a representation of the absolute evil. But it is not always the case. It is thus remarkable which Mina Harker tests of pity in its connection. As for Abraham Van Helsing, it is truly fascinated, as well by the historical character as Dracula was than by the Vampire itself; it will be filled with wonder, thus, of the ingeniousness of which the prince of darkness made proof to prepare his voyage until London: “ If another among not-deaths had tried this same company, every century which were and those which will be there would perhaps not have been enough (…). It achieved all all alone, all alone, starting from a tomb in ruin at the bottom of a country forgotten ” (p 516-518).

In the other adaptations, the vampire appears with different character traits. In Nosferatu, phantom of the night , he is a true victim, prisoner of the time which does not leave it in peace: he thus acknowledges in Jonathan his pain not to be able to die. In films of the Hammer, Dracula is certainly a cruel character, but it also has a certain direction of justice: in Horror off Dracula , if it decides promised in marriage vampiriser of Jonathan it is, affirms Van Helsing, because the latter killed the woman-vampire which lived with him; in the same way, in a mass for Dracula , the vampire undertakes to make kill the men who assassinated that which enabled him to reappear of its ashes. The Dracula of Francis Ford Coppola reveals us, him, a character who frankly causes the sympathy of the spectator by reversing the symbols of the good and the evil: it is indeed because of the cruelty of the church that Dracula reached the state of Vampire. Its attaching character is also expressed, paradoxically, by its humanity: it appears able to like, cry, test sympathy.

It would be interesting to in general study the evolution of the perception of Dracula compared to that of the characters malefic. Since a certain number of years, it seems that their portraits acquired a real depth: the authors try to explain the reasons which pushed these characters to choose the way of the evil, and this choice was often done in the suffering. This depth places the reader or the spectator in situation of sympathy with respect to the character malefic. One can refer, as examples, the characters of Dark Vador ( Star Wars ), of Hannibal Lecter ( the Silence of the lambs ), of Keyser Soze ( Usual Suspects ).

NB: the readers who this aspect interests will be able to supplement their reflection while referring, inter alia, with the article of Gilles Ménagaldo entitled Figurations of the myth of Dracula to the cinema: text with the screen appeared in Dracula: myth and metamorphoses .

Capacities and incapacities

The faculties lent to Dracula vary according to the versions. Thus, in the novel of Bram Stoker, the king vampire has many capacities: he can transform into bat, dog, wolf, grains of dust on moonbeams, in fog, to be done large or reduce, make themselves main of the elements (storm, fog, thunder) but in a limited space, to be made obey certain animals such as the wolf, the fox, the rat, the owl, the bat or the moth, to penetrate the thought of the beings which drank its blood; inter alia, he knows the Nécromancie, the Télépathie, the Hypnose. As for the blood which he drinks, this one makes it renovate and become stronger, but the fact not of drinking some does not call into question its immortal character.

In films, they are especially its capacities of transformation into bat and its immortality which are exploited. In the nightmare of Dracula , however, the scenario writer chose not to grant to the character this capacity to change appearance.

The novel also details a great number of incapacities; thus, Dracula cannot penetrate in somebody without to be invited beforehand there, can sleep only out of devoted ground, cannot cross a running water, can cross waters running only with high tide or when the sea is slack, cannot profit from its capacities during the day. Its body does not project any shade, its image is not reflected in any mirror. It can move only at midnight or with fallen the day and can remain only in the ground in which it was buried of alive sound, in the tomb of a being that it would have vampirisé or in that of a damnée heart - one committed suicide for example. Garlic, a crucifix, devoted host or water bénite push back it; a wild branch of rose tree, posed on its coffin, prevents it from leaving there.

In addition, there exist several means to destroy it. The novel of Bram Stoker indicates several means: he transperser the heart using a pile, to decapitate it or draw a ball bénite in its tomb. In Nosferatu , Murnau indicates one means: a pure woman must retain the vampire all the night and make him forget the song of the cock… It is this indication which led the other scenario writers - except Coppola - to exploit the idea that light of day was it also harmful for the Vampire S.

How Dracula did it become vampire?

The vampires, at least those which the modern Western versions give us to see, become it while having been bitten by another vampire. So certain authors in general apply this law to our character - Anne Rice, for example, for which Dracula would have been bitten by one of the characters that it created, Lestat -, other explanations are advanced. Because Dracula is a quite particular Vampire: for its creator, Bram Stoker, it acts of the original vampire, the first vampire.

The novel does not advance however an explanation as for the accession of Dracula to the statute of drinker of blood: we know only that, like its similar, its heart cannot reach eternal peace; the elimination of the king vampire is thus a delivery, as a character of the novel notices it: “an expression of peace was spread on this face where never I would not have believed that could not appear nothing like it” (p 600). The novel does nothing but point out the cruelty and the taste of the capacity of the mortal who was Dracula, suggesting thus that there the explanation of its damnation resides.

Not very many is the authors having exploited the idea of the birth of the Dracula vampire. In the novel the files of Dracula , Rudorff advances an assumption: mortal, Dracula would have helped beautiful a gipsy which would have promised to him, in exchange, the eternal life. In film of Francis Ford Coppola, it would have chosen to be diverted Church, whose representatives had refused that his wife is buried under pretext which it was about a suicide. Another possible and original track is that advanced by the film " Dracula 2001". Indeed, according to the scenario, Dracula would not be other than Judas Iscariote, the Apostle of Jesus condemned for his treachery. Its allergy to the money would be caused by the reward which it would have received, its fear of the sun by its suicide at dawn, etc

Fields of representation

Literature

The character of Dracula was born in 1897, in the Romance writes in epistolary form , by the Irish writer Bram Stoker which took as a starting point the historical character Vlad Ţepeş called " Dracula" and famous particularly cruel being. Nevertheless, its character is not strictly speaking Vlad Ţepeş become vampire. The historical character was used to him to give a certain realism to his history, and especially to give him his name. Bram Stoker was documented much on the legends of vampires to create its character, and he discovered Vlad Ţepeş whereas he at the head had already his book. Jack the eventror, who prevails in London in 1888, and to which one quickly gave a supernatural dimension, also could influence it (part of the novel being held in London).

Dracula is not the first novel Fantastique to exploit the topic of the vampire: as of 1819, John Polidori publishes The Vampyre inspired of an original idea of Lord Byron. In the following years, several authors exploited the potential of one monster to human appearance. Dracula however marked a crucial stage in the fantastic literature and in particular that approaching the topic of the vampires. The success of the book and the popularity of the character attest some still today. More than the direction of the account and the control of the suspense of Stoker, it is the personality of its main character who founds the myth. The count Dracula, beyond the creature of terror to the supernatural capacities, is before a whole damné human being, a not-death, and it is this complex dimension which ensures its charm.

Indeed, Dracula is a monster but also one is rejected, one rejected of God, a person to be feared but also to feel sorry for. Mina Harker enjoint his/her companions to test at his place not hatred but of pity, which does not exclude obviously from the determination for of débarasser. Extract:

" But it is not a work of hatred. The poor being which because all this suffering is most unhappy of all. Think which will be its joy with him also when, its malfaisant double being destroyed, the best share of itself survives, its immortal heart. You must also have pity of him, without that preventing your hands from making it disappear from this monde" (Bram Stoker, Dracula, chapter 23).

The Dracula of Bram Stoker, first Dracula

Synopsis

Jonathan Harker, clerk of London notary, is sent in Transylvania near the count Dracula: the boyard indeed wishes to acquire a house with London, where it wishes to go soon. But in spite of the courtesy of his host, the Jonathan young person feels terribly badly at ease his involved, without he not managing to precisely define the causes of his apprehension. Occur then of the strange events…

Around the work of writing of the novel

The account is thus played between the England and the Transylvania at the 19th century, in particular in a withdrawn castle of the Carpates. Basing itself on mythological accounts, Bram Stoker creates the character of the count Dracula, an at the same time monstrous and refined aristocratic vampire. The first part of the book, which is held in the castle of the count, magistralement is magistralement tinted of a strange and sinister atmosphere.

The account is epistolary and is composed of fragments of the diaries and letters of the protagonists, as well as articles of newspapers. It is thus an account written with the first nobody but who marries several points of view, which underlines the ambiguity of the character of the Count. Stoker will introduce several characteristics which were, until there, absent in the folk myth of the vampire or its literary incarnations:

• the absence of reflection in the Mirror S;
• capacity to be transformed into Bat (the association of the vampire and the bat goes back to discovered South American species, drinkers of blood, but it is Stoker which will make it impossible to circumvent).

Although the name of the Count is copied on the nickname allotted to Vlad Ţepeş (the father of this one was called " dracul" and the suffix " a" , in Rumanian, " means; wire de"), real character that Bram Stoker would have discovered during its readings on the history of the Transylvania, the novelist took as a starting point little the historical figure. It is on the other hand manifest that its Dracula is deeply influenced by Ruthven de Polidori ( The Vampyre ), as well on the plans physique and sociological as on that their emotional and psychological motivations. It seems that Stoker has, also, influenced by the myth of the Goule S drinkers of blood of sound native Ireland.

Reading tracks

This part does not claim to make a detailed analysis of the novel - that could be the subject of a research task to whole share - but to give some reading tracks to make it possible to the readers to apprehend the semantic richness of work.

History and modernity

" I was there, consigning in my newspaper, in shorthand characters, all that had arrived to me since I had closed it the last time. It is well there the progress of the XIX° century! And yet, unless I am not mistaken, the last centuries had, and still have, of the capacities which were clean for them and which the " modernisme" tuer" cannot; (p 86).

While being thus expressed, Jonathan Harker puts forward one of the reading tracks of the novel. The England of the end of the XIX° century is the place of the triumph of both Révolution S Industrielle S, the place where the idea of progress develops fully. This aspect is largely included in the work of Stoker since the characters largely make use of the recent inventions: the Typewriter, the Gramophone, the Telegraph, the Train… All these inventions are development and will be used to counter the projects of the count. Conversely, the Transylvania of the XIX° century is the place of the reign of the past, the old habits, the superstitions and the combat between Dracula and the other characters symbolize this confrontation between the two Europes, one turned towards the future and the other crushed under the weight of the past.

It is important to underline here that the intrigue of Dracula proceeds in the contemporary universe of Bram Stoker. This point is largely ignored majority of the posterior adaptations of the novel, which continue to locate the intrigue to the XIX° century, thus occulting this major semantic aspect.

Two figures of the scientist

Dracula opposes the king vampire and his adversary, Abraham Van Helsing, on many points, of which that of the apprehension of science: with a portrait of the scientist who does not apprehend the knowledge that as a means of serving its own interests is opposed that which puts its knowledge at the service of the humanity and which remains open to all the assumptions, that those appear probable or not.

Dracula, when it was mortal, was indeed a brilliant scientist, as recalled by Van Helsing: " it was of sound living a man remarkable, warlike, statesman, alchemist; and the Alchimie then represented more the high degree of science. It had a powerful intelligence, a culture without égal" (p 492). After its physical death, old the Voïvode kept this taste of the knowledge. The importance attached to the description of the Bibliothèque, which seems an important part of the castle of the count, attests this taste, moreover for diversified fields: " History, Geography, Political, economy, Botanical, Geology, Right " (p 60). But this thirst for knowledge, which relates to the England initially, is controlled at malefic ends: it is a question for the count of deepening his knowledge with an aim of overcoming, and this with the profit of one only being: itself.

Van Helsing is him also a large scientist; its former student, Doctor Seward, speaks about him in these terms: " It is at the same time a philosopher and a metaphysician - really one of the largest scientists of our époque" (p 199). But contrary to the count, this other scientist puts his knowledge at the profit of the others, " for the good of the humanité" (p 200). It transmits its knowledge thus, since it teaches it; more largely, its desire to come to end from the king vampire is mû by the will to save the world. In addition to this generosity, it is equipped with a remarkable open-minded since there remains open to all the branches of the knowledge, whose those which do not know a scientific explanation yet - and the vampirism forms part.

Topics of the madness

These topics, included in many posterior adaptations, is central in the novel of Stoker. One of the characters, Doctor Seward, is indeed the director of a psychiatric asylum, in fact that which is next to the residence that Dracula bought in England, Carfax. The mystery of the Folie is added to the mystery inherent in the literature Fantastique and amplifies it: one of the patients of the hospital, Reinfield, is also with the orders of the prince of darkness. But more than the spectacle of the madness, it is the border between the madness and the reason which is proposed here: Reinfield has, thus, of the flashes of clearness which place it above the other characters who, them, do not perceive the danger against which insane the warn. In addition, after its mishap in the castle of the count, Jonathan Harker has the feeling to rock in the madness; only the revelation of the real existence of the Vampire S will cure it its fear. The exploitation of this topic falls under a modernistic prospect since the novel of Bram Stoker is contemporary first studies of Sigmund Freud.

References to the Criminology

To store place in the mouth of Van Helsing of the references to the criminological theories of the time, in particular those of Cesare Lombroso which considers that the criminal is, under many aspects, an infantile being. Thus, the intelligence of Dracula is especially empirical, not very inventive and repetitive. It learns certainly the lessons from its errors and improves its Modus operandi , which does not leave frighten Van Helsing which insists on the fact that it is necessary débarasser monster before it becomes really invulnerable (its intelligence progresses because, at the time of the action of the book, he lives for the first time in a city populated, in fact London, rich person and complex on the level of the human interactions). But, at the same time, its action always fits in the same scenario, which makes its action foreseeable with those which can really reflect. When it fails (that it is against the Turks at the 15th century in the Othoman Empire , or against Van Helsing in London), it is folded up towards its castle for, from there, to prepare a response. It is what will allow Van Helsing and its companions to remove it.

The circulation of the word

At Bram Stoker, the doubled bloom blood/erotism is médiatisé by a third term: word. If the Vampire has such a capacity of harmful effect (at least in the beginning of the novel), it is because the characters do not communicate. Van Helsing does not say what it knows (or suspects) with the victims or their close relations. He does not explain to them in what the use of garlic will make it possible to suppress what he calls the " maladie". This silence is the condition of the catastrophe. It is symbolically the cause.

There are a direct equivalence between the blood circulation and that of the word. Repression victorienne of the word allows the blood circulation. (It is particularly striking that Dracula is a novel par lettres: the knowledge is scattered and its transmission is slow.)

From the moment when the surviving characters start to communicate between them, the vampire is found on the defensive, obliged to regain the Transylvania. It ends up dying about it.

From this point of view, Dracula can be read as a description of the contradiction which exists between the requirements of the reason (the exchange of the knowledge, of all the knowledge) and morals victorienne of silence.

Dracula partly draws its force from the mystery and the fascination which it inspires. It is the case, in very an other field, of Arsene Lupin. It profits initially from the not-communication between the victims but also from the not-communication at the collective level. Indeed, Dracula benefits from absolute skepticism inéherent with the climate positivist of the English company at the 19th century to perpetrate its criminal activities: nobody, unless assisting visu with his démoniaques activities, is been willing to believe in his existence of vampire. Besides that forces its pursueing to act as margin of the law to eliminate it (effraction of residence, corruption of civils servant, destruction, or rather contamination by a host, personal effects, decapitation of vampires, assassination, etc).

Psychoanalytical approach

It is possible to segment the novel in four parts, each one of them corresponding to a stage of definite psychic maturation. According to this reading, the novel would cut out as follows:

• Chapters I to VI (stay of Jonathan to the castle of Dracula): period corresponding to that of childhood; the exploration of the room and the crypt, followed escape of Jonathan, corresponds to the beginning of repression.

• Chapters VII to IX (of the arrival of Dracula in England to that of Van Helsing): apogee of the neurosis and the obsessional disorders; the crises follow one another until the beginning of the psychoanalysis.

• Chapters X to XXIII (until the departure of Dracula fleeing England): first period of the analysis until the beginning of the transference neurosis.

• Chapters XXIV to XXVII (until the death of Dracula in Transylvania): continuation of the analysis until the liquidation of the transfer.

Heritage

Thereafter, the character of Dracula became one of most vigorous modern myths the, giving rise to a rich person fantastic literature around the topic of the Vampire S. In an article entitled the misadventures of Dracula in the contemporary literature , Jean Marigny recalls the history of this literature which developed since second half of the 20th century and which knew to marry extremely diversified literary kinds and sometimes unexpected: fantastic, of course, but also erotic, historical, police, science fiction, parody, and even youth. The quality of these writings is extremely variable. Certain works lend nevertheless to the famous vampire an interesting complexity, and reveal the conflict which it incarnates between Eros and Thanatos, building a tormented character, damné.

The characteristics of the vampires - and in particular those of the Count Dracula - underwent many variations with the liking of the various adaptations, as well concerning their capacities as their weaknesses or their origins. The character of the Count himself is considered in various works under very contrasted lightings:

• personification of death;
• incarnation of bestiality;

but also

• symbol of sexuality and the sensuality;
• prototype of the irresistible seducer.

Cinema

The character of Dracula drew his current popularity more from the cinema literature. There exist approximately 200 films in which the king vampire holds the main role, which does of them one of the cinematographic figures most popular. Each one of these films adapts the work of Stoker differently: the intrigue and the characteristics of the characters, including their names, are seldom the same ones.

Nosferatu of Murnau

The first adaptation of the book of Bram Stoker (and the first treating film of the topic of the Vampire) are the masterpiece Nosferatu the Vampire ( Nosferatu, eine Symphonie of Grauens ) carried out by Friedrich Murnau in 1922. Murnau sought to avoid paying the royalties and for this purpose the name of all the characters as well as the localization of the intrigue changed. This did not prevent the heiress, Florence Stoker, to attack it in justice and to obtain the destruction of the negative originals as well as the majority of the copies. The actor who interpreted the role of the count Dracula - also called " count Orlok" in this version, max Schreck, was so persuasive that the run noise which it was about a true vampire! This idea was taken up in 2000 in the film the shade of the vampire ( Shadow off the vampire ), carried out by Elias Merhige.

This first Nosferatu was the subject of a specific Remake: Nosferatu, phantom of the night of Werner Herzog in 1979 with Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani and Bruno Ganz. This second version, appreciably different from the first, will know a continuation: indeed, in 1988, Augusto Caminito carried out Nosferatu in Venice ( Nosferatu has Venecia ) in which Klaus Kinski took again the role of the worrying vampire.

In 2000, E. Elias Merhige carries out a strange film telling the turning of the Nosferatu of Murnau. The Shade of the vampire mixes fantastic anecdote of turning and elements going until putting forth the assumption that max Schreck (played by Willem Dafoe) was a true vampire.

Adaptations of Universal studios: 1931-1948

In 1931, Bela Lugosi plays for the first Dracula time in a film of Tod Browning, Dracula with Helen Chandler. He endorsed this role four times in all. It is in Lugosi that returns the merit to return in Dracula its erotic dimension to the cinema (the sexual dimension of Nosferatu is psychoanalytical), losing n the other hand fascinating it to be able of terror of max Schreck .e scenario of film of Browning is not a direct adaptation of the novel of Stoker, but of Deane Hamilton, in which Bela Lugosi (Dracula) and Edward Van Sloon (Van Helsing) played already. Gregory A. Waller Gregory A. Waller: " Tod Browning' S Dracula" in Bram Stoker: Dracula/Norton Critical Editions, New-York-London, 1997, p 382-389 underlines however that in the film adaptation scenes of Stoker were added which had been omitted by Deane for practical reasons primarily; the voyage at sea, for example. The critic also underlines uotomy, introduced into film, between Reinfield and Dracula, the first not managing to be integrated into the Transylvanian company while the second fact shows of a sociability absent For the anecdote, in 1956, Bela Lugosi was buried with the cape of Dracula at the request of his wife.

Adaptations of Hammer films: 1958-1976

The second actor most representative of the role of Dracula was Christopher Lee which appeared in 1958 in film of Terence Fisher: the Nightmare of Dracula ( Horror off Dracula ). It is about a Gothic version of the work, hoisted with the thirtieth rank of largest British films of all times by the magazine Total film in 2004. Hammer produced then ten films around the character of Dracula, all interpreted by Christopher Lee.

Parallel productions

Parallel to the productions of Universal and Hammer abounded with other cinematographic works of which here the principal ones:

• Drakula realized in 1920 by Karoly Lajthay, with Margit Lux and Paul Askonas. Two years before film of Murneau, this Hungarian film, carried out without the authorization of the widow of Bram Stoker, is the first film adaptation of the novel.

• Dracula realized in 1931 by George Melford and Enrique Tovar Avalos with Carlos Villarias and Lupita Tovar. This film, carried out the same year as the éponyme production of Tod Browning, was made starting from the same decorations and takes again the same intrigue.

• Batman Dracula realized in 1964 by Andy Warhol is a nonofficial film of Batman and Dracula left to the USA.

• Batman fight Dracula realized in 1967 by Leody Mr. Diaz is another nonofficial film of Batman and Dracula, left to Philippines

• Blacula, the black vampire realized in 1972 by William Crain with William Marshall and Vonette McGee. Film of Blaxploitation. This film does not put in scene celebrates it vampire but implicitly evokes it through the title. It will be followed, one year later, of Scream, Blacula, Scream carried out in 1973 by Bob Kelljan with William Marshall and WFP Grier.

• Dracula and its wives vampires ( Dracula ) realized in 1973 per daN Curtis with Jack Palance and Simon Ward. It is this adaptation which will put for the first time ahead the idea of the vampire confronted with the reincarnation of its lost love, which will be exploited later in the adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola.

• Of blood for Dracula ( Andy Warhol' S Dracula ) realized in 1974 by Paul Morrissey with Udo Kier and Joe Dallesandro. Dracula must drink the blood of a virgin here in order to find her strength. For that, it leaves to the meeting the girls noble involved in debt under pretext of marry with one of them. But the beautiful ones are not as pure as they claim it and succumbed to the charms of the young peasant machist who is under their orders… This version, frankly erotic, is remarkable in particular by the inversion of the roles which it establishes. Here, Dracula is morbid, starveling, by no means terrifying; its brittleness and its nobility are opposed to the virile roughness of the peasant who thwarts, without wanting it, his plans. The conveyed values are those one time shaken by the sexual revolution: the requirement for virginity is presented here in a negative way since it is thanks to their libertinages that the characters manage to thwart the plans of the count…

• Dracula realized in 1979 by John Badham with Frank Langella and Laurence Olivier. This version takes as starting point the voyage of Dracula towards the English coasts on board Démeter, episode which is initially at the center of the intrigue. Whereas she walks on the beach, Mina, which is here the girl of Van Helsing, discovers the unconscious body of the count, single survivor of the shipwreck of the boat. Dracula will be then introduced near the people of its entourage: Dr. Seward, who is the friend of his father, Lucy Seward and its promised in marriage, Jonathan Harker. Mined, then Lucy, will succumb quickly under the charms of the count… Dracula which is put here in scene very sensual and is distinguished; it in addition shows a certain humanity since it is possible for him to fall in love. The action is moved in the years 1910, which still accentuates the shift between England résoluement modern and the values passeists that the count carries.

Recent productions

In 1992, the prince of darkness, who had deserted the screens, reappears with film of Francis Ford Coppola: Dracula ( Bram Stoker' S Dracula ) with in the role titrates Gary Oldman, accompanied by Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and Anthony Hopkins. This film, which is undoubtedly that which follows more close work of Stoker - with, however, of many freedoms -, puts in scene a being capable of feelings and whose tragic character brings it closer to the large romantic heroes of the XIX° century.

This adaptation of Coppola impelled the reappearance of Dracula in the cinematographic universe.

In 1995, Mel Brooks carried out a version parodic entitled Dracula, died and proud to be it ( Dracula: dead and loving it ) with Steven Weber and Leslie Nielsen.

Thereafter, Patrick Lussier carried out Dracula 2000 - entitled Dracula 2001 in France -, with Gerald Butler and Christopher Plummer, in which the famous vampire ressuscite at our time. Patrick Lussier carried out, in 2003, a continuation of this film, entitled Dracula 2: rise , which was definitely less cordially greeted by the critic.

In 2002, Guy Maddin carried out the cinematographic adapatation of the version of Royal Winnipeg Ballet (see supra) under the title Dracula, pages drawn from the newspaper of a virgin ( Dracula: Pages From has Virgin' S Diary ), with Zhang Wei-Qiang and Tara Birtwhistle.

The character of Dracula generated another character, that of the Tueur of vampires, often an old a little insane scientist, put well in scene in film of Roman Polanski, the Ball of the vampires , the line of the Belmont, Van Helsing or Buffy.

Parts and ballets

If the love which the cinema world tests for the character is well-known, it is on the boards that the popularity of the vampire was born.

Stoker was closely dependant in the middle of the theater and worked nearly twenty years for Lyceum Theater. It tested much admiration for the actor Henry Irving, and had expressed the wish that this one plays the part of Dracula in a theatrical adaptation of the novel - what never took place.

Notwithstanding, Bram Stoker wrote this adaptation, which it entitled Dracula: however the undead of which it made the reading in Lyceum Theater on May 18th, 1897. May 31st, the writer subjected script to the office of the Lord Chamberlain which was then the official critic of the stage performances. This adaptation was recently republished under the direction of Sylvia Starshine, but is not translated into French.

In 1924, the British Hamilton Deane represented a Dracula appreciably different from the part written by Stoker. David J. Skal underlines, indeed, that problems of cost involved a reduction of the places presented in the part; consequently, so that the Vampire can enter in interaction with the other characters, it was necessary that it is invited by them and thus, that he is presented like a being more sociable than Dracula de Stoker. It is at the time of the representation of this part, also, that the vampire adopted this appearance less monstrous than we lend to him more readily.

The part of Deane was then rewritten by Horace Liveright which wished to present it to the American public. It is in this version that the vampire carries this cape to the particularly high collar of which the following representations will cover it. In order to play the character of Dracula, Liveright calls upon a Hungarian actor, Bela Ferenc Dezso Blasko - name of scene: Bleated Lugosi. This part, presented to Broadway as from October 1927, will be a success and will draw the attention of Hollywood: the studios Universal will charge Tod Browning giving a cinematographic version in 1931 with it.

Since, parallel to its formidable cinematographic career, Dracula was the object of other theatrical interpretations; let us quote, as example, Dracula: Sabbath of Leon Katz (1970), Dracula: has musical nightmare of John Douglas and John Aschenbremer (1978) or Mac Wellman' S Dracula '1994).

The prince of darkness also inspired by the realizers of ballets such as Jean-Claude Gallotta who, in 2001, created for the opera of Paris a ballet entitled Nosferatu or Godden Mark, author in 1998 of a Dracula which known one big hit and which was then adapted to the cinema under the title Dracula, pages drawn from the newspaper of a virgin (2003).

Lastly, let us announce the existence of the musical comedy of Gregory Hlady, Dracula, between the love and death (2004).

Video games

The character of Dracula also has an influence in the world videoludic. The principal major vampiric series is doubtless Castlevania from which the various iterations report mainly the engagements between the family Belmont and Dracula. The series started in 1986 and perdure always at present but while being detached from the original work of Bram Stoker but there is also the play " devil may cry" who takes again a universe of vampires. Other plays, independent between them, directly milked with the count: Its off Dracula , Kid Dracula , Dracula Resurrection and Bram Stoker' S Dracula .

Erotism at Dracula

In the novel of Bram Stoker

In the writings which it produced on its project of writer, Bram Stoker positioned against the authors who, in their accounts, spoke explicitly about sexuality. In that, Stoker was subjected perfectly to the morals victorienne which characterized its time. For as much, is sexuality completely absent from Dracula ? Not, not completely.

Sexuality materializes first of all in an explicit way through the three woman-vampires which live in the castle of Dracula. When Jonathan the meeting for the first time, it acknowledges, not without difficulty, its impotence vis-a-vis their charms: " Yes, I burned to feel on mine the kisses of these red lips " (p88). Further in the account, Van Helsing will test a desire similar to their regard. As for the woman-vampires, they go in the direction of this ambiguity, of this bond between the death of which they are the allegory and the carnal love that they inspire, since they qualify their mortals bites of “ kisses ”.

The attraction which exerts the count himself on the women is less explicit. Bram Stoker does not draw up to him a portrait as flattering as for the three woman-vampires: it is ugly, is associated with nauseous odors… But any person bitten by a Vampire, thereafter, is irresistibly attracted by this one and Undermined Harker, while underlining her repulsion towards the count, recognizes this ambiguity: “ I like was dazed and, strange thing, I did not want null to oppose to me to his desire ” (p470). In addition, the count is fully aware of the attractivity which the woman-vampires have on the men mortals; thus, here how it presents to Mina its future existence as a not-dead: “ And you, their allied very expensive, very invaluable, you are now with me, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, that which will fill all my desires and which, then, will be forever my partner and my bienfaitrice. The time will come where it to you will be made repair; because none among these men will be able to refuse you what you will require of them! ” (p471). The wish of the count is of vampiriser beautiful women in order to make they at the same time slaves and frightening sirens; in short, it holds the role of the procurer.

And what to think of the aspect symbolic system of the bite of the Vampire? Many critics underlined its eminently sexual character. The Vampire visit indeed its victims the night, generally in their bed; it bites them in the neck, which is a place of the appreciably erotogenic body. In the novel of Bram Stoker, the male characters try to save Lucy Westenra of dead as a practitioner of the transfusions, which are explicitly associated with forms of marriages, vital unions between the men and the young girl. In this case, the Vampire, which aspires, him, this blood, breaks this vital union to build another form of union, mortal this one, between itself and her victim.

Let us underline, finally, the ambiguity of a passage of the novel. Jonathan is on the point of receiving the mortal kiss of the three woman-vampires when the count appears abruptly and pushes back them; this extract follows: “ the fair young woman, with her provocant smile, was turned over then to answer him: - But yourself never liked! You do not like! the two others united with it, and of the laughter so merry, but so hard, if pitiless resounded in the room that I failed to disappear. With truth, they resounded like laughter of demons. the count, after me to have disfigured attentively, was diverted and retorted, again in a murmur: - If, me also, I can like. You know it besides perfectly. You recall! Now, I promise to you that when I finish some with him, as much as it you will be able to embrace it will like you! ” (p91). About which form of love is it in this passage? Probably not of a love such as we hear it, since the Vampire is have-sentimental. It is possible to hear this term like a Euphémisme: the substantive “ love ” would indicate the coitus and in this passage, the woman-vampires would make fun of Dracula, which, contrary to them, is not in position to consume an sex act with a mortal at the time of the account. That would also mean that the vampires cannot have sexual relationships between them.

In the Nosferatu

In the first film adaptation inspired of the novel of Bram Stoker, Nosferatu the Vampire , like in the version of 1979 entitled Nosferatu, phantom of the night , the reference to sexuality is also presented in an implicit way.

In these films, Dracula - also called count Orlock - wishes to go to Bremen and, for that, called upon a clerk, Jonathan Harker. However, the vampire falls on photography from the young wife from Jonathan, Lucy, which it will look with a marked attention; it will not miss, moreover, to underline what, for him, makes the beauty of this woman: “ It has a beautiful neck ”. The moment according to, the will of the vampire to hasten its departure for Bremen is very clear; its attraction for Lucy Harker is obvious.

In addition, the proposed means, in both cases, to eliminate the vampire is ambiguous: it is necessary, indeed, that a woman in the middle pure retains it all the night and makes him forget the song of the cock; it is about a clear evocation of the night of love. The woman must be active in this step since the vampire obeys to him: thus, it is because she shouts in her bed, in Bremen, at the moment when, with several kilometers of where she is, the count leans on the neck of her husband, which this one gives up its victim. In Bremen, at the moment when Lucy leans with its window, probably to call the count who looks at it house which is next to his, it, before, moved away her husband: this one left to seek a doctor in film of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau while in that of Werner Herzog, it strews with the pieces of host around the seat on which her husband become sat Vampire, thus preventing it from leaving its place. The two films suggest the bond between the bite of the Vampire and the coitus. In both cases, the Vampire leans on the woman and poses her hand on the chest of this one. In the second Nosferatu , the sex act is evoked front since the vampire contemplates the body of the young woman and goes until raising the edge of its nightdress.

The “pure heart” of which it is question here does not mean that the woman is virgin, since Lucy is married; it does not mean either that it is faithful to her husband; paradoxically, this purity returns to a step towards the evil. Throughout two films, Lucy and the count were introduced like two doubles; after having spent one night together, both will trespass.

Criticisms often read Nosferatu in the light of the theories freudiennes, which were sails very about it in the years 1920. The film would evoke, thus, the conflict which the beings test between their sexual instincts and the social interdicts. The count, in this case, would be a representation of the that .

Dislike with fascination, fascination with the erotism

With Dracula of Tod Browning (1931), the king vampire will change face. Whereas it was presented before like a Monstre hideous, he becomes a man rather pleasant to look at and, especially, seducer: in film, the two female characters will test a strong attraction in its connection.

In 1958, with Horror off Dracula , this character gift-juanesque of the character is still accentuated. Especially, the latent erotism of the act of vampirisation is revealed at the great day: before biting Mined, Dracula will undertake, thus, to embrace it with full mouth. In other films produced by the Hammer, in which Christopher Lee will interpret the role of the famous vampire, this erotism will be accentuated more and more; it is thus particularly thorough in Dracula and the women or Of blood for Dracula , all the two products in the years 1970. It is the time of the reign of the “queer scream”, character recurring in horror films of the time: a beautiful stripped and terrified victim…

In film of John Badham 1979, Frank Langella interprets resolutely sensual Dracula; this time, it is not only the effect only it produces on the women who is underlined by film, but also her " sex appeal". Thus, after being itself introduced into the room of Lucy Seward, the prince of darkness will lean on his agreeing victim the shirt liberally open…

With the beginning of the year 1980, Jesús Franco carried out several films known as of Série B, where the erotisation of the character largely takes the top on the legend.

In 1992, Francis Ford Coppola reveals a Dracula him also heavily in charge of erotism. But this one exceeds simple voyeurism and is read like a denunciation of the social interdicts as regards sexuality. In this film, indeed, Mina, which is promised in Jonathan, behaves in accordance with the moralities: it does not have any sexual relationship before its marriage, is indignant when a man approach… Its curiosity for the things of the sex is large, but it dissimulates it: if, at the beginning of film, it opens with a timid hand the Kâmasûtra which is beside it, it closes again it violently nevertheless as soon as it intends her friend to enter the part. Lucy, compared to it, made figure of dévergondée: she courts three men at the same time, approaches several times the topic of sexuality with Mina, embraces it with passion… But it is in contact with the count that Mina Harker will be released truly from the moral yokes which persecute it. The film presents, thus, the progressive evolution of the young woman towards the acceptance of her desires.

Erotism with the pornography

Today, the character of Dracula invested the universe of X. One can quote, as example, the film Spermula of which the title - evocative! - is obviously copied on the name of the famous vampire. In the literary field, let us quote other Dracula or the secret books of Jonathan Harker of Tony Mark. In this version, the only fault of Dracula would be to be too much libertine in a company victorienne become sclerosed through sexual frustration.

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