Dracula Bram Stoker

Adaptations

The story of Dracula has been the basis for numerous films and plays. Stoker himself wrote the first theatrical adaptation, which was presented at the Lyceum Theatre on 18 May 1897 under the title Dracula, or The Undead shortly before the novel's publication and performed only once, in order to establish his own copyright for such adaptations.[o] Although the manuscript was believed lost,[130] the British Library possesses a copy. It consists of extracts from the novel's galley proof with Stoker's own handwriting providing direction and dialogue attribution.[129]

The first film to feature Count Dracula was Károly Lajthay's Drakula halála (transl. The Death of Dracula), a Hungarian silent film which allegedly premiered in 1921, though this release date has been questioned by some scholars.[131] Very little of the film has survived, and David J. Skal notes that the cover artist for the 1926 Hungarian edition of the novel was more influenced by the second adaptation of Dracula, F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu.[132] Critic Wayne E. Hensley writes that the narrative of Nosferatu differs significantly from the novel, but that characters have clear counterparts.[133] Bram Stoker's widow, Florence, initiated legal action against the studio behind Nosferatu, Prana. The legal case lasted two or three years,[p] and in May 1924, Prana agreed to destroy all copies of the film.[135][q]

Visual representations of the Count have changed significantly over time. Early treatments of Dracula's appearance were established by theatrical productions in London and New York. Later prominent portrayals of the character by Béla Lugosi (in a 1931 adaptation) and Christopher Lee (firstly in the 1958 film and later its sequels) built upon earlier versions. Chiefly, Dracula's early visual style involved a black-red colour scheme and slicked back hair.[136] Lee's portrayal was overtly sexual, and also popularised fangs on screen.[137] Gary Oldman's portrayal in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), directed by Francis Ford Coppola and costumed by Eiko Ishioka,[138] established a new default look for the character—a Romanian accent and long hair.[136] The assortment of adaptations feature many different dispositions and characteristics of the Count.[139]

Dracula has been adapted a large number of times across virtually all forms of media. John Edgar Browning and Caroline Joan S. Picart write that the novel and its characters have been adapted for film, television, video games and animation over 700 times, with nearly 1000 additional appearances in comic books and on the stage.[136] Roberto Fernández Retamar deemed Count Dracula—along with characters such as Frankenstein's monster, Mickey Mouse and Superman—to be a part of the "hegemonic Anglo-Saxon world['s] cinematic fodder".[140] Across the world, completed new adaptations can be produced as often as every week.[141]

Influence

Dracula was not the first piece of literature to depict vampires,[142] but the novel has nonetheless come to dominate both popular and scholarly treatments of vampire fiction.[53] Count Dracula is the first character to come to mind when people discuss vampires. [143] Dracula succeeded by drawing together folklore, legend, vampire fiction and the conventions of the Gothic novel.[142] Wendy Doniger described the novel as vampire literature's "centrepiece, rendering all other vampires BS or AS".[144][r] It profoundly shaped the popular understanding of how vampires function, including their strengths, weaknesses, and other characteristics.[145] Bats had been associated with vampires before Dracula as a result of the vampire bat's existence—for example, Varney the Vampire (1847) included an image of a bat on its cover illustration. But Stoker deepened the association by making Dracula able to transform into one. That was, in turn, quickly taken up by film studios looking for opportunities to use special effects.[146] Patrick McGrath notes that many of the Count's characteristics have been adopted by artists succeeding Stoker in depicting vampires, turning those fixtures into clichés. Aside from the Count's ability to transform, McGrath specifically highlights his hatred of garlic, sunlight, and crucifixes.[147] William Hughes writes critically of the Count's cultural omnipresence, noting that the character of Dracula has "seriously inhibited" discussions of the undead in Gothic fiction.[148]

Adaptations of the novel and its characters have contributed to its enduring popularity. Even within academic discussions, the boundaries between Stoker's novel and the character's adaptation across a range of media have effectively been blurred.[149] Dacre Stoker suggests that Stoker's failure to comply with United States copyright law contributed to its enduring status, writing that writers and producers did not need to pay a licence fee to use the character.[134]