John Badham's "Dracula" (1979)

 John Badham's Dracula (1979) is a retelling of Bram Stoker's novel which reflects in its modification and restructuring the changing discourses that epitomised the 1970s. In line with radical movements in the arts and academia that resulted in paradigmatic shifts in social discourse, this version of Dracula can be interpreted as being political in nature and seeking to deconstruct the myths perpetuated by almost a century of reinventing and reinforcing a Victorian novel.

 Feminism and the social movement analysis that had flourished in universities during the 1970s had its effect on this new Dracula, both in the manner in which Badham's film is a critique of the patriarchy and male-centred sociology, and also by the way in which the women in the story come to the fore, in roles that embrace a greater complexity than just a disempowered victim. Nina Auerbach claims that "…at the heart of this radicalism is restoration… Badham's Dracula aims to reclaim a past arrogant power has debased."[1]. One of the ways in which this film does that is by breaking down the foundations of those 'arrogant powers', that is, the perception of the role of science, of medicine, of the law, of authority and the patriarchy.

  Indeed it seems that the villains of Dracula (1979) are the "Crew of Light", the men who in Bram Stoker's novel represented the 'good' that opposed the vampire's 'evil'. In Badham's interpretation, these men depict the patriarchy and its tools of oppression, and  are in almost all cases portrayed negatively. Jonathan Harker for example, in his capacity as solicitor (and once again, therefore, a symbol of British institution) is corrupt, his real estate dealings are dishonest, as he is guilty of underhanded business practice with both Renfield and Count Dracula himself. Van Helsing and Seward, dominating fathers and controllers of women, in this film like the others stand in their usual capacity as scientists and figures of authority, but in Badham's Dracula  it is a paternalistic and inept brand of science.

Tapping into the fears of some feminist theorists of the Seventies that the practice of psychiatry was a collaborator and perpetuator in the oppression of women, Dr Seward and his asylum are painted in a singularly negative light. The inference is that responsibility for Mina's gory death lies with Seward too, in his botched attempt at giving her laudanum with its fatal consequences. He apologises "Its been so long since I've practiced real medicine" by which Badham reinforces the ineptitude of  science, medicine and psychiatry.

 The character of Count Dracula on the other hand, seems a real hero in this film. The imagery of the film unites him with nature in a far more positive way than for example the link between the natural and supernatural that is alluded to by FW Murnau in Nosferatu, where this bond has demonic and evil associations. Instead, the Count Dracula of Badham's film is connected to the sea and the sky, to the motions and turbulence of natural processes. This is evocative of a freedom of spirit and union with the earth that harks back to the words of Bram Stoker "…he can, within his range, direct the elements: the storm the fog the thunder…"[2] and encompasses the cosmic nature of the typical film hero of the 1970s. The 1978 box office smash Superman featured a caped superhero, and it is likely that the far reaching influence of this popular film may be why John Badham's film featured Frank Langella as the first Dracula that we see flying. The Count is also presented to us as a man of action and movement, he rides, and climbs and as his ultimate demise implies, his spirit is in a realm of atmospheric motions.

 The depiction of Dracula as being a hero rather than a villain in this film also has to do with the way in which audience sympathies are directed towards him. His character is not only a good looking, suave, smooth and seductive, but he is clearly portrayed as being gentle and sensitive. The seduction of Lucy begins with a dance, continues on at Carfax Abbey where the Count says of the wolves "What sad music they make", and this revealingly perceptive and sensorial comment is followed by the gentle eroticism of a sex scene between Dracula and Lucy which in no way shows the undertone of rape that might be implied from Murnau's depiction of the same event, or the bloody horror of the equivalent scene in The Horror of Dracula. In keeping with the feminist perspective Badham infuses into this interpretation, Langella as Dracula  has a pathos and a passivity about him which allows both for the character development of Lucy as an individual in her own right and not just a victim, and for Dracula to be a threat to the stability of the patriarchy by undermining it rather than overpowering it. 

In particular, the scene in which Lucy drinks blood from Dracula's chest is presented in way which suggests a different interpretation from the traditional psychosexual critique of the novel, and shows a tender, non-phallic vampire more in line with critical ideals of Seventies culture than Stoker's dominating Dracula.  In the novel Dracula this scene occurs between the Count and Mina, and takes place when Van Helsing and Seward burst into her bedroom to interrupt her sucking blood from the vampire's chest.  Many clues point to this being a "symbolic act of enforced fellatio"[3] - there is the positioning of the two characters, with Mina "…kneeling near the edge of the bed"[4] and Dracula described as follows: "With his left hand he held both Mrs Harker's hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of her neck, forcing her face down…"[5]. In addition, there is Mina's account of events a little later, where her anguish blurs the distinction between blood and semen:

"When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the – Oh my God, my God! what have I done?"[6].

However, an alternative reading of this event might focus on Seward's comments a little later "… that whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled hair"[7], and indeed it seems that John Badham's interpretation of the scene, in accordance with the passive role ascribed to his Dracula has chosen to cast him in a tender and non-coercive light.  It appears that in Badham's version it is Lucy who is the aggressor, and Dracula who bleeds and bears the pain of  the open wound, in an interesting reversal of traditional patriarchal roles.

 In his creation of a ‘sensitive new age‘ Dracula, Badham has drawn on all sorts of figures from the popular culture of the Seventies. This was a period when the literary genres of horror / science fiction fused with feminist writings to result in the works of such authors as Jody Scott, Tanith Lee, Suzy McKee Charnas and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. The latter in particular has been cited as influential in the character development of the vampire figure in Dracula (1979)[8], through her creation of another aristocratic vampire – Count Saint-Germain.

Saint-Germain first came onto the scene in the late Seventies in novels such as Hotel Transylvania and The Palace, a romanticised ideal of various components of vampire mythology: ancient, mysterious, foreign, sexually charged. Yet the work of Yarbro began a subtle transformation that saw the nature of the vampire change. Saint-Germain was (and is, two decades and dozens of novels later) an aristocratic hero, with compassion and class and a mission to spread not disease but healing: "…a Saint-Germain who genuinely learns and grows from a fiend into a being of great gentleness, wisdom and compassion."[9] Similarly, through changing cinematic representations, Count Dracula has evolved from the grotesquely fiendish Orlock in Nosferatu, to Langella's protrayal of Dracula very much in the mould of Count Saint-Germain.

The roles of the female characters in John Badham's Dracula are reversed from the Bram Stoker novel. This is common in filmic adaptations as discussed, but the reasons here seem very different. In Nosferatu for example the motivation behind the fusion of the two characters was probably that a second female was superfluous. The Henrik Galeen script diminished the female parts in accordance with their perceived significance and changing the name to 'Nina' or 'Ellen' to avoid copyright difficulties with Stoker's estate as discussed in Section 2. In The Horror of Dracula (1958), there are also alterations to these roles, Lucy becomes the wife of Jonathan Harker, and sister of Arthur Holmwood, who is the husband of Mina. Here the explanation is linked to the emphasis on the family unit, and the issues that accompany it, as discussed in Section 4.

Why then, has John Badham, with scriptwriter W.D. Richter chosen to swap the roles of Lucy and Mina in this film? Nina Auerbach suggests[10] that this is connected to Badham take on the traditional stereotyping of female characters and his attempt to deconstruct these archetypes. According to the novel, it is Lucy who is the weaker of the two characters, who plays the passive / submissive role in relation to the male characters (of Arthur Holmwood she says "I do not care for myself, but all for him!"[11]). It is she who provides the path of least resistance to Dracula too, and is the first victim of his killing. 

The Mina of the novel on the other hand is stronger, more assertive, and resistant to the constraints of the strict Victorian society which is the backdrop for Stoker's novel, in which she comments at one point "Some of the New Woman writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting."[12] It is Mina the more confident that becomes the survivor.

In changing around the names, John Badham alters and fuses the roles of weak victim and strong survivor in a way that blurs the distinction of these archetypal women for those in the audience who are familiar with the story. The traditional roles are destabilised, confusing preconceived ideas of categorisation and creating a little of each character in the other.

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[1] Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. p 140

[2] Stoker, Bram : Dracula: Puffin Books: London, 1986 p 283

[3] Bentley, Christopher: The Monster in the Bedroom – Sexual Symbolism in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula': in Gelder, Ken. Reading the Vampire. London: Routledge, 1994. p 70

[4] Stoker, Bram : Dracula: Puffin Books: London, 1986 p 336

[5] Ibid p336

[6] Ibid p 343

[7] Ibid p 339

[8] Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. p 140

[9] Minneapolis Star-Tribune blurb, in Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn: Mansions of Darkness: Tom Doherty Associates: New York, 1996

[10]Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. p 142

[11] Stoker, Bram : Dracula: Puffin Books: London, 1986 p 136

[12] Ibid p111