Film adaptations of novels are gambles at best. Trying to balance a faithful retelling of a classic with an interesting
visual experience often leads to dismal returns at the box office; and yet, when an adaptation does succeed, much has been excised that the film is no longer in the realm of the original author''s intent. Several exceptions to the rule do exist, one being Bram Stoker''s Dracula written by James V. Hart and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The skill through which Hart utilizes classical Greek tragedy to create a cinematic Dracula not only breathes literary life into the film but also stays faithful to the original text to the point that it actually amends the novel and enriches the reading experience.
In order for Dracula to succeed faithfully on screen, Hart had to shift Dracula from a secondary character to a primary one. Since much of the novel drapes the vampire in mystery, a meticulous reading of the minuscule clues cleverly distributed throughout the text by the author must be made. The concept of the Oriental hero as a being eternal and without character, which the literary Dracula is based upon, is balanced with the Occidental hero as a personality doomed to temporality; thus, the challenge to balance the two notions of eastern and western heroes into one fully rounded character. On the one hand, the very Oriental Dracula that the vampire hunters despise and chase to the ends of the earth in order to eradicate off of God''s given earth is contrasted with the tragic prince that, through the love of a woman, sacrifices his own humanity so as to one day be reunited with the very monad that drifts through time.
While the very idea of the two archetypal heroes occupying the same character may seem a stretch of credibility, Aristotle''s definitions of classical tragedy expounded in the Poetics offer a blue print that resonates with the Occidental Hero archetype. Through the understanding of such archetypes one gains insight into how a vampire fears holy artifacts and yet still retains compassion from the audience.
Yet redemption is as much part of the
tragic hero as is his fall and only through the very catalyst of his undoing can he be redeemed. Thus the need to bring the much neglected Mina character of the novel into the fore of the story by analyzing just what kind of a woman she really is through her own writing and personal experiences. Only when the fallen hero (occidental) is reunited with the monad (oriental) is redemption possible, for there is no redemption without love and forgiveness.