Tod Browning was a director who could almost do-no-wrong. Warner had the Gangsters, Universal had the monsters, and movies made in the backlots were pretty good from the Great War-on. The onetime carny-barker was one of Hollywood's best directors in a period that is now legend. What is so remarkable about Dracula's staying-power is that this film isn't really scary, but is very forward-looking in its use of atmosphere and silence.
Browning did the majority of his movies during the silent-era (seven with Lon Chaney), and it is known that he was one of the many directors in that transition from silent-to-sound who was afraid of the new technology. Dracula is a 75-year-old film, and it looks and sounds great for being made in 1931. And a surprise: the Spanish-Language version is even more visually-innovative! The other crew that shot this version at-night saw the rushes of Browning's, and decided to outdo- them, and they did in many areas of their version. Most DVD-versions contain this version, and from some excellent-prints.
Like the others, he feared that there would be a deemphasis on image, and this did happen with a lot of early "talkies". The reason they were called talkies is because they weren't good, and all the attention was on how much dialog you could fit-in. Many movies became like filmed-plays, and a lot of hard-won work in creating a visual-language got lost for a time. Dracula doesn't suffer from this fate, however, because of Browning's fear of sound in films. This is why we still find Dracula watchable today, it isn't too-chatty and talky with too-much dialog that plagues many of the early-talkies (many-of-which are now forgotten and even lost).
Utilizing the German-cinematographer, Karl Freund, the film has that touch of Expressionism. Freund worked with both Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau, and Dracula is a visual-feast because of this. Karl Freund was DP on many of the greatest German Expressionist films, such as Murnau's "The Last Laugh" (1924), Lang's "Metropolis" (1927), and even "Der Golem" (1920). We have stunning dolly and tracking-shots that were uncommon in early sound-features, and like Lang's "M", Browning's use of sound is sparse but effective. The absence-of-sound and the timing of where sound should be is very clever here, much like in Lang's M. Silence in both-films is often the prelude to something horrible--something Americans understood all-too-well in the heart of the Great Depression. A fear of war was also high, and isolationism and anti-immigrant sentiments were everywhere. Lugosi perfectly-embodies the American-fear of being overrun by immigration, and the actor was the very-thing! The character of Renfield is also interesting, being a fear of human-bondage to forces we do not understand.
1931 was a bad year for Americans, so you have to consider this when you encounter the stories that women fainted and audiences screamed and yelled at screenings of this film. It was the worst year of the Great Depression, and to many, the world seemed to be ending. In a way, they were right, the world was going to change forever in a few-years. Some of it was good (the New Deal), and a lot of it was bad (the rise of Fascism and totalitarianism in Europe and Russia). From the Great Crash in the Fall of 1929, to the bitterest-year of 1931, Republican President Herbert Hoover did almost nothing to alleviate the suffering of Americans hit-hardest by the Depression. For this, he was overwhelmingly voted out-of-office, and his name has been a curse on the lips of the WWII-generation into our time.
So angered were Americans by the Republican Party's decade-of-corruption, that they elected FDR three-times to the office of President, and the Democratic Party generally controlled Congress for over forty-years. No other American political-party can claim such a sustained-loss of legitimacy. Indeed, people were starving-to-death, and Hoover did nothing, these were uncertain-times. Nothing seemed to be what it seemed, and all assumptions about modern life were upturned. Horror and anxiety were everywhere as the Western world economy collapsed. Fear reigned, and Dracula was released into this storm of angst and anger. The timing couldn't have been more-perfect, and this is why the film doesn't resonate with us as much--it is a film of its time, very-much so. H.P. Lovecraft hated it, but when he wrote this to a friend, he was basically a white-supremacist, an anti-Semite, and a snobby, effete, intellectual-snob. He was also conservative at this time, but he had changed at the end of his life for-the-better.
And so, horror is about the experience of generations. If you search-out what the other generations went-through, these films can be appreciated better. But, on a basic-level, Dracula is still a solid atmospheric-horror that was innovative. Its camera-work is innovative, as is its use of sound. And now, we have the good-fortune to have it restored with a new score commissioned by Univesal Pictures by American composer, Phillip Glass. If you truly want to enjoy this film, and to feel it more-deeply, it must be viewed with this score. Universal deserves credit for the new-score, it was a wonderful idea that works so well in-practice.
Amazingly, Glass's score makes Dracula seem very modern and more-relevant to our times. The original had no real working-score (a few motifs), which is probably one of the few strikes against-it. Expertly-performed by the Kronos Quartet, Dracula shines as-never-before for our eyes and our ears. The restoration is incredible. After years of watching inferior 16mm television-prints, it is a revelation, this is a gem. At one time, it was hard to even see a lot of the movie, as it was murky and clouded, unstable. Watching it today, we can marvel at how good high-end film-making really was.
Browning did the majority of his movies during the silent-era (seven with Lon Chaney), and it is known that he was one of the many directors in that transition from silent-to-sound who was afraid of the new technology. Dracula is a 75-year-old film, and it looks and sounds great for being made in 1931. And a surprise: the Spanish-Language version is even more visually-innovative! The other crew that shot this version at-night saw the rushes of Browning's, and decided to outdo- them, and they did in many areas of their version. Most DVD-versions contain this version, and from some excellent-prints.
Like the others, he feared that there would be a deemphasis on image, and this did happen with a lot of early "talkies". The reason they were called talkies is because they weren't good, and all the attention was on how much dialog you could fit-in. Many movies became like filmed-plays, and a lot of hard-won work in creating a visual-language got lost for a time. Dracula doesn't suffer from this fate, however, because of Browning's fear of sound in films. This is why we still find Dracula watchable today, it isn't too-chatty and talky with too-much dialog that plagues many of the early-talkies (many-of-which are now forgotten and even lost).
Utilizing the German-cinematographer, Karl Freund, the film has that touch of Expressionism. Freund worked with both Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau, and Dracula is a visual-feast because of this. Karl Freund was DP on many of the greatest German Expressionist films, such as Murnau's "The Last Laugh" (1924), Lang's "Metropolis" (1927), and even "Der Golem" (1920). We have stunning dolly and tracking-shots that were uncommon in early sound-features, and like Lang's "M", Browning's use of sound is sparse but effective. The absence-of-sound and the timing of where sound should be is very clever here, much like in Lang's M. Silence in both-films is often the prelude to something horrible--something Americans understood all-too-well in the heart of the Great Depression. A fear of war was also high, and isolationism and anti-immigrant sentiments were everywhere. Lugosi perfectly-embodies the American-fear of being overrun by immigration, and the actor was the very-thing! The character of Renfield is also interesting, being a fear of human-bondage to forces we do not understand.
1931 was a bad year for Americans, so you have to consider this when you encounter the stories that women fainted and audiences screamed and yelled at screenings of this film. It was the worst year of the Great Depression, and to many, the world seemed to be ending. In a way, they were right, the world was going to change forever in a few-years. Some of it was good (the New Deal), and a lot of it was bad (the rise of Fascism and totalitarianism in Europe and Russia). From the Great Crash in the Fall of 1929, to the bitterest-year of 1931, Republican President Herbert Hoover did almost nothing to alleviate the suffering of Americans hit-hardest by the Depression. For this, he was overwhelmingly voted out-of-office, and his name has been a curse on the lips of the WWII-generation into our time.
So angered were Americans by the Republican Party's decade-of-corruption, that they elected FDR three-times to the office of President, and the Democratic Party generally controlled Congress for over forty-years. No other American political-party can claim such a sustained-loss of legitimacy. Indeed, people were starving-to-death, and Hoover did nothing, these were uncertain-times. Nothing seemed to be what it seemed, and all assumptions about modern life were upturned. Horror and anxiety were everywhere as the Western world economy collapsed. Fear reigned, and Dracula was released into this storm of angst and anger. The timing couldn't have been more-perfect, and this is why the film doesn't resonate with us as much--it is a film of its time, very-much so. H.P. Lovecraft hated it, but when he wrote this to a friend, he was basically a white-supremacist, an anti-Semite, and a snobby, effete, intellectual-snob. He was also conservative at this time, but he had changed at the end of his life for-the-better.
And so, horror is about the experience of generations. If you search-out what the other generations went-through, these films can be appreciated better. But, on a basic-level, Dracula is still a solid atmospheric-horror that was innovative. Its camera-work is innovative, as is its use of sound. And now, we have the good-fortune to have it restored with a new score commissioned by Univesal Pictures by American composer, Phillip Glass. If you truly want to enjoy this film, and to feel it more-deeply, it must be viewed with this score. Universal deserves credit for the new-score, it was a wonderful idea that works so well in-practice.
Amazingly, Glass's score makes Dracula seem very modern and more-relevant to our times. The original had no real working-score (a few motifs), which is probably one of the few strikes against-it. Expertly-performed by the Kronos Quartet, Dracula shines as-never-before for our eyes and our ears. The restoration is incredible. After years of watching inferior 16mm television-prints, it is a revelation, this is a gem. At one time, it was hard to even see a lot of the movie, as it was murky and clouded, unstable. Watching it today, we can marvel at how good high-end film-making really was.