Cinema in itself is an art of moving images on a screen that
typically illustrate realistic elements ranging from emotion, to events
occurring within society at the date of the film’s release. Director Francis
Coppola embraces the modern idea of human expressionism through the belief of
free thought in his film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. By using Dracula, Coppola expresses
the failure of religion in the opening scene of the movie.
The scene begins with Dracula entering the church/chapel of God
and seeing his beloved Elisabeta dead from committing suicide. The backstory of Dracula establishes him as a
defender of God, hence the view of so many crosses in the chapel. Regarding him
in this sense the audience views him as a patron of good because of the simple
equation; believer and warrior of God (The Almighty) = Good. However, a sudden
turn occurs with Elisabeta’s death, and he is invoked with anger and lashes out
saying, “Is this my reward for defending God’s church?” Evidently, Coppola is
showing that even someone who practices good can be hurt by God, furthering the
idea that en bad can come to a doer of good. Dracula then belts out to the
priest, “I Renounce God.” This is a stepping-stone in the movie because now the
audience witnesses Dracula’s turn from good into what he later becomes in the
movie. Dracula’s remark indicates that God has not only failed him, but his
willingness to renounce his ties with the Almighty implies the idea of free
thought, a notion that was occurring during the time of the movie’s production.
Author Fred Edwords in his article discusses says, “The ideas that are shared
by many Humanists and Freethinkers are, “Rejection of the notion of a jealous
and punishing God, and rejection of the dogmatism of fundamentalist
Christianity”. Edwords confirms Coppola’s concept of the failure of religion
because in reality during the film’s production people begun to reject the idea
of God, thus furthering the wave of Atheism and individual perception. People
were no longer accepting God, more so religion as the gospel to abide by. They
had their own views on dictating how they lived their lives.
The
last pivotal comment Coppola leaves with the audience is when Dracula says, “I
will rise again from my own death to avenge hers with the powers of darkness,”
undoubtedly mirrors the idea of in Christianity when Lucifer the angel forsake
ties with God and emerged as Satan in Hell. Just the same Coppola is conveying
the idea of Dracula as Satan, both individuals are represented as the inversion
of Christ.
Following his belligerent remarks, Dracula begins to desecrate the
temple by throwing down objects in the chapel, and fighting the priests. Yet
the significance of this scene was the stabbing of the cross. It is quite
peculiar that by stabbing the cross, blood flows out. One can take this idea as
a parallel to Christianity when Christ dies on the cross for mankind’s sin.
This allusion suggests that the blood from the cross in Coppola’s scene symbolizes
the sins Christ died for, and for the sake of the movie, it is not only tainted
but magically imbued thus turning Dracula into a vampire after he drinks it. Coppola
also does a wide shot so the audience can not only view the amount of blood
coming out the cross, but also draw attention to the desecration in the temple.
The current view of the temple adheres to the fact of chaos that happens within
religion. This in itself is the damnation Coppola subtly hints at that comes
with religion.
In essence, Coppola
skillfully expressed the modern day reality at the time in the opening sequence
of his film. Author Rick Altman
clarifies Coppola’s idea of realistic expressionism in his article, “A
Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre”. He writes, “By choosing the films
it would patronize, the audience revealed its preferences and its beliefs, thus
inducing Hollywood studios to produce films reflecting its desires”(8). So after analyzing the scene of Dracula renouncing God it is clear that the desires in this
aspect were ideas such as free thought in religion, which some people were
afraid to speak open about. By having Dracula lash out and extinguish his ties
with God serves as the onscreen manifestation of the audiences’ inner expectations
and yearnings.
Works Cited
Altman, Rick.
"A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre." Cinema Journal
23.3 (1984): 6-18. JSTOR. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.
Edwords,
Frederick. "Freethought Challenges Of The '90s (1992)." The
Secular Web. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.
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