Catherine Davies

English 321
Gothic Essay

Catherine Davies
1622960
English 321

There is a sequence in Coppolas Bram Stokers Dracula which neatly
summarises both the various meanings assigned to colour in this film, and
colours relevance to the gothic genre as a whole. An illuminating trail of green
smoke moves through a dark, flattened landscape, transforming the flattened
screen into a three dimensional space. This greenness gradually breaches the
material boundaries that separate it from the red hues of Londons interior
spaces, while the soundtrack links this contamination with the subsequent
arrival of a disembodied, immaterial presence into this newly violated space.
This short sequence illustrates the key properties that Coppolas distinctive
visual language attributes to colour, which elevate it beyond the status of a mere
formal property. Throughout the film, colour is characterised as a kind of
uncontainable, all corrupting force that threatens to expose the fragility of the
barriers between the rational, material, civilised world, and the exotic
othered land, with all its connotations of the repressed subconscious. To the
extent that the Gothic is understood to be an experience in which the spectator is
forced to acknowledge the links between themselves and the material they have
subconsciously othered and repressed, the colour scheme is seen as the prime
contributor to the overall gothic experience that the film offers. Ultimately
Coppola seems to have allowed his intrusive, transformative colour schemes to
usurps Draculas role as the gothic monster of the film. In doing so, he brings
new life into the gothic genre, by enabling it to respond to modern anxieties
about Westerners love of photographic technology and the images they create.


The colour schemes importance within the films overall gothic effect is
apparent in the way that it constantly reshapes and reforms existing images,
particularly when this is done to reflect the mental and emotional states of the
characters. By forcibly converting presentations of the rational and civilised
external world into subjective representations of psychological and emotional
states, the intrusive colour scheme symbolises the irrepressible nature of our
subconscious urges, and hence the artificiality of the sense of self that they
threaten. Throughout the film, the frame is frequently intruded upon by bold,
vibrant colours, which act to transform the images and their associated
meanings . This is exemplified by a shot, which represents the climax of a
vampires attack, upon a sleeping woman. Waves of blood violently explode
from both sides of the frame to transform a pale orange bedroom into definite
shades of crimson red. Crosscutting allows the audience to form connections
between this violent, and yet highly sexualised and passionate image with its
apparent polar opposite an overly formal wedding ceremony, where the
participants appear emotionless and overly distant from one another. The cross
cutting between the two scenes suggests that they hold meaning for each other
in some way the outward explosion of red seems to symbolise the sexual
desires which the newlyweds will ultimately fail at repressing. The
transformative effect of the colour is clear it changes what appears to be two
2 [Type text]

overly civilised, overly formal characters into deceptive individuals who are
trying desperately to repress deviant subconscious urges. The use of colour in
this particular instance serves to remind the audience how a particular image
can always be recoded with new meanings, thus associating a sense of instability
with the characters whose sense of moral purity seem overly depend on the
intactness of their images and representations of themselves.

The films colour schemes provide it with the sense of anxiety familiar to
spectators of the gothic, by demonstrating the artificiality of the images and
ideologies that act as a barrier between the civilised, rational world and the
primitive, subconscious urges that it tries to resist. Throughout the film a
repeated motif of portraits and moving photography demonstrates the
Westerners efforts to resist and contain the allure of primitivism, by projecting
it onto representations of the East. This is demonstrated by the battle scene
within the films historical prologue, which as is demonstrated by Anthony
Hopkins narration, and its later appearance within a London museum, is
represented as the Wests definitive narrative of Eastern history. The imagery is
crude and simplistic, as extreme contrasts between colour and darkness and an
excessively narrow depth of field effectively transforms the soldiers into two
dimensional shadow puppets. The effect is to create a sense of distance between
the nineteenth century Westerners constructing this image and the violent urges
that the soldiers are acting upon. By reducing this historical incident to a
theatrical tale to be told, the Westerners are able to deny its implications for
human nature they are able to deny the existence of similarly violent urges and
capacities within themselves.

By understanding the East as a culture and people that solely exists within
images and portraits rather than reality, the Westerners create an other for
themselves, onto whom they can project uncomfortable urges and
understandings. The Easts performance of this role is made clear in a sequence
where the camera tries to travel through an peacock feather , blocking the
audiences view of an embrace between the uptight Harker and his fiance only
to emerge as a train travelling through the red landscapes of the East. An
attempt to satisfy curiosity about sexuality is visually configured as a journey
into the othered East. The clear aligning of images with either one set of values
or another codes this particular gothic screen with a meaning that stands in
contrast to that identified by scholars like Kavka. In this particular construction
of the visual language of the gothic film, images are made to stand out as polar
opposites from one another, so that the Western world can be represented as
free from the urges and desires it projects on to the east. Kavka argues that the
gothic screen is a space where the boundaries between the spectators and the far
off other are compromised, as an ambivalent individual travels from the world
of the beyond to ours.
1
In contrast to this view of the gothic film as a literal
medium, Coppolas film characterises the gothic image as a kind of
impenetrable barrier, a representation of either Western and Eastern society

1
Misha, Kavka, The Gothic on Screen. In The Cambridge Companion to Gothic
Fiction, ed, by Jerrold Hogle, 209-228. (UK : Cambridge Up, 2002), p. 227-228.

Catherine Davies
English 321
Gothic Essay

that can be used to reinforce the distinctions between, and irreconcilable
differences of both. The scholar Hopkins identified such efforts to create
polarities as a key feature of films with a gothic effect.
2
The colour scheme
problematizes these relations by exposing the artificial and constructed nature
of the Western characters perceptions of their world, and the ideologies such
perceptions inform.

The colour scheme acts to compromise the barrier between the civilised
westerners and their presumably primitive Eastern cousins by emphasising the
artificiality of the images that act to distinguish them as separate. As was pointed
out by the scholar Hopkins, the film has an obsession with recreating
technologized means of looking ,whether it is to turn Eastern history into
something resembling a theatrical play, or transforming views of London into
something resembling an early experimentation with film.
3
For instance, in
one particular scene where Dracula is wandering around London in daylight,
somewhat unrealistic tones of colour ( which are reminiscent of the process used
to add colour to black and white photographs and frames ), an accelerated frame
rate and a whirring sound on the soundtrack are used to give the sequence the
appearance of an early film experiment. The scene emphasises Londons sense of
civility and progress, as is signified by the incorporation of a clock, along with
large crowds of white men walking around in business suits. The overall
impression is of an outsider trying to negotiate the difference between the
images he has seen and the reality of the place. The fact that the use of colour in
the scene is so strongly tied to a particular mode of looking, which is in itself tied
to a particular moment in history ( i.e a particular moment in cinematic history
development ) has the effect of distancing the viewer from the space it depicts.
We are reminded that much like the East, the West is constrained by its
representations it does not exist as objective truth, but rather as a series of
representations and images, which will gradually change and become obsolete
over time, as did this early cinematic technology. The effect of this imagerys
apparent self awareness of its constructed and artificial nature is to introduce a
sense of anxiety in the spectators. The image of the west as the pinnacle of
civilization is exposed as a subjective interpretation that is subject to change and
resistance, thus threatening the individuals whose sense of self righteousness
depends on such imagery. As is demonstrated by the scene in which Dracula
spills ink on Minas portrait, images can be changed and reshaped in the artists
image. Thus colour contributes to creating a gothic effect by exposing the
fragility of the barrier ( the image of the Western world ) that we have
established to protect ourselves from what lies beyond.

Ultimately the colour schemes role as monster in this particular gothic horror
film is demonstrated by its symbolic breaching of barriers that have been

2
Lisa Hopkins, Screening the Gothic.( Austin, University of Texas Press : 2005), p.
XIII

3
Lisa Hopkins, Screening the Gothic ,p. 111.

4 [Type text]

established to set up polarities. Frequently a repeated motif of red is used to
demonstrate a violation of such borders. The exchange of blood between Harker
and Dracula visually solidifies what dialogue and cinematography have already
hinted at that the barriers separating Harker and Dracula, the easterner and
the westerner, are not as clearly defined as Harker would like to believe. Red is
further violates gender distinctions by symbolically forming the site where the
two ambiguously gendered individuals a woman who displays the sexual
eagerness that is usually coded as masculine, and an individual who defies the
restrictiony of gender by reverting to an animal state- are united. ( The cloak
that the sexually deviant Lucy wears to her first encounter with Dracula is bright
red. ) As was noted by the scholar Craft, another violation of gendered
boundaries occurs with the introduction of redness. Draculas act of feeding Mina
from a bleeding wound on his chest has been read as an act which allows him to
resist gender categories, as the act parodies both the act of breastfeeding, and
giving oral sex to a man
4
. Redness, like the typical gothic monster described in
Kavkas work, thus acts to defy efforts at polarisation, and moves characters and
the spectators they identify with into a space of ambiguity and compromise.
5




To conclude, Coppolas particular usage of vivid, lush, and incredibly
expressive colours in his film Bram Stokers Dracula is highly appropriate for a
gothic text; by forcibly and repeatedly converting the camera to a subjective
view( which prioritises exposing emotional and psychological states ) , this
technique emphasises the fragility of a detached, rational, scientific view of the
world , which can be characterised as highly masculinised and Western. The
films use of colour thus heightens its gothic sensibilities by presenting a view of
the world one that is surreal and fantastical that conflicts with the dominant
view of the world which is scientific and rational. Thus colours effectiveness as
a symbolic tool for gothic texts, derives from its ability to engage the audience in
a process where they reflect on their emotional and psychological states.


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4
Christopher Craft, Kiss Me With Those Red Lips: Gender and Inversion in
Bram Stokers Dracula. Representations 8 (1984), p 110-111.

5
Kavka, The Gothic on Screen p 228.
Catherine Davies
English 321
Gothic Essay






Craft, Christopher Kiss Me With Those Red Lips: Gender and Inversion in
Bram Stokers Dracula. Representations 8 (1984), p 110-111

Hopkins, Lisa. Screening the Gothic. Austin, University of Texas Press. 2005.


Kavka, Misha. The Gothic on Screen. In The Cambridge Companion to Gothic
Fiction, edited by Jerrold Hogle, 209-228. UK : Cambridge Up, 2002.