Compose a 1750 words assignment on theater and film class: compare the reading material to the film we have seen in class. Needs to be plagiarism free! Although the novel has been praised for its originality, the movie has also been praised for its inclusion of new ideas. which, though not present in the novel, made the story even better and were relevant out of the loop from the premise of the novel. One such instance is about Count Dracula, where he believes Mina Harker to be a reincarnation of Count Dracula’s long dead wife Elisabeta. Although in the novel there is no such mention of any such incarnation, this gave the film and added sense to it which, although not being essential, made the movie more interesting than the novel. Overall I believe that the movie did better than the novel. The reason that I prefer the movie over the novel is its pacing, which, as compared to the novel, is quite passable, whereas the pacing of the novel is slow. Lucy Westerna’s character in the movie, in my option, is better than the character in the novel. Her over-sexual nature is what keeps the reader fascinated with her personality. And it is because of her sexual nature that she is entrapped by Count Dracula. Her relation with Mina as portrayed in the novel shall be complimented because even though it exaggerated the details it did not take their friendship too far. Another aspect about the movie that I liked was its visual sense. when I read the book, my personal visualization of the Victorian setting was not nearly as sufficiently good as the visualization of the movie, credit of which shall certainly be given to the director Francis Ford Cappola and the costume and art directors. Throughout the book, Count Dracula was portrayed as evil and everything he did in the novel showed his antagonist side. That was what the author Bram Stoker intended, but in the movie it is not so. The movie did not portray Count Dracula as the protagonist but rather his portrayal in the movie led the audience to assume that he was driven by valid reasons, such as his wife suicide, which although mentioned in the novel, was not giving that much of intensity to his character. Still, it is clear that in both the novel and movie that Count Dracula was moved by selfish motives. Another thing that I felt was in the movie that was not in the novel was the movie’s immense focus on Count Dracula. In the novel all the characters have been more or less given equal lines, but in the movie, Count Dracula was there in every scene, thus giving him more attention than the remaining characters. I also liked the movie’s ending better than the novel. In the novel, it was shown that Harker stabbed Count Dracula with a Bowie knife, but in the movie it was Mina. This ending, if not a major impact on the overall conclusion of the story, did change the perspective of the movie. In the novel, as already mentioned before, Harker killed the Dracula who was just to protect the Mina, but as in the movie, before Mina proceeds to kill Count Dracula, both of them share a passionate kiss which illustrates that Mina might have had developed feelings for Count Dracula, besides Mina being cursed by Dracula, which played a major role in Mina’s behavior. The movie has not faithfully portrayed the character of Van Helsing. As in the novel Mina describes Van Helsing as, a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck.
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