Alternate Best Actor 1979: Frank Langella in Dracula

Frank Langella did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Count Dracula in Dracula. 

 

This adaptation of Dracula is a little bit of a strange bird, as essentially a re-adaptation of the play that the 31 version was based on. A version mind you that could use an update, however, given it is rather a flawed film. This isn't it, there is an idea in there based on what I will be writing about today, but that really isn't all that effectively explored by John Badham, who is a workmanlike director. 

What spurned this version was a Broadway hit production that starred Frank Langella in the title role of Dracula, however the key to that version, and the whole play is that it emphasized the erotic horror ideas of Dracula. An element one could argue is a subtext within Bela Lugosi's portrayal, however certainly not an overt emphasis. That is Langella's emphasis who fittingly gives the exact opposite style of vampiric performance, that we see from Klaus Kinski, in the other Dracula remake with Werner Herzog's remake of the original 1922 Nosferatu, an unofficial adaptation of the original novel. That version emphasizes the ugliness of the creature, and even the tragedy of the state of being cursed as this sort of pestilence, where the vampire is more like a rat than a bat in design and even manner. Here though Langella is barely even the bat, in fact when he enters in this version, he is far more a playboy ready to make a different sort of conquest in a new land, looking for victims, but victims of a bit of a different ilk. 

Here is where you have really what is often the trade of the stage actor, many ways why the stage is truly the actor's medium, because so often a performance defines a piece, particularly when that performance is instrumental in crafting a new take on a character. With Langella, you have a nearly complete reinvention of the character of Dracula and a rather fascinating one at that. In a way Langella looks at the text entirely different than what we saw with Bela Lugosi's take, a take that more so revealed a man from the past, out of time in a way, navigating the world in his own monstrous way. Langella's performance is of a man who has been living for hundreds of years but isn't stuck in the past, he's rather learned from it. In all honesty, Langella's performance is actually a touch more modern than even the period it is set in, which is wholly logical as a presents a man who never stopped learning. He presents him as someone who in a way has knowledge beyond anyone, which makes him a way a man beyond the current time, and in turn offers a fascinating atypical approach for depicting Dracula, that also feels logical to the character despite seeming so different. 

Langella's initial entrance in turn is so very different from that of the gothic horror monster and instead portrays him as a much more disarming visitor. Langella fashions no strange walk, or unusual stare, rather he's a man who comes through as Count Dracula, introducing himself to all and having an obvious interest in all the women that may be his present company. Langella commands the space though and makes it very much his own with his calmer approach to the material. There is something still quite remarkable, and to put it bluntly, as he seems on the quest of seduction right from the start. His eyes do penetrate though in a way that is filled with allure. As he introduces himself it is with a genuine charm and this innate sense of knowledge. Langella makes Dracula a most worldly man, in that he is very much of the flesh, and within that idea is as much as he's bringing his vampires' curse, he's also bringing this new perspective of the world, of the man who doesn't repress himself nor his sexual appetites. His Dracula is that of a modern bravado who through that breaks the expected social mores of this part of Europe that he is invading by the mere virtue of his presence, his manner, and his attitude. 

His villainy then is very different, while still present. There is a menace to Langella, though it is more subtle, and in a way, he fashions it simply through the overt confidence of his Dracula. Langella carries this whether he is enticing a victim or facing one of the would-be vampire killers. Langella's performance works in fashioning this atypical charisma for the character, which crafts him as someone using the world as his playground of sorts. His portrayal in the scene of attacking one of the women is not of the cold stare, but rather a full-on seduction. As such Langella is quite striking to put it lightly as the Don Juan at height of his powers and very much would be the romantic lead in many erotic thrillers with the same performance. Langella portrays every moment, with each delivery as this method of intrigue and enticement. Langella presents it as a strange kind of love as he invites his victim to make more of his kind, and in no way in these scenes emphasizes a more obvious kind of villainy. Langella very much portrays Dracula as a character who sees himself as a higher being in the right as he attempts to preserve his way of life. When confronting his enemies, or his "Lower" servants, Langella's performance is with this corrective tone as though he is admonishing them for interfering with Dracula's being that has far outlasted any normal human. His performance consistently offers a new approach, that is rather fascinating in revealing a different nature to the character who is usually a more overt villain. Langella instead presents a man being himself in a sense, even if being himself involves making the women he seduces undead and killing anyone else in his way. Langella is suave rather than scary, his looks more often undress than chill, and that is entirely the point. The only unfortunate part of this approach is the film itself seems more of just trying to make a more traditional horror film, where something truly inspired could've been made if the direction had been more so in tune with what Langella was doing. Although that is a missed opportunity, Langella was still able to leave his mark on with the role with a properly biting performance (apologies for using both biting and mark in that sentence).