From left to right: Gary Oldman, Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Frank Langella, Luke Evans and Claes Bang.
Dracula, the immortal and most famous vampire earl of the Irish Bram Stokerof course he is still very much alive. And it is that they continue to provide Tsar many others countless actors of all nationalities for film and television. The last, a Dane, Claes Bang, in the BBC series released does nothing on Netflix.
Go ahead that I'm nothing of the genre Horror, neither in literature nor in cinema, and very very little vampires (And even less of derivatives or headbands for teenagers). But Dracula is Dracula. So there they go 7 of the most well-known faces, recent or that have left more imprint of the image of the transylvanian count.
Dracula and me
It took me a long time to read Bram Stoker's Dracula, his 1897 novel, with a touch epistolary, from telegrams, newspapers or newspaper articles, that revolutionized the genre. Maybe because I did it very late, in English, or because they were already fine rooted the many versions of the cinema. And in the end, as they say, an image, and one as powerful as the one in the story of the most famous vampire of all time, Worth more than thousand words. Until the originals.
I also have to repeat that, despite not liking the horror genre at all, yes I read something from time to time. For consolidating myself in my little taste or for my spirit of giving opportunities to something that can attract my attention. But it's hard to miss the influx of that power that Dracula has always emanated. What's more, the cinema has been in charge of maintaining the fascination. And I have also been able to write some story honoring the figure of the vampire.
Of all the faces that they have lent to the count I keep these for several reasons: the most terrifying (that of the German fright en Nosferatu), the most disturbing and the one that embodied it the most times Lee), and the most sensual and romantic (those of Frank langella and the unforgettable Gary Oldman).
Dracula and their faces
Max Schreck - Nosferatu (F. Murnau, 1922)
With legend including that it was a true vampire, the interpretation of this German actor as Count Orlock, Dracula's alter ego in this jewel of silent movies, is one of the most terrifying. It is precisely that absence of sound and its terrifying characterization. It is such a fundamental title that in 2000 it premiered Shadow of the vampire, about that filminga Willem Dafoe fantastic as always giving life to Schrek.
Bela Lugosi - Dracula (Todd Browning, 1931)
If you haven't seen Bela Lugosi as Dracula, you're wasting your time reading this article. The repercussion, the success and the identification with the character was so great that Lugosi came to believe it until the end of his days and after a life dedicated to horror movies and full of excesses.
Christopher Lee - Dracula (Terrence Fisher, 1958)
Sir Christopher Lee, please. DRACULA, like this, with capital letters. And I have nothing more to declare, your ladies and gentlemen. See that or any of the many in which he gave life to the count with sublime elegance and resounding presence.
Frank Langella - Dracula, (John Badham, 1979)
This American actor was perhaps first in embodying a Dracula let's say more humanized and not as stereotyped as the previous ones. And he put a romantic and sensual touch that the following ones, such as Coppola's, would already inherit.
Gary Oldman - Dracula by Bram Stoker (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)
Emblematic title of the 90s. For that torn romanticism y ravishing sensuality that printed a Gary Oldman in a state of grace. But also because of the spectacular narrative and visual montage of a director like Coppola, who knew how to turn a myth upside down to make it even more eternal in this unforgettable version.
Luke Evans - Dracula - The Untold Legend (Gary Shore, 2014)
El XNUMXst century brought the most complex and impressive special effects and a let's say debatable tendency to tell the origins of any relevant literary or comic character. In this they wanted to tell us about Dracula going to known historical base (which Coppola had already played) about the Romanian prince Vlad Tepes. And Evans complies with what they leave him, but the story is also diluted in those effects.
Claes Bang - Dracula (created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, 2020)
We are in the golden era of the series television, so how could they not bring the earl? And already in the second decade of the millennium it must be adapted to the environment. Yes, is the most canonical Victorian of the BBC London, but increases and enhances the ambiguous sensuality and the rawest terror. All with another one of those actors, this time nordic, that ooze presence and carnality to equal parts (and bites).
So Who is reluctant to put their neck down?