"IN THE THIRD CHAPTER of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, one of the Count's female thralls tells him, "You yourself never loved. You never love!" To which the Count responds, "Yes, I too can love." Although those lines constitute the sum total of Stoker's discussion of Dracula's relationship to romance, the dialogue has found its way into a disproportionate number of film adaptations."
"The desire to make Dracula into some species of romance goes back a century, with a more seductive Count first appearing in the 1924 Hamilton Deane stage play. But in many ways the primary referent for a romantic Count is Gary Oldman's gonzo interpretation of Dracula as a lovelorn Byronic hero in Francis Ford Coppola's maximalist 1992 cult classic, Bram Stoker's Dracula."
"Besson's film is filled with shots that feel like they are cribbed directly from Coppola: the stagy backlit silhouettes of the Wallachian army; the final tableau of Mina cradling a monstrous Count while he bleeds out; a suicide tumbling, in a Hans Gruber-esque tracking shot, from the parapets of the Count's castle; a bleeding crucifix in a gamboge Byzantine chapel; old Dracula's elaborate, physics-defying white wig."
A brief exchange in Bram Stoker's novel—"You yourself never loved. You never love!" and Dracula's reply, "Yes, I too can love."—has disproportionately shaped film portrayals of the Count. A seductive Dracula appeared in the 1924 Hamilton Deane stage play, but Gary Oldman's Byronic, lovelorn interpretation in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film established the modern romantic vampire template. Many contemporary vampire characters draw on that template. Luc Besson's 2025 Dracula intentionally recreates and refines Coppola and Oldman's visual and thematic choices, reproducing iconic shots and framing a sensual, homage-driven Count.
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