Bram Stoker's Dracula and the Importance of a Personal Canon

 by Zac Bentz

A few weeks back, while combing through JSTOR in search of sources for my FMS senior research project, I came across an article about queerness and metamorphosis in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 adaptation of Dracula. It sounded like exactly what I was looking for (my project is about the links between monsters and horror and gender and queerness and body modification and gender catharsis, etc. etc.) So I watched the movie, desperate for a tangible case study, and accidentally stumbled upon what may be my new favorite movie of all time.

This was a truly shocking revelation. I’ve held the same film on a pedestal as my “all-time favorite” for upwards of, like, 6 years now, and if you know me at all, or if you follow me on Letterboxd (same thing, really), you know what that film is – it’s Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. I know, I’m painfully fucking predictable, but I see so much of myself in those two kids, and I’ve related to so many different characters in it as I’ve grown up that watching it has sort of become a way to measure where I am in my emotional development, so sue me.

But I connected with Coppola’s Dracula on a level I don’t think I’ve ever connected with anything before. My partner and I sat on the couch together taking in every frame in awe, grabbing each other every few seconds in utter disbelief that a movie could look like this, feel like this, move like this, breathe like this, scare like this, fuck like this (it’s also the horniest movie I’ve ever seen). I haven’t shut up about it for a single day since I saw it. I bought this gorgeous illustrated hardcover copy of the book over 4-day. I’m in my Dracula era for real, you guys.

But having my long-time favorite dethroned so suddenly after so many years of reliability was also a little jarring. If this was now my number one, my go-to answer to the question that every film major gets asked at least a hundred times before they graduate, were there other aspects of my personality that were overdue for re-evaluation? Is there even a point to having a “favorite” anything? Is it even that deep?

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the feeling of having a favorite. I’m driving up to Portland on Friday to see my favorite band perform in a little sandwich shop, and there’s something special about being able to say, “I have tickets to see my favorite band play on Friday.” I tell that to someone and they immediately know that this show is going to be a big deal for me.

And I think part of that attachment to having “favorites” is due to the fact that I’ve spent so much of my life using media made by other people as a vehicle to understand myself better. When I feel an emotion that I don’t know how to process, I watch a movie, or listen to an album, or engage with some other piece of art that evokes that same feeling in me. It gives me something tangible to link that feeling to, and it also helps me distance myself from it for a moment and understand it from the outside a bit better before I have to face it within myself again. I always feel so much more prepared to face those hard-to-grasp emotions after I give myself a piece of art to attach them to.

I’ve gotten better about working through my feelings without that crutch in the past few years, but I’ve accumulated what I like to think of as a personal canon of art that feels inextricably bound to my psyche and the way I present myself to the world. So when I share my “favorites,” it feels like I’m sharing the very essence of who I am in its most concentrated and digestible form.

I’m the poetic, twangy psych-rock of Daniel Romano’s Outfit, a band that makes me feel so effortlessly cool and wholeheartedly connected to my friends, my own music, my mind, and the cosmos. The epitome of contemporary rock’n’roll, a whirlwind of poetry and mysticism and symbolism and the coolest outfits and most expressive artistry I’ve ever seen on stage.

I’m the sumptuous, sexual, maximalist gothicism of Dracula, which represents everything I’ve come to learn about myself and my identity in the past year and a half. A character that transcends gender, physical form, and straightforward sexuality. Gary Oldman waltzes across the screen in lavish crimson robes, transforming from matronly Count to greasy, withering goblin to genuine bat-winged gargoyle, both penetrating and being penetrated, courting an embodied gender catharsis that can only be achieved through transformation, obliteration, decoration, and how devilishly fun those things can be when you’re free to be a monster.

I’m the stream-of-consciousness earnestness and lo-fi grunge of Pavement, which always brings me to the edge of tears despite their slacker reputation, because they feel like the epitome of making something out of nothing and embracing mistakes, and how can a bunch of guys from California in polo shirts create a sound that feels so creative and abrasive and beautifully, perfectly discordant? Almost queer?

I’m the personal introspection and cultural literacy of Charlie Fox’s This Young Monster, a book that made me realize why I love horror and made me feel more seen and more in touch with my physical body than anything else I’ve ever read through its personal accounts of how consuming media about monsters is cathartic when you see your own body as monstrous.

And while it may no longer hold the coveted position of “favorite,” I’ll always be Moonrise Kingdom – a film that inspires me to love, to cherish, to listen, to write, to pay attention, to stop, to close my eyes, to listen to the birds, to run my fingers through the water, to remember, to smile, to breathe.

A film about how love is simultaneously fragile and spectacularly resilient, how children have the capacity – not the responsibility, but the skills, courage, and wisdom – to lead and live as examples, how it's not your fault if you're hurting inside, how no matter how old you are, there's always room to grow and more to learn, and that love can inspire.

A film that feels as fundamentally linked to my identity as anything else on this list, and that helps me to understand that, while I don’t intend on giving up my “favorites,” what matters isn’t what sits at number one, but that they all shaped me, and I wouldn’t be who I am without them.

Favorites can change, favorites can be numerous, favorites can be abandoned. Ultimately they don’t have to mean anything. But to me, having a personal canon means everything. It’s how I conceptualize myself. It’s how I connect with people. It’s how I learned to feel. It’s why I’m a film major. It’s why we started Birdbath! It's probably why you're here right now.