in the universe of draculathe most explored relationship, without a doubt, is the one that the evil Count maintains with his nemesis Van Helsing (Here we talk in depth about this character). And yes, it is very interesting this confrontation that contains several nuances. But this itself has caused the most toxic relationship in history to be left out: Dracula’s with Renfield.
Renfield was created for the novel by dracula by Bram Stoker published 1897and is an interesting character who navigates between madness, fantasy and the awareness of a fight for good that appears in moments of clarity like Dracula.
As we mentioned, has always remained a secondary character that between the different adaptations for television and the cinema of Dracula, sometimes it doesn’t even appear. But this 2023 finally takes the lead with Renfieldplayed this time by Nicholas Hoult with Nicolas Cage as Dracula.
To talk about this great character and his development in this film, We will review the different interpretations that have been made of Renfield, the actors who have taken itand by the way, we leave you here our interview with Hoult and Cage himself.
Who is Renfield in Dracula?
Renfield is a patient at Dr. Seward’s mental hospital.. In the novel she is 59 years old, but his strength is superior, almost superhuman. Renfield feeds on various animals which he believes give him a kind of power like immortality.
He does this because he believes that the blood of animals will grant you eternal life. First it eats some insects ranging from flies and spiders, to larger animals like cats. It is soon discovered that Renfield is one more victim of Dracula, who manipulates him into being a faithful servant and worshiper.
The character takes a complete turn when he meets Mina, Jonathan Harker’s fiancée. Renfield has a flash of clarity and he tries to protect her from Dracula, but he anticipates it and kills him. Now we will talk about the actors who have been Renfield from the beginning to the end…
Renfield and Nosferatu in 1922
The first time we saw Renfield in the cinema was thanks to Nosferatu with the unofficial adaptation of dracula in the hands of FW Murnau in 1922. Since the German director did not have the rights to the novel, all he did was change the names of the characters.
Dracula became Count Orlok. Van Helsing was given the name of Professor Bulwer. Jonathan Harker was changed to Thomas Hutter and Mina to Ellen. AND Renfield appeared as Knock, played by Alexander Granach.
Knock es a real estate agent that Thomas works for. Knock receives a coded letter from Count Orlok asking him to sell him a house in the region where they live. Knock/Renfield purposely sends Thomas, and even gives him He suggests that she sell him the abandoned house across the street from his home. Here we talk more in depth about Nosferatu.
The two Renfields of 1931 (in Spanish and English)
The official adaptation of dracula It was given in 1931, but what few know is that there are two films with the difference in language. Tom Browning directed the English version, the most acclaimed, while simultaneously a Spanish version was filmed by George Melford.
The first featured the leading role of Bela Lugosi where Renfield was played by Dwight Frye in the most popular interpretation of the character. This tape showed us a Renfield who travels to Transylvania to close a real estate deal with Dracula.
But while he is a guest in the castle, Dracula makes him his servant, and Renfield is the one who helps him travel to achieve his goals. In the Melford Dracula film, the Spanish actor Pablo Álvarez Rubio was the one who gave life to Renfield.
Kinski class, de Renfield and Nosferatu
In 1979, Werner Herzog did a remake of Nosferatu of Murnau, and of course he did it by the hand of Klasu Kinski, who took on the character of Count next to Roland Topor como Renfield (author of The chimerical tenant).
The interesting thing is that years before, almost a decade before this film happened, Klaus Kinski had already entered the gloomy universe of Dracula together with the Spanish director Jesús Franco, who gave the leading role in 1970 to Christopher Lee (the favorite Dracula of many, including Nicolas Cage). In this version, Kinski played Renfield.
Tom Waits’ Renfield for Coppola
As we said, Renfield’s character, despite being relevant to the plot, is sometimes reduced on screen. In some adaptations, he was even removed entirely; and in others, the character was greatly reduced to a few appearances. This was the case for Bram Stoker’s Dracula Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
In this 1992 version, Gary Oldman took the character of Dracula along with a fairly prominent cast that included Keanu Reeves like Jonathan Harker, Winona Ryder like mine, Anthony Hopkins like Van Helsing, and Tom Waits como Renfield.
Renfield’s image in this tape is more theatrical and eccentric than had been seen before. More than a man gone mad under Dracula’s manipulation, with Tom Waits we saw him more as a fan who goes overboard explaining his actions.
Nicholas Hoult como Renfield
This is how we got to 2023 with Nicholas Hoult’s performance as Renfield in the first film starring this character. After several takes of Renfield both in film and on television, she finally becomes the center of his story to reveal all the conflicts that his relationship with Dracula brings.
In this film, Renfield has been Dracula’s faithful assistant for many years, who treats him badly and who demands that he bring people to feed him. However, with the passage of time and up to the present, cvery difficult for Renfield to follow his boss’s orders.
Because? Because it is not so easy to hunt people anymore for Dracula to take his blood, and because Renfield has entered into a moral and ethical conflict over the dams. This is how first try to bring “villains” to eat … but Dracula demands young, healthy and innocent people.
This is how Renfield enters a support group to get rid of the terrible toxic relationship he has with Dracula, but when the latter finds out about his assistant’s plans, it is because he a deal with the New Orleans mob to take over the city.
