Dracula (1992)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Had I seen this before: Yes
I first saw Coppola's Dracula as a young teen, at which point I believed with 100% certainty that it was a Good Movie made by a Serious Director, a notion that I had no reason to question for a long time. Eventually it came to my attention that perhaps not everyone was on board with that read, but by the time I revisited it this week (in the theater for its 30th anniversary!) I became aware that there was some vague murmur in the culture about reclaiming it as Actually Maybe Good. Which took the wind out of my sails a bit, as I was ready to stand before you, wooden stakes ablazin', declaring this property as iconic and beautifully over-the-top, a maximalist fever dream of Gothic melodramatics, but I guess people are already out there doing the work. And having now actually rewatched it as a middle-aged person and not an adolescent, I can admit that those who said this is a Bad movie....may have some points. And those who complain that no one make horny movies anymore (everyone has muscles, no one has sex, etc.) certainly have some points, because you simply cannot find a film packed with so much writhing per square inch as this one these days. There is a nearly inconceivable amount writhing and moaning, particularly in drapey fabrics with exactly one breast exposed.
You know what else this movie has that you rarely see anymore? Wall-to-wall practical effects. Aside from one (unnecessary, imo) ring of blue flames near the beginning of the film, everything in the movie was done in-camera. PAs just milling around with buckets of fake blood as far as the eye can see, one imagines. Beheadings and stake-driving and insect-eating and succubi appearing from under the dang floor and monstrous transformations and shadows moving about independently of their casters and growling wolves and a tower of rats--none of it CGI. It's all old-fashioned movie-making, for which I have an inordinate amount of affection. And the costumes, I mean--these costumes. Apparently Coppola initially wanted to have extremely sparse, impressionistic sets using mostly shadow and light in order to spend more of the budget on costumes. This is the kind of prioritizing I personally would like to see more of in filmmakers. Take a tiny fraction of the "things blowing up" budget in Hollywood to put Gary Oldman in twenty layers of gray and little round blue glasses, I'm begging you. Quibble with the acting, the accents, the story--when newly-undead Sadie Frost waltzes back into her crypt carrying a screaming child and wearing the most gorgeously demented burial outfit in history, it's positively mesmerizing. It's literally art, the entire spread.
Because I watched this in a movie theater and am a courteous cinema attendee, I did not take notes on my phone like I usually do, so am left with only general impressions and not a beat for beat recap. I will reiterate my previous point that I no longer believe there is "good" or "bad" when it comes to Keanu Reeves, there is only Keanu, and you can either get on board with it or you cannot. I know that this film and The Devil's Advocate are often cited as proof of Keanu's exceedingly loose grip on accent work, but I swear to you every time he responded with a surprised "Oh" and it was the most chill surfer Keanu-sounding "Oh" that could possibly exist, it only endeared him to me more. Your mileage may vary on that front. Also throwing his generously-budgeted, period-appropriate hat into the accent arena is Sir Anthony Hopkins, one year out from absolutely terrifying the entire world as Hannibal Lecter, loosely committed to being Dutch but fully committed to having the best time of his life as Van Helsing. I dare you to not enjoy any scene that Hopkins bulldozes his way through, hollering about the devil's concubine and so forth. Honorable accent mention to Billy Campbell, one year out from delighting me personally in The Rocketeer, who aims for Texan but hits The South, but is too adorable to be held accountable for this in any way.
You know I appreciate a director who makes choices and this film is like the director choice-pocalypse. We're cutting, we're fading, we're zooming, we're showing you three things happening in different places at once, we're using a Pathé camera from the Silent Era to introduce young-looking Vlad in the streets of Victorian London, we're seeing pulsing red blood inside of living bodies, we're tracking characters on novel-esque maps. At the end of the day I feel like my eyeballs were simply too busy to stop and register any complaints in a meaningful way. "Wait that's silly--" I would start to think and then, wham--Gary Oldman is collecting Winona's tears in his hand, where they turn into diamonds, and I am leaning forward in my seat.
Line I repeated quietly to myself unironically because even the corny emotional beats of this movie work for me: "I have crossed oceans of time to find you."
Is it under two hours: Look, you can't be expected to contain this story in 120 minutes, what part of "oceans of time" didn't you understand
Thing that I will now be avoiding; for safety: International real estate transactions
Garlic Knots from Bon Appétit
The human characters do eat some roast chicken and potatoes and such, but, come on. It's clearly garlic time. "Oh, thaaaaat's the problem with being a vampire," Anna noted, "no garlic bread."
Up next: Grab your rye whisky and your cynical outlook, Noirvember is coming!
