Dracula: 30 years of the count in the hands of Francis Ford Coppola – La Tercera

It was the time when he spent his free time participating in summer camps. Summer instances that did not have a merely recreational focus, but were aimed at children and adolescents with a special interest in acting.

As a lover of dramaturgy, the Francis Ford Coppola of the mid-50s exercised the tasks of a guide in that discipline, although he was still a 17-year-old like any other, with the impulses of someone of that age.

One of these days, thinking that his disciples would go to bed as soon as possible – and that way he could be free to go snuggle with his girlfriend, part of a group staying nearby – he read to them draculaby Bram Stoker. It was not the ideal book to put a bunch of infants to sleep, but that was the least of it. For the director of The Godfather (1972) that marked his first approach with the famous novel published in 1897.

Before and after he commanded other literary adaptations (Mario Puzo, twice to SE Hinton, and later to John Grisham), but his work with Stoker’s work in the 1990s was perhaps one of his most daring undertakings.

However, that wasn’t exactly what was on the minds of Columbia Pictures executives when they handed him a $45 million budget to make a movie that would draw mass viewers. He, who was still recovering from the resounding financial fall that the musical meant blow to the heart (1982), accepted without question.

Coppola gladly agreed to shoot in studios and forego shooting on location. In return, he made a series of decisions that could have set off alarm bells for the producers. First, he fired his entire visual effects team, who insisted that it was imperative that he employ digital assets, the kind of tricks that had brought titles like the second film to the forefront. terminator (1991) or the first starwars.

Confident that there was only one way to bring the images from the book to the screen, the author of The conversation (1974) won the cock and only used techniques typical of the origins of cinema. Who was in charge of that was his 24-year-old son, Roman, a still young filmmaker who had learned working alongside him.

A similar move applied with Eiko Ishioka. A graphic artist by profession, the Japanese had created the Japanese posters of apocalypse now (1979), work with which she aroused the admiration of the director, who signed her as costume designer for his version of dracula despite not having experience in the field.

Although it was intended as a mass consumption project, Coppola did not lose sight of its main purpose. That is, to create a film that was, in his words, “very authentic to the book. Unusual, a bit experimental. fun for me”.

One of his great allies during the process was Gary Oldman, the one chosen to embody the terrifying count of history. Known at the time thanks to his roles in Sid and Nancy (1986) and Prick up your ears (1987), the Briton was in his thirties when he had to assume the demands of the chameleon-like character, from embodying a creepy being to a seductive man.

It was not easy to put on layers of makeup and dedicate several hours a day to his preparation, but time has placed him as the person in charge of a more than competent incarnation of the same role that was previously immortalized by Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee.

Winona Ryder, who had left at the last minute the third part of The Godfather (1990), was the one who recommended the director to read the script by James V. Hart. Not satisfied with playing that key role, the actress doubled as Elizabeth, the late wife of Vlad the Impaler, and Mina, the girlfriend of Keanu Reeves’ character. “Ryder has just the right combination of intelligence and seductive looks.”, praised Variety at the time of its premiere, in November 1992 (in streaming it is available on HBO Max).

Critics were somewhat harsher on Reeves and his British accent, as well as the film’s tendency to overflow. But most of those involved have reason to fondly remember the radical immersion in the tragic story of the most popular of vampires.

“Dracula has the nervous excitement of the work of a precocious film student who has magically acquired a master’s grasp of his craft. It is surprising, entertaining and always a little too much”, reviewed The New York Times three decades ago.

That same filmmaker, now 83 years old, currently facing a new impossible project: Megalopolis, a self-financed film that will star Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker and Nathalie Emmanuel. It is not a bad time to remember that, when it comes to taking risks and showing skill and gaze, there are very few of his stature.