Francis Ford Coppola's erotic vampire movie Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) still shocks and seduces
Dracula is generally played as a seducer, but Coppola's version skilfully puts an unbridled eroticism at the centre of the film, making love and lust the driving force of the story. As one would expect of the master director, he elevates the horror to a drama of operatic majesty.
The story closely follows that of Stoker, even though this means it gets bogged down in literary exposition. In the middle ages, Romanian prince Dracula (Gary Oldman, whose weird beehive hairdo, often attributed to Coppola, is actually taken from Stoker's description), a Christian warrior, is betrayed by God, who allows his loved one (Winona Ryder) to die. In revenge, Dracula turns to the dark side and becomes one of the undead, waiting out the ages for his lover to be reincarnated.
That happens in 19th-century England, where pretty Mina (Ryder again) is engaged to be married to Jonathan (Keanu Reeves). Dracula uses magic to seduce Mina and offers her eternal existence as one of the undead. Jonathan and the mysterious Professor Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) try to keep her in the land of the living.
Coppola became fascinated by the Dracula story when he was 17, after reading Stoker's novel. When Ryder showed him a script that was faithful to Stoker, Coppola immediately got involved.
Coppola noticed that the novel was written around the time of the invention of cinema, and planned to film it as if it were shot back in the early days. This led to a bold decision not to use any modern special effects " everything is done physically with props, make-up and celluloid treatments. He shot mainly on sound stages, rather than on location, which enhances the film's strange picture-book quality.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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