How Winona Ryder helped to influence Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Dracula’
American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is a director of many talents, having made some of the most impressive films of the 20th century, including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation. Making horror films, thrillers, crime movies and war epics, Coppola has never restricted himself to just one type of filmmaking, proving this beyond doubt in 1992 with the release of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
An erotic and surreal piece of horror cinema, Bram Stoker’s Dracula sticks out as an oddity in Coppola’s filmography, with the filmmaker working with some of the greatest contemporary names to create his gothic vision. Enlisting the help of acting talents such as Gary OIdman, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins, Monica Bellucci and Winona Ryder, Coppola created a divisive piece of cinema that is truly beloved by a small section of horror fans.
Coming after the release of the third instalment in the Godfather trilogy, Coppola was in need of getting back on track with his successive film that follows the iconic vampire Count Dracula (Oldman) as he comes to England to seduce his barrister Jonathan Harker’s fiancée Mina Murray (Ryder). His leading star, Winona Ryder, of Edward Scissorhands and Heathers, would help him craft his vision.
Though Coppola read Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel when he was young, it was not till far later in life that he considered adapting it into a film.
In conversation with Entertainment Weekly, the filmmaker revealed that it was Ryder who encouraged him to adapt the classic horror tale. “She told me she loved this Dracula script that was very much like the book,” Coppola stated, adding, “then I thought, well, Dracula was written at the same time as cinema was invented. What if I made Dracula much in the way that the earliest cinema practitioners would have? You know, making a thing that is in fact what it is also about”.
Eager to instil this idea that his film was born from the dawn of cinema, Coppola also wished for all the special effects in the film to be practical, comparing them to magic tricks in the interview, “in the script, there were a million effects, but I wanted to do them all live”.
However, his special effects team wasn’t all too enthralled with the concept, but this was no problem for Coppola, who produced a quick solution. Continuing, he adds, “Nothing in post-production; do them all in the camera. I couldn’t get anyone to take me seriously, so I fired the special effects department and hired my young son, Roman, who was an enthusiast about magic”.
Though Coppola was a master of 20th-century filmmaking, in the new millennium, he has failed to live up to his impressive legacy. With that being said, the director’s latest flick, Megalopolis, looks to be changing his fortunes entirely, with current information about the project pointing to a grand new return to the craft of cinema.
