From: AFCOLYER@PSUCES.BITNET
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Subject: Bram Stoker's Dracula
Date: 15 Oct 92 13:46:00 GMT
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                  I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:     15-Oct-1992 08:27am DST
                                        From:     Anita F. Colyer
                                                  AFCOLYER
                                        Dept:     Independent Learning
                                        Tel No:   (814) 865-5403

TO:  Remote Network Mail User             ( _IN%CINEMA-L@AUVM.BITNET )


Subject: Bram Stoker's Dracula

For all you Dracula fans:

Just got the latest US magazine (Nov. 92), and they had a 5-page feature on the
new Dracula movie.  It opened with an introduction by Francis Ford Coppola,
which I thought some of you out there might be interested in.  I'm including
his comments in their entirety for those of you who may not get this magazine:

"As a teenager, I worked as the drama counselor at a camp.  One summer, I read
'Dracula' to my group of eight- and nine-year-old boys.  When we got to that
chilling moment--when Harker looks out the window and sees Dracula crawling
across the face of the wall like a bug--even those little boys knew, this was
going to be good!

"I was about fourteen when I saw the Bela Lugosi film.  I loved him, but I was
disappointed by the three vampire brides--they were just standing there in
their robes, looking dead, and that wasn't what a fourteen-year-old boy wants
to see.

"I remember as a kid going to the 'Encyclopedia Britannica' to look up
Dracula--and there he was, Vlad the Impaler.  I was just thrilled to think that
he really existed.  In his script, Jim Hart uses the history of Prince Vlad to
set the frame for the whole story.  It's full of passion and eroticism.  The
brides aren't just standing around; they actually rape Harker--when I read
that, it filled my child's heart with enthusiasm.

"Dracula's been portrayed as a monster or as a seducer, but knowing his
biography made me think of him as a fallen angel, as Satan.  The irony is that
he was this hero who single-handedly stopped the Turks, but then he renounced
God because his wife was a suicide and was denied holy burial.  Usually Dracula
is just a reptilian creature in a horror film.  I wanted people to see that
underneath this vampire myth is really fundamental human stuff that everyone
feels and knows.

"Blood is the primary metaphor.  Even if people don't feel a sacramental
relationship with God, I think they can understand how many people renounce
their blood ties to the creative spirit, or whatever it is--and become like
living dead.  The vampire has lost his soul, and that can happen to anyone."

I saw an ad for the movie on TV last night.  They said the opening date was
Friday, the 13th of November.  Gary Oldman as Dracula, Keanu Reeves as Jonathan
Harker, Winona Ryder as Mina Harker, Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, and Sadie
Frost as Lucy.

Anita
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