From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward G. Nilges)
Subject: Re: Coppola's DRACULA
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 05:08:08 GMT


In article <1993Jan07.223945.27126@sco.com> jondr@sco.COM (Karen Silkwood's car) writes:
>
>egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward G. Nilges) writes:
>It's drivel if the film in question was written/directed long before the
>current events began to play out.  (I don't know the lifecycle of the
>Dracula script/production, so I can't say if/how it corresponds to Serbia.)

Serbia's misbehavior started with the death of Tito so it well predates the
film, and the present-day events (only a part of a larger pattern) should
have given the filmmakers and releasers pause.  Films are always subject 
to last minute alterations when powerful people might be offended, but the
Bosnians are not powerful enough (Panic of Serbia, on the other hand, is
a returnee from California...makes one wonder.)
>
>I think those who produce the films would certainly like it if we behaved
>that way.

This is merely hip alienation.  Instead of this posture, why not actively 
criticize the process?
>
>How does Dracula stalking Mina (please don't confuse actors/actresses and
>their characters) parallel Serbia???  I can't believe this film has any

Reread the paragraph until you understand it.  The film is informed by (1) 
anti-Muslim racism and (2) sexism.  The "impaling" of Turks and of women
is, of course, related only at the symbolic level.  The point was that
Coppola, as usual, finds much to excuse in male misbehavior.

I think it's healthy, furthermore, to "confuse" Mina with Winona Ryder.  It
keeps the critical spirit alive to continually remind the viewer and
reader of your review that the film IS an illusion.

>subtext corresponding to the current political climate in it.  It seems to
>me that anything even vaguely like political commentary is being inserted by
>the viewers rather than the creators.  Personally, I thought the movie was
>about as brainless as they come and was just another opportunity for Coppola
>to drag his tired christian symbolism out for another go-round.  (The cross
>healing itself at the end was just too much for yours truly.  I nearly
>barfed on my companion.)

Of course it was brainless.  But you make no attempt to engage its messages
in any critical sense, meaning that they continue to work on your
subconscious.  For example, the statement you make "I nearly barfed on
my [putatively female] companion" expresses a lot of repressed hostility and
aggression and indeed is a Dracula-like desire to infect a woman with your
bodily fluids.  

As Mark Crispin Miller has remarked (Seeing Through Movies) this is how
contemporary American films work.  The audience is permitted to retain
its posture of hip alienation, which it confuses with a critical spirit,
while the film does its work on the subconscious.  This happened with
Star Wars and Apocalypse Now, and indeed in the media campaign for
Desert Storm.

After Western films started to be shown in the former Soviet Union, a Russian
interviewed on exiting from a Schwarzenegger film said "it was terrible,
I loved it."  This is more than just manufacturing consent.  It's manufactured 
schizophrenia.
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