Horseshoes & hand grenades: Francis Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula

 Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Waits. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, Columbia, 1992

I don't like Winona Ryder. Even if pressed I'd find it difficult to list ten great roles for her in movies. I'm not much more of a fan of Keanu Reeves, but I'm fed up with the received wisdom that Reeves ruins Bram Stoker's Dracula all by himself. First of all, it's a good, even very good, film so there's no ruining to be done. Secondly, Winona Ryder matches him beat for beat in craptastic acting. How do people blast Reeves's British accent while saying nothing of how dreadful Ryder's accent sounds?

Reeves makes an easy target, but he is no worse over his career than Ryder. Though they don't destroy Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 adaptation, it's difficult for me to pardon Coppola for giving such atrocious acting a pass.

Having said that, Bram Stoker's Dracula may well stand as one of Coppola's last consistently good, if not great, films. In succeeding years, only Jack (with Robin Williams) and The Rainmaker stack up as solid, good movies. His few films thereafter received such terrible notices I'm not sure I even want to see them.* After the financial disaster known as One From the Heart bankrupted him, Coppola spent much of the '80s making movies for other producers, trying to pull himself and his family out of debt. Though I enjoy some of those films (the Vietnam drama Gardens of Stone is particularly underrated), and enjoy the teen dramas he did, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, nothing he did in the '80s approached the creative highs of the Godfather pictures, Apocalypse Now, and The Conversation.

Bram Stoker's Dracula shows Coppola clawing back, or trying, his former prestige. His idea with Dracula was to combine gothic horror, romance, erotica (Coppola said he wanted the movie to be "an erotic dream), while starring some of the most promising young actors of the day. Reeves and Ryder were certainly young and promising at the time, yet they end up being the picture's biggest liabilities.

Otherwise, Coppola accomplishes his goals, particularly where atmosphere and aesthetic is involved. When the visual effects team he hired told him none could be done without CG, he fired them and brought in his son, Roman, who created every effect called for either on-set or in-camera, making post-production faster and cheaper, while also imbuing the movie with its distinctive visual sensibility, much of it an homage Roger Corman's Edgar Allen Poe adaptations of the 1960s (Coppola, himself, directed parts of Corman's The Terror, from 1963.) Considering how well the effects work (the shadows in Dracula's castle delight me everytime) Roman Coppola's achievement is considerable. Martin Scorsese's resident DP, Michael Ballhaus, bathes the movie in rich, warm light for its London segment, makes Dracula's home and land harsh, chilly, and forbidding. Bram Stoker's Dracula took home three Oscars - out of five nominations - for Sound Editing, Makeup, and Costumes, the latter two being key to the film's sumptuous, sensual quality. Costume designer Eiko Ishioka's red leather armour for Prince Vlad is not only one of the more distinctive outfits in modern cinema, it's clearly a huge influence on Sauron's armor in Peter Jackson's LoTR movies.

If Reeves and Ryder's performances almost spoil the movie, Coppola surrounds them with one of his better casts. Tom Waits is so creepy and weird as Renfield you start to wonder why Waits never pursued acting more seriously (particularly considering he hasn't made an interesting record in about 25 years.) Richard E. Grant, Sadie Frost, Cary Elwes, and Billy Campbell as Quincy - marking the first time a production of Dracula has used the American character from Stoker's novel - turn in typically solid performances, and Hopkins, playing both Van Helsing and Prince Vlad's chief priest, appears to have the time of his life as the fearless vampire hunter.

Which leaves Oldman. Though Gary Oldman already had Sid&Nancy and State of Grace on his CV, Dracula is the first big-budget Hollywood prestige project he worked in, and he makes the most of it. A recovering alcoholic, Oldman descended almost to self-parody playing a string of increasingly forgettable villains into the early Aughts but he's on fire here. Oldman brings the creepy in bucketloads, but it's his reading of Vlad Tepes as a tragic and romantic figure which makes his performance so unforgettable. Bela Lugosi's Dracula is pure fear, all evil. Oldman's is almost relatable, a man in love who feels cheated by life and by his God. Were it not for Klaus Kinski's turn as Vlad in Herzog's Nosferatu, Oldman's Dracula would be my favorite, and is still my #2.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of my most favorite types of film - one I thought distinctly mediocre 29 years ago which, last night, turned out to be very nearly great. If not for Reeves and Ryder, Dracula would be one of the best iterations of the venerable tale to date. As is, it's almost one of the best. In this case, as in the case of horseshoes and hand grenades, 'almost' counts.