8 over THE EDGE-Friday November 4, 1994

LOOKING FORWARD TO FRANKENSTEIN

by Damien Joly.

Francis Ford
Coppola has teamed up with
the present day master of
Shakespearean film, Kenneth
Branagh, to bring to the
screen Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein.
due out in early November,

represents the marriage of-

my two favourite
filmmakers. Having seen
Coppola's Bram Stoker's
Dracula (in its entirety!!!)
seven or eight times, I am
really excited about the
upcoming Frankenstein.
This column in is
anticipation of what I hope to
be a cinematographic
masterpiece.
Bram
Dracula is a

Stoker's
brilliant

adaptation of the original
novel. Not many movies are
better than the books they
are based on, but this one
definitely is.
embryonic

Take an
feminist

MUSIC NIGHT -

This film,

movement, mix in some
upper class W.A.S.P.'s svho
are still firm subscribers to
the "White Man's Burden,"
and you have a society that
will create Dracula.

Stoker's novel is.
really a - metaphor for
rampant female sexuality and
the horrors it brings upon
society. "There was a
deliberate voluptuousness
which was both thrilling and
repulsive, and as she arched
her neck she actually licked
her lips like an animal..."
The protagonist Johnathon
Harker's diary shows how he
both lusted after and feared
the strong, sexually
aggressive female, a duality
typical then and now.
However, since this sexuality
is beyond male control, it is
condemned.

Coppola takes this

formula and twists it into a
morally palatable _ film.
There is the same group of
impotent males. who try to
stamp out evil and save their

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women from rolling around
in throes of bliss and ecstasy.

However, there is a
difference.

The first “victim,”
Lucy (Sadie Frost), is

comfortable in her sexuality,
and does not subscribe to the
Victorian edict of prudence
and modesty. Mina (Winona
Ryder) keeps a copy of the
Kama Sutra handy. Dracula

Stoker’s novel is really a
metaphor for rampant
female sexuality and the
horrors it brings upon
society.

(Gary Oldman) is not just a
bloodsucking, Sesame Street
type villain, but a charming
yet horrible vampire. The
movie is as much a love
story as it is a horror story,
with all the cheese that it
entails. One severe problem
is Keanu Reeves. I'll leave
it at that. The romance
between Dracula and Mina is

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undying, completely opposite
to Stoker's original intention.

The animosity
between Dracula and the
Church is underscored by the
way Coppola brings shots of
Harker (Keanu Reeves) and
Mina's marriage together
with the earthly demise of
Lucy. He draws an analogy
between the symbolic
cannibalism of the Catholic
Church (the Blood of Christ
we drink at Communion...)
and Dracula's source of
immortality ("The blood is
the life..") The final minutes
of the film allows
redemption for Dracula. His
lost love consummated in his
forsaken chapel.

You can't watch this
film and not be mesmerized
by how the shadows take on
a life of their own. Each
scene is woven beautifully
into the ext, so that the
transition from a severed
head to a roast beef seems
perfectly logical. Amazing.

Kenneth Branagh's

masterpiece is the screen
adaptation of the
Shakespeare's Henry V,
which he both directed and
starred in. This view will
draw major criticism, but it
almost seems as if good ol’
Bill wrote this play with
Branagh in mind for the lead
role.

Dead Again is a
more mainstream production
by Branagh. Creepy
flashbacks are interspersed
with a twisted plot that is
delighting. Robin Williams
makes an appearance as a

burned out psychologist.
Emma Thompson is
incredible, and Branagh,

himself, convincingly plays
two different characters.
Watch for a take on
Salvador Dali's Persistence
of Time.

Knowing Coppola's
track record and Branagh's
acting genius, I predict four
droppings for Mary

Shelley's Frankenstein, and
if I'm wrong, my e-mail is
joly@ugrad.unbe.edu.