Cinema
Bram Stoker's Dracula (`18', selected cinemas) Annabelle Partagee (`18', MGM Piccadilly)
The curse of Dracula
Vanessa Letts
This film isn't really me. It is merely one more of many insults to the finest, wittiest and most brilliant fellow in the world. Fools, fools! Sad times are these for a Transylvanian Prince when homage becomes an outrage, and awestruck admi- ration is perverted by vile complacency. Beware, Francis Ford Coppola, degener-. ate, American; beware how you meddle with Count de Ville. Faugh! The common people know and love me. I go amongst them and accept devotion. Surrounded by London's mighty swirl of humanity I go. I sit in the shadows, nay, in the utter dark- ness, awaiting the one true mirror into which I may peer. What is this violation on the screen before me? What is this humili- ating lie that the cinemas of England col- lude in perpetuating? Francis Coppola, filth, Italian; I should like to dash your brains out. How dare you tax me with this travesty? Screenwriter Jim Hart, imbecile; you too stand condemned. I, whose veins are rich with the blood of Attila and the brave races who fought as the lion fights for lordship, who through the Ogric tribe bear the fighting spirit of Thor and Wodin, I am depicted in this Coppola abomination weeping pitifully like a milkmaid, not once, but three times! Pooh! I hate you, you pusil- lanimous, anaemic British; your stinking, classless, American cousins I hate more. Be warned, Coppola: Dracula the Szekely will not forget this insolence.
Keanu Reeves, Winona Rider: for these numbskull Hawaiian actors I have naught but disdain. Sir Anthony Hopkins, how dare you depict that idiotic old fool Van Helsing as my arch rival. Lies! Lies! Van Helsing is dead and forgotten. His name is meaningless. Without me he is nothing; a worm; a blade of grass. Damn all thick- headed Welsh and Dutchmen, and Ameri- cans too wherever their works may be promoted. Gary Oldman, who are you. How dare you prance across the screen in wigs and make-up, speaking execrable Rumanian, weeping like a girl, falling io love with Hawaiians? Who are you to por- tray me thus! Scum! Beetle! Representa tive of the rabble! How dare you imply that I paint my face in this hideous manner. Lipstick? Bah! Blood, blood, blood!
Charles Moore, editorialiser, expresser of views; who are you to condemn cinemat- ic violence and bloodshed? You, with your unmanly views, you are responsible for this inane travesty; for feeble gutlessness, noised abroad and worshipped here. I, who fought the Beserkers and the Turk, who am handsomer and more attractive than any man alive, I who cut a dash and influence modes wherever I choose to go, I revile this impudence and shall not endure it. Nosferatu was a Dracula indeed. All films that followed have been but pale imita- tions. Be warned, insolent directors and actors, do not hope to throw the glory of a descendant of Voivode upon your own mediocre productions by an association with me, who commanded nations, who intrigued for them and fought for them hundreds of years before you were born. I have a heart that knows no fear and no remorse. I have the centuries before Me and you have nothing. You think to make a fool out of me. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you. My revenge is only just begun.
`Annabelle is 25. She moved to Paris two years ago to go to dance school . soon she is torn between two lovers and has to face the fact that the truth in her body lies in the truth of her heart.' Torn? Not in my Brief Encounter.
view! Annabelle Partagee, anorexic, nYmphomaniac, who are you to curse cine- mas with your withered presence? Francesca Comencini, director, fantasist, who are you to sport genitalia across the screens of England? I forbid you to inflict Your minuscule concerns on the rest of the world, Blood, blood, blood! Death! Damnation! Victory to the Boyars!
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