Are you sure about the feud or is that just hearsay? It seems a bit odd that they'd produce films together (post thx, ag & sw they did Kagemusha, Mishima, Captain Eo, Tucker) if they really were a-feudin'.

"Fuggedaboudit. Youse expect me to keep track of dat? What am I?"

"Hey, don't go bustin' my balls. Nick, tell him to quit bustin' my balls!"

"Quit bustin' his balls, Vinnie."

Well, you're wrong, 'cause it is.

Doesn't every great director have about a 7 or 8 year run where they direct most of their classic films? Seems like that is always the case.

I'm hoping he will have something interesting - and personal - to say about today's "wars and rumors of war."

It was a poor, poor choice to try and wring some far-fetched "romance" angle out of a story that is not about some necrophiliac love triangle.

I will be with you in spirit in the theater when "The Castle of Otranto" or "The Monk" ever gets made into film.

"Paulie won't like that."

"Yeah, well, Paulie ain't never gonna find out about it, now is he?"

"He prolly already knows everything."

"Who's the stool pigeon?!?!?"

Paulie enters.

"Godfather, I seek your blessing to bring Joey back from the dead."

"A zombie. In my house? You gonna bring a zombie into my family? Your mother, God rest her soul, would be ashamed! Do it...but quietly."

Doctor_Sin, I'm glad to hear you're a fan of the genre as well, and yes, I do dream of big-budget The Castle of Otranto and The Monk adaptions; I'm particularly fond of the notion of getting to a point where I can do them myself!

"Over dere." (points at table)

"Where?

"Dere!" (points down to tabletop)

"Hey - why's he so tiny? And why'd you leave him alone with the Godfather's lunch?"

"Shaddap. Don't say nothin' and ain't nothin' gonna happen."

The Godfather enters.

"Enjoy your lunch, Godfather."

"Why's Uncle Giuseppe crawling around on my cannoli?"

"Tony - get the Godfather a fresh cannoli...and get Uncle Giuseppe a spoon - he's stuck in the alfredo sauce."

Well said, indeed.

The man has fingers in lots of good projects - no slouch. But, can he slip into the Director's seat comfortably or will we experience another Lucas?

"What, Frankie?"

"Dat last hit, when I got popped and sent up the river? An' I told ya dey made me see dem docs and shrinks and stuff?"

"Yeah."

"I tell ya - now I can't listen ta Dean Martin without pukin'. Dat music used ta be my 'going out on a job' music!"

"No shit!?!?"

"Can't stand dat shit now. Sinatra neither. My old lady's all freaked about that one."

You're pretty excited about all this, aren't you?

I have written very lengthy papers over this and could go on and on, but the way I look at it is thusly: Really the only thing that is majorly different from the novel is the romance angle (which has roots in the Stoker subtext), and notice that's not an outright change, but merely an addition to the story. If Coppola had changed something in the story (ala past Dracula screenwriters having Lucy be in Mina's position, or a female Van Helsing, et cetera), then I'd have been very upset. But all Jim Hart did was add a new element that I feel adds depth. Stoker's novel is still all there, but then you get an added bonus of something that provides even more cinematic narrative drive.

I realize that the romance angle is the biggest target for people's argument that Coppola didn't do a faithful adaptation. Its just that I feel he did do so much that is culled straight from the book, far more than any other filmmaker has ever attempted, so to have a non-book subplot doesn't bother me too much, even if it does slightly change the characters of Dracula and Mina. I do admit to being a major Anne Rice fan as well, so perhaps that has coloured my interpretations over the years.

I particularly like what you say about my interpretation also being coloured by earlier Gothic works like Otranto and Udolpho, because I have never put it in perspective that way, but it makes total sense. I have went out on a limb before to break-down Stoker's text in a way of justifying the Coppola changes, purely as an academic pursuit rather than as a way of "proving" that one interpretation is right (which can never be done), but in the end that's all it can be: an interpretation. And I do admit that the crutch this one stands on is the notion that Stoker only implied some of his themes, censoring himself against a very proper Victorian audience. As you say it also relies on what is not said in the book, which is something that only holds weight as an academic exercise. Thanks for the conversation!