st226

CINEMA FEATURE

visit stack.com.au

ANDRÉ ØVREDAL SINKS HIS TEETH INTO DRACULA: VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER

Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula is one of literature’s most beloved and adapted bodies of work, and arguably the most influential horror story of all time. Words Glenn Cochrane

André Øvredal

D espite being strewn with interpretations, the timeline of Dracula films is largely void of the most thrilling and provocative chapter from Stoker’s book, The Captain’s Log , which chronicles Count Dracula’s journey across the sea to London on board the merchant ship Demeter . Director André Øvredal (2019’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ) and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin and Dreamworks production companies have joined forces to bring this chilling chapter to the screen, and STACK caught up with Norwegian filmmaker Øvredal to chat about it. ”Bragi F. Schut, the writer, went deep into the novel, and tried to describe these characters that are just kind of names and blueprints of actions described in the captain’s log,” Øvredal says of expanding

to screen what is an otherwise ambiguous section of Stoker’s work. ”He made them into fleshed-out human beings, and we got these wonderful actors to portray them. And then,” he adds with amusement, ”I get to put my name on it.” Since the very first documented adaptation of Stoker’s novel, 1923’s Dracula’s Death , there have been countless versions of the story upon which its legacy has been built. It’s a tale treasured by generations, of which Øvredal is acutely aware. ”We have to select how we handle the tropes,” he admits, ”because they’re not just ideas by Bram Stoker. By now they’re culture, and they’ve been done a million times. So we have to constantly reinvent and twist and refresh it, to keep them new.” Despite the story’s long history

of exploration, Øvredal explains his own approach to the material is designed to minimise distraction by the pressures of expectation. ”I try not to use references when I’m making a movie,” he says. ”I avoid it because I am terrified of copying. There is enough potential to copy others already, because my head is just full of movies. So, that stuff is always going to come out, whether I want it or not. But what I am influenced by is the awe and wonder of people like Guillermo del Toro, who I have been lucky enough to work with. Also, the humanity of Steven Spielberg’s way of portraying characters in peril. And then, the starkness and darkness of David Fincher. These kinds of things just float around my filter, and with my team of collaborators, they just become the movie.”

On Spielberg; the film is a co-production with Amblin Entertainment, the company responsible for capturing the imaginations of millions of

moviegoers with films like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Gremlins (1984), and Back to the Future (1985), amongst countless others. Working with such an iconic company is a dream come true for any filmmaker of Øvredal’s generation. ”It’s beyond surreal,” he says, proverbially pinching himself. ”I remember having the first meeting, years ago, and I was like, ’What the hell am I doing here?’” he laughs. ”It is completely surreal to see the Dreamworks logo on a movie that I have my name on.”

Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter is in cinemas on August 10.

We’ve seen Denzel Washington’s mysterious Equalizer character take on Russian gangsters, assassins, and kidnappers over two previous films, but this time he takes on the grandaddy of them all: the Italian Mafia. Words Gill Pringle E qualizer 3 finds McCall enjoying retirement in Naples AN OFFER DENZEL COULDN’T REFUSE

them barbarians. Even the Mafia call them the barbarians because they’re younger and a little more aggressive. You know, there’s that old thing about how there used to be a code like in The Godfather - but there’s never a code. It’s just taking advantage of people, is what it is,” he says. Talking about taking the Equalizer story out of the US and setting it in Italy, Fuqua says, ”I have always wanted to make a film in Italy, or a more international story about the Equalizer. I think it’s important to do that. At one point, there was the old Hollywood fable that - especially films with African-American people - it had to be based in some urban setting in the United States. And I’ve never believed that. I wanted to place Denzel, who is international, in an

Antoine Fuqua (director), Gaia Scodellaro,

when he discovers that his friends are being controlled by local crime bosses. When we ask director Antioine Fuqua if he was afraid to take on the Mafia, he laughs, ”I’ve been around that sort of thing most of my life. What I learned is that it’s similar. They’re all the same everywhere around the world, whether they’re Russian, Italian, or African-American gangs. Whatever. They’re all taking advantage of other people,” says the director, who first worked with Washington two decades ago on Training Day . ”What I found interesting about the Italian Mafia in Naples is they really have a stronghold, obviously - but they’re young, very young. I’ve heard people call

Dakota Fanning, and Denzel Washington

ten years old when they first co-starred in Tony Scott’s Man on Fire . ”I think her agent had called and she wanted to meet me,” reveals Fuqua. ”So I met with Dakota and fell in love with her right away. I could see what Denzel loved so much about her. And then when I called Denzel and said, ’Hey, what do you think about Dakota playing a role?’ he was tickled about it."

international setting.” Furthermore, Equalizer 3 also serves to reunite Washington with Dakota Fanning, 29, who was just

Equalizer 3 is in cinemas on August 31.

AUGUST 2022

jbhifi.com.au

8