Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) + deleted scenes – Vampiric Projections I: The Vampire’s Tunneling/Teleporting

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Dutch postcard by Film Freak Productions, Zoetermeer, no. FA 346

Bram Stoker’s Dracula USA 1992 Regi Francis Ford Coppola Manus James V. Hart Foto Michael Ballhaus Med Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves 2t 8m DCP Engelsk tale, utekstet Aldersgrense 15 år

Often said to be one of the most faithful adaptations of the novel, despite screenwriter James Hart’s elaborate addition of a romance with the otherwise monstrous vampire, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) truly rooted the vampire into a solid cinematic Gothic setting.
Coppola was keen on opting for analog, in-camera practical effects, against the vogue of computer graphics from the early 90’s. Instead, this choice gravitated towards the aesthetics of the early days of cinema, or ‘cinema of attraction‘, as Tom Gunning called it.
1897 was the year of the publication of Stoker’s novel, 2 years after the genesis of the cinematograph. The filmmaker had the latter invention figure in the 1992 film’s diegesis, shooting a scene with a hand-cranked Pathé camera from that period.

In the context of Vampiric Reflections‘ tunneling/teleporting, we witness much of this phenomenon in the film. When Jonathan Harker is at the count’s castle, the latter seems to tunnel often via his shadow: Dracula’s shadow on the walls can make him glide through rooms, make doors open on their own, etc.
It is rather unfortunate that tunneling and teleporting were most aptly carried out in what became deleted and extended scenes, cut out from the film since its release (with no potential for a director’s cut).
After the screening, some of the deleted and extended scenes will be projected, with Oscar analyzing the use of tunneling/teleporting in the image.

Suggested readings:
‘Labyrinth’ – pages 75-80
&
‘Fascinated Motionlessness and Quantum Tunneling’
pages 20-24 from (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film