Gary Oldman and Francis Ford Coppola in Dracula (1992)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) dir. Francis Ford Coppola

…he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty girl. He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us, and so I had a good view of him. His face was not a good face. It was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal’s.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) → Francis Ford Coppola

“I am the monster that breathing men would kill. I am Dracula”

Dracula (1992)

The doorway to the seedy underbelly of London! Step right up. Is it fucking worth it? Yes, it is!

Sid and Nancy (1986) dir. Alex Cox

Cinematography by: Roger Deakins, BSC, ASC
Sid and Nancy (1986)
Directed by Alex Cox
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

“The film is part historical record now,” adds Roger Deakins. … For something that he considers “certainly not my best work”, the location shooting throughout has a wizardly, near-surreal vibrancy. “The last scene, which looks across the river to the Twin Towers, has a resonance now that no one could have imagined at the time.”

This was only Deakins’s fourth or fifth feature. He remembers his arrival in America, where about half the film is set. “It was my first time there. We landed in New York and immediately scouted locations. There followed a production meeting at midnight, New York time – that was 5am for me, and we were scheduled to shoot first thing the next day. My assistant David Bryant interrupted to say that the camera truck was leaking 23 gallons of diesel onto the street. What should we do? It had also just begun to snow, and David wanted to know where he was going to be sleeping.”

Contradicting Cox’s recollections of it all being “pretty safe and seamless”, Deakins insists that it was “kind of a crazy” shoot.

“Lots of memories! Wearing raincoats to film some of the concert footage, as the audience were not picky as to where they aimed their spit. Chloe Webb smashing the real glass out of the telephone booth when we had strategically placed sugar glass for her to hit. The police chasing our boat down the Thames and becoming part of the film. The fire brigade suspiciously appearing…”

Deakins talks of an awful lot being made up as they went along, shots grabbed in lunchbreaks, experiments – like that alleyway scene, Abbe Wool’s [screenwriter’s] idea – cooked up excitably on the spur of the moment.” — [x]