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Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles is a 1994 American drama-horror film based on the 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. The film was directed by Neil Jordan, and stars Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea, Kirsten Dunst and Christian Slater.
In modern-day San Francisco, reporter Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater), interviews Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt), who claims to be a vampire and tells the story of his past.
Louis' story begins in Louisiana in 1791, when he was 24 and suffering from a death wish after the loss of his wife and infant child. The vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise)
offers him a chance to be reborn and proceeds to turn him into a
vampire. Lestat teaches Louis how to live as a vampire. At first Louis
rebels against hurting humans, drinking animal blood instead, but he
finally succumbs and kills his faithful house slave. He tries to kill
himself by setting fire to his house, but Lestat rescues him and they
flee.
In New Orleans,
Louis is wandering the streets amidst an outbreak of plague. He finds a
plague ridden girl in a house with her dead mother. He bites the young
girl, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst),
whom Lestat later transforms into a vampire "daughter", to discourage
Louis from leaving him. Lestat begins to teach Claudia how to live like a
vampire, making her copy his actions, as to killing. As thirty years
pass, Claudia becomes a sadistic killer and closely bonded to Louis and
Lestat. But when she realizes that she will live forever but never grow
up, she becomes furious with Lestat. She tricks him into drinking the
blood of the corpses of twin boys, whom she killed by overdosing them with Laudanum,
with the knowledge that the blood from the body of a creature already
dead is fatal to vampires. This weakens him and she then slits his
throat. Claudia and Louis dump Lestat's body in a swamp but he later
returns, having drained the blood of swamp creatures to survive. Lestat
attacks them but Louis sets him on fire and flees to Paris with Claudia, assuming Lestat is dead.
In 1870 Paris, Louis and Claudia live in perfect harmony but Louis is
still bothered by the question of how vampires came to be and if there
are any other vampires on earth. One night, while walking the streets,
he meets vampires Santiago (Stephen Rea) and Armand (Antonio Banderas),
who tell him that there are other vampires in Paris and that he knows
the answers Louis has been searching for. Armand invites Louis and
Claudia to his coven, the Théâtre des Vampires,
where they witness Armand and his coven dispatching a terrified human
woman before an unsuspecting human audience. Armand later takes them to
his lair and offers Louis a place by his side, while secretly telling
Claudia to leave him. Louis refuses to leave his beloved Claudia,
however, and leaves the lair. As he does, Santiago warns him that his
vampire coven knows about Lestat's murder and that it is forbidden for
vampires to kill another vampire. Louis returns alone to Armand's lair,
where Armand proceeds to reveal that Louis is a unique vampire as he
possesses a human soul and is connected to the "broken-hearted" spirit
of the 19th Century. Louis becomes thoroughly smitten by Armand and
resolves to leave Claudia at long last.
Returning to his residence, Louis finds that Claudia has brought home
a human woman, Madeleine, with the intent that Louis turn her into a
vampire to serve as a companion and protector before he leaves. Louis
reluctantly gives in and transforms Madeleine, forcing Claudia to admit
that they are now even and can part on good terms. Immediately after,
however, the Parisian vampires burst in and abduct all three of them. As
punishment for Lestat's murder, they imprison Louis in a metal coffin
and lock Claudia and Madeleine into an airshaft with an open roof. The
next morning, the rising sun floods the airshaft and Claudia and
Madeleine turn to ash. Armand frees Louis, who searches for Claudia and
is horrified and grief-stricken when he comes across her ashen remains.
He returns that night to the Theatre and seeks revenge for Claudia by
burning all the vampires alive in their own theatre as they sleep and
dispatching some, including Santiago, with a scythe.
Armand arrives in time to help him escape, and once again offers him a
place by his side. Louis once again refuses, knowing that Armand
choreographed Claudia's demise in an attempt to get Louis all to
himself, and he leaves Armand for good.
As decades pass, Louis explores the world alone, still grieving for
Claudia, before returning to America. He is seen and heard telling how
he saw "the sun rise for the first time in 200 years", in a movie
theatre, watching Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Nosferatu, Gone with the Wind and Superman.
He returns to New Orleans in 1988 and finds Lestat, still alive but a
mere shadow of his former self. Louis unwittingly gives Lestat some
insight about modern technology; Lestat asks Louis to rejoin him, but
Louis rejects him and leaves.
At this point Louis concludes the interview, which Malloy, the
interviewer, cannot accept. He asks Louis to transform him so he can see
what it is truly like to be a vampire, but Louis throttles him in a fit
of rage and vanishes. Malloy hurriedly runs to his car and drives away,
feeling happy with his interview as he plays it through the cassette
player. Just then, Lestat appears, attacks him and takes control of the
car. Revived by Malloy's blood, he then offers a dying Malloy "the
choice I never had" as they drive off into the San Francisco night,
taking out the cassette and turning on the radio, which is playing Guns N' Roses cover of the Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil".
[edit] Supporting
- Domiziana Giordano as Madeleine
- Virginia McCollam as Whore on Waterfront
- John McConnell as Gambler
- Mike Seelig as Pimp
- Bellina Logan as Tavern Girl
- Lyla Hay Owen as Widow St Clair
- Lee Emery as Widow's Lover
- Thandie Newton as Yvette
- Indra Ové as New Orleans Whore
- Helen McCrory as 2nd Whore
- Monte Montague as Plague Victim Bearer
- Nathalie Bloch as Maid
- Jeanette Kontomitras as Woman in Square
- Roger Lloyd Pack as Piano Teacher
- George Kelly as Dollmaker
- Nicole DuBois as Creole Woman
- Micha Bergese as Paris Vampire
- Rory Edwards as Paris Vampire
- Marcel Iureş as Paris Vampire
- Susan Lynch as Paris Vampire
- Louise Salter as Paris Vampire
- Matthew Sim as Paris Vampire
- Francois Testory as Paris Vampire
- Andrew Tiernan as Paris Vampire
- Simon Tyrrell as Paris Vampire
- George Yiasoumi as Paris Vampire
- Sara Stockbridge as Estelle
- Laure Marsac as Mortal Woman on Stage
- Katia Caballero as Woman in Audience
- Louis Lewis-Smith as Mortal Boy
[edit] Casting
British actor Julian Sands
was considered to play the role of Lestat by Rice herself; but, because
Sands was not a known name, being only famed for his performance in A Room with a View, he was rejected and the role was given to Tom Cruise.
This was initially criticized by Anne Rice, who said that Cruise was
"no more my vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler" and
the casting was "so bizarre; it's almost impossible to imagine how it's
going to work". Nevertheless, she was satisfied with Cruise's
performance after seeing the completed film, saying that "from the
moment he appeared, Tom was Lestat for me" and "that Tom did make
Lestat work was something I could not see in a crystal ball". In fact,
after she saw the premiere of the movie, she wrote a letter of apology
to Tom Cruise and commended his performance.[citation needed]
Originally, River Phoenix was cast for the role of Daniel (as Anne Rice liked the idea), but he died four weeks before he was due to begin filming. When Christian Slater was cast in his place as Daniel, he donated his entire salary to Phoenix's favorite charitable organizations.[1] The film has a dedication to Phoenix after the end credits.
[edit] Reception
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles opened on
November 11, 1994. Opening weekend grosses amounted to $36.4m, placing
it in the number one position at the US box office. In subsequent weeks
it struggled against Star Trek: Generations and The Santa Clause.
Total US gross was $105 million. Total including international gross
was $224 million. With an estimated budget of $60 million, this could be
considered a moderate success.[2]
Received average reviews. Praise from The New York Times Elvis Mitchell and the Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert was tempered by poor reviews in The Washington Post and Time
magazine. Though most critics agreed that the movie was visually
arresting, many lamented the slow pace and lack of real scares.[3] Rotten Tomatoes
awards the film with 60% positive reviews, summarizing the consensus as
"Despite lacking some of the book's subtler shadings, and suffering
from some clumsy casting, Interview with a Vampire benefits from Neil
Jordan's atmospheric direction and a surfeit of gothic thrills."[4]
The movie was nominated for two Academy Awards - for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (losing to The Madness of King George), and for Best Original Score (losing to The Lion King)
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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