INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
A film review by Jeffrey Graebner
Copyright 1994 Jeffrey Graebner
Initially, the premise of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE seems to be an intriguing one: the depiction of the day-to-day lives of a group of vampires. We quickly learn that their lives are basically tediously repetitive and ultimately without meaning. Unfortunately, the same terms of description can be used to describe the movie itself.
The movie opens with a young journalist (Christian Slater) sitting down to interview a man that he apparently has randomly selected off of the street. Much to the interviewer's surprise, his subject turns out to be a vampire named Louis (Brad Pitt). The bulk of the film is shown in flashback as Louis relates the story of his life, starting at the point when he was made into a vampire by a seductive and mysterious vampire named Lestat (Tom Cruise). The other key character in the film is Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), who becomes a vampire as a young child, thus forcing her to remain forever in a child's body.
This is essentially a plotless movie, opting instead to concentrate on the characters and the vampire lifestyle. Anne Rice's script (based on her novel) seems to indicate that the life of a vampire is rather monotonous. After a while, the film falls into a very repetitive pattern with seemingly endless scenes of the vampires seeking out the blood of mortals to drink. After one or two of these scenes, the film makes it very clear that the vampires have very little difficulty obtaining victims. Rice gives the vampires an ability to essentially cast a spell over mortals, causing them to freely give themselves over, eliminating any real conflict. The film also never bothers to tell the audience enough about the victims to really care about their fate. Louis spends a lot of time fretting over the morality of it all, but the script makes it very hard for the audience to feel much sympathy for this.
The movie attempts to compensate for the fact that little actually happens by piling on symbolism and subtext. The vampires' victims are often shown having an almost orgasmic reaction to being bit, emphasising a parallel between vampirism and sexuality. The film also introduces a strong hint of homoeroticism early on in the relationship between Louis and Lestat and later in a severely underdeveloped relationship between Louis and Armand (Antonio Banderas), a charming vampire that he meets in Paris. The film glosses over this latter relationship so quickly that it is difficult to ever figure out why it is even in the film.
Like Kenneth Branagh's recent film adaptation of MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN, this film isn't really meant to be scary. There may be a few scenes that will startle a bit, but the movie never really inspires any actual feelings of fear or dread in the viewer. Rice's script is much more concerned with the characters and subtext than it is with surprising or horrifying the audience. This is a valid approach, but unlike Branagh's film this movie never really manages to generate much interest.
The two-hour running time of the movie really isn't enough time to explore any of the subtext with much depth while also introducing the characters and moving forward the film's minimal plot. While Rice probably had time to explore these things much further in her novel (which I haven't read), they largely get lost in the shuffle here. Similarly, some of the details about the nature of the vampires' lives are also left muddled. In particular, the issue of how a vampire can be killed, as well as the *consequences* of that act, are largely left unexplained. Towards the middle of the film, one vampire "rule" becomes very important to the plot even though it hadn't even been *mentioned* earlier.
Another area that is left very unclear is the concept of a "dark gift" that is mentioned by several characters. The impression is that every vampire is given a different "dark gift," but this is an idea that is simply introduced and otherwise left unexplored. The film implies that this is somehow important, but I could never figure out why.
Even prior to the start of filming, the casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat generated a lot of controversy. The fans of Rice's novel were outraged by the decision and Rice herself expressed strong displeasure with the choice (although she eventually publicly recanted after seeing the completed film). After all of this controversy, it turns out that Cruise's performance is the best thing about the film. Cruise plays the role with a great deal of finesse and seductive charm. When necessary, he is also able to bring in an appropriate amount of menace. This performance is unlike anything that Cruise has done before and the film absolutely comes to life whenever he is on-screen.
Despite the top billing and the publicity surrounding the role, Cruise's Lestat is really only a supporting character in the film. Brad Pitt's Louis is the central character. This ends up being one of the film's biggest problems. Pitt plays Louis with a constantly sullen and generally lifeless tone. The character may very well have been written this way, but that doesn't make him any less dull. It doesn't take very long to tire of Louis' constant sour whining.
When Cruise disappears during most of the final third of the film, there is really very little of interest left. It certainly doesn't help that the final third transplants the action to another locale (the early scenes take place in New Orleans while these later scenes are in Paris). It is a bit late in the film for such a radical shift. At this point, the film introduces several new characters without any time to really let us learn anything about them. In addition to Banderas as Armand, these scenes also introduce Stephen Rea as a bizarre vampire named Santiago and Domiziana Giordano as a mortal named Madeleine, who becomes a mother figure for Claudia. It is possible that this sequence and these characters were all better developed in Rice's novel (or that the characters are important for the sequels), but none of these characters generate any kind of real impression in the movie.
Claudia is the most original character in this story, but the film falls short of using her to her full potential. Kirsten Dunst is very effective as someone that is eternally trapped between childhood and adulthood. Some fans of the novel have complained that at age twelve, Dunst is nearly twice as old as the character was in the novel. That was probably an unavoidable change. I simply don't believe that a six-year-old could have convincingly played this character. In fact, it is surprising that a twelve-year-old was able to play it so well. The character is weakened by the fact that Rice's script does not spend enough time exploring Claudia's relationship with Louis and Lestat or her desires to grow up. We are given hints that her relationship with the two older vampires may be deeper than just that of a parent/child, but the film never follows up on this. The movie does include a few brief, effective scenes in which Claudia expresses her distress at never growing into an adult body, but these just left me wishing for more insight into this aspect of the character.
The majority of the film's problems can be directly traced to Anne Rice's script. The script tries to jam in far too much material, meaning that there isn't enough time to really explore any of it as much as it needed. Some of the dialog is also stilted and unnatural. There are a number of scenes where the characters seem to be speaking in verse, but it ends up just sounding pretentious and occasionally downright silly. Pitt in particular never seems to get the hang of how to deliver this kind dialog. It doesn't help that the dialog style seems to switch indiscriminately between this poetic style and more standard modern dialog.
Of course, the fact that the story is told through an interview required that Pitt provide voice-over narration, but this also isn't used very effectively. There are far too many scenes in which the narration seems to be simply *describing* what is visibly happening on screen or is about to happen. Only occasionally is the narration used to actually provide any insight that couldn't have been figured out without it.
Director Neil Jordan piles on quite a bit of blood and gore in the film, but he does wisely cut away pretty quickly in most cases. The early scene where Louis becomes a vampire is the one place where he probably does linger a bit too long. I suspect that this is the scene that has prompted some of the publicized walkouts. I did find myself getting a bit queasy during this scene and I had to look away from the screen. This movie is definitely not for the squeamish.
Stan Winston has created some very subtle and effective vampire makeup. He creates a believable look for the vampires while still allowing the actors' facial expressions to come through. Dante Ferretti's gothic-style production design is very interesting and impressive, but is sometimes undermined by Philippe Rousselot's photography. Rousselot has a strong tendency to put the camera right on top of the action, often in situations where a wider shot would have been much more effective. The inevitable dark lighting combined with the overly "in your face" camerawork makes it occasionally difficult to figure out what is going on. The film would have been much more effective visually if the camera had simply been pulled back a bit. The movie probably would have also benefited if it had been shot in a wider aspect ratio.
Composer Elliot Goldenthal was brought in to write a last minute replacement score and has come up with one that is serviceable but not particularly impressive. The score isn't intrusive, but there were times where the movie might have been helped by a little more aggressive music.
While, fans of Anne Rice's novel may be able to fill in some of the serious gaps in the film, I found myself to be occasionally confused and frequently bored by INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. Good performances by Tom Cruise and Kirsten Dunst along with a few intriguing ideas are not enough to save this film from a general tedium.
-- Jeffrey P. Graebner Columbus, Ohio
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