Interview with the Vampire
with Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Antonio Banderas
Written by Anne Rice
Directed by Neil Jordan
by Margaret Smith
Relax, kids: Everything – including You-Know-Who – is Tragically Beautiful in An Interview with the Vampire.
As I am writing this, it is nearly a year ago to the day that I sat in the First Unitarian Church in Boston, where Anne Rice spoke to an audience of nearly 1,000 people. All of them raised their voices to decry the casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat in Neil Jordan’s film adaptation of An Interview with the Vampire. In the following months, every Gothic magazine I read fairly dripped with anguished railings against the casting choice. (And those with such abundant ire – and free time – should have counted their blessings all along: When Rice’s novel was first published in 1976, talk of a movie version then included the proposed casting of John Travolta.)
No one can blame Anne Rice for her initial displeasure and worry that Cruise would ruin the film; her public expression of her change of heart was more than gracious. When Cruise first appeared on the screen as Lestat, I simply nodded. Yep. The boy did right by her, by her fans, and by her near-legendary novel.
In retrospect, it seems that there was a true actor hiding in Cruise all along, waiting for the chance to manifest itself and shake off the shackles of typecasting. In fact, all the film’s main actors – Brad Pitt as the put-upon Louis; Kirsten Dunst as Claudia, the child vampire – are about as faithful to their characters in the novel as any fan of The Vampire Chronicles could hope for. (Christian Slater as the interviewer is his usual annoying, sneery self. Fortunately, his part is small and spare enough to keep him from becoming a distracting nuisance.)
Just as the actors are faithful to the novel’s characters, the movie itself strives in earnest to recreate its action, various locales and heady atmosphere. And for the most part, it succeeds brilliantly. Its beautiful and macabre images, while instantly familiar to anyone who’s had a hefty dose of Goth, are never jaded or worn out. Even over-tired stock vampire film scenes – fledgling blood drinkers getting their new teeth, veteran vampires draining blood from their victims’ throats, etc. – are miraculously true to their original sensual and terrible power. Such instances are never trite; when a vampire goes up in flames or gets zapped by the sun, or when the mortal victims see death coming head on, there is no room for laughter or yawning, only very deep chills.
Ironically, the movie’s near-slavish faithfulness to the book creates some problems for it: For those who have not read the original novel, several scenes may seem absurd or gratuitous. The action, which made for rapid page-turning in the book, lumbers along through the film, taking its sweet time to savor every velvet cloak, every candle flame, every broken heart. Fortunately, the film also has many moments of delightfully black comedy to keep tedium in check.
One of the film’s greatest delights is its abrupt and very un-Gothic ending, which delivers a swift and sinister chuckle, and erases any doubt of the possibility of sequels. It will be no surprise if both the old-time and newly-won masses of the night’s children clamor for them. And who knows… this time, the masses may be on Cruise’s side.
