Interview with the Vampire
Created | Updated Feb 14, 2002
Neil Jordan Breathes Life into Vampire Legends
Interview with the Vampire: The saddest vampires you will ever see.
*****
In a massive crane shot of the San Francisco bay, our journey starts. Moving through the streets of the Town, the angle settles in on a large window, encasing a single man, timelessly dressed and displaying a somber look. He begins.
It is 1791, and the setting is New Orleans. Brad Pitt is miserable, alone, and drunk. In a montage of glimpses into the pathetic, tiresome life of a Louisiana plantation master we see how dull and lifeless Pitt's Louis really is. Once he is bitten by a vampire, however, that all changes. Left for dead, he is visited by this phantom of the night who offers him a new life, "One [he] could never imagine."
Director Neil Jordan's Vampires are unlike any ever glimpsed before on the screen. They are not mindless bloodhounds, scavenging for any piece of flesh they can get their undead hands on. What these creatures of the night are, to put it simply, is decadent. Beautifully dressed with silky smooth, albeit unnaturally pale skin, they live lavish lifestyles, surrounded by servants and valets. Theirs is a sad eternity, living cursed lives in which they become martyrs out of their own accord.
Tom Cruise brings unexpected fresh blood into the old legends of the undead with his character, the Vampire Lestat. It seems that, long ago, Lestat realized that without living well and enjoying his nights, he would wind up miserable. He therefore chooses Louis, perhaps the worst candidate for immortality, to accompany him through the years, disregarding the fact that Louis looks for death around every street corner.
Using Louis' plantation as a home, he lives his nights gaily, feasting on aristocrats, fresh young girls, and gilded youths. He has no regard for human life, as well he shouldn't, according to him. Either it is the supernatural aspect of the character or Lestat's innate talent for wooing women, but the viewer finds it strangely appealing to watch him seduce women and men alike into his grasp, only to drain the life out of them like so many cattle.
The real stars of this movie, however, are Brad Pitt as Louis and Kirsten Dunst as the the sweet, young, and bloodthirsty ingenue Vampire Claudia. Louis and Claudia are bonded by an unshakeable love for each other that spans centuries, and it shines through in every shouting match, gesture, silence, and embrace these two engage in throughout our brief glimpse into their worlds. As a nine year old Vampire, Claudia is faced with a most difficult life: Live forever, but live it as a child. She spends the first 30 years in simple tutorage, but then moves on to become the angst ridden, anger filled woman-child that brings her milky white, smooth as death skin to life.
The burden of all this falls on Louis however, who feels the pain of her loss of innocence more than she ever could. With the years to look upon her, he observes as only an eternal father could, with sadness. During a poignant sequence which serves to tear out the souls from the viewing audience, Louis's first and only tears fall from his face. It is in this moment that we see the undying love he feels for Claudia, and how mortal these creatures really are.
Even a movie as well directed as this one, however, is nothing without an incredible score to accompany it, and Interview With The Vampire is no exception. Elliott Goldenthal scores this film with a deft hand, capturing the most intense moments with stunning violin solos, swooping cello and bass parts, and tops it all off with a cover of the classic "Sympathy for the Devil," covered by Guns N' Roses. This beautifully reworked Rolling Stones Masterpiece ends the film in a staggeringly twisted climax that will leave you begging Ann Rice for more. In short, Interview With The Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles is a demonic treat, a sinful feast for the eyes, and a film that will sate your lust for cinematic blood for centuries to come.
~AmericanNamedBob
Interview with the Vampire: The saddest vampires you will ever see.
*****
In a massive crane shot of the San Francisco bay, our journey starts. Moving through the streets of the Town, the angle settles in on a large window, encasing a single man, timelessly dressed and displaying a somber look. He begins.
It is 1791, and the setting is New Orleans. Brad Pitt is miserable, alone, and drunk. In a montage of glimpses into the pathetic, tiresome life of a Louisiana plantation master we see how dull and lifeless Pitt's Louis really is. Once he is bitten by a vampire, however, that all changes. Left for dead, he is visited by this phantom of the night who offers him a new life, "One [he] could never imagine."
Director Neil Jordan's Vampires are unlike any ever glimpsed before on the screen. They are not mindless bloodhounds, scavenging for any piece of flesh they can get their undead hands on. What these creatures of the night are, to put it simply, is decadent. Beautifully dressed with silky smooth, albeit unnaturally pale skin, they live lavish lifestyles, surrounded by servants and valets. Theirs is a sad eternity, living cursed lives in which they become martyrs out of their own accord.
Tom Cruise brings unexpected fresh blood into the old legends of the undead with his character, the Vampire Lestat. It seems that, long ago, Lestat realized that without living well and enjoying his nights, he would wind up miserable. He therefore chooses Louis, perhaps the worst candidate for immortality, to accompany him through the years, disregarding the fact that Louis looks for death around every street corner.
Using Louis' plantation as a home, he lives his nights gaily, feasting on aristocrats, fresh young girls, and gilded youths. He has no regard for human life, as well he shouldn't, according to him. Either it is the supernatural aspect of the character or Lestat's innate talent for wooing women, but the viewer finds it strangely appealing to watch him seduce women and men alike into his grasp, only to drain the life out of them like so many cattle.
The real stars of this movie, however, are Brad Pitt as Louis and Kirsten Dunst as the the sweet, young, and bloodthirsty ingenue Vampire Claudia. Louis and Claudia are bonded by an unshakeable love for each other that spans centuries, and it shines through in every shouting match, gesture, silence, and embrace these two engage in throughout our brief glimpse into their worlds. As a nine year old Vampire, Claudia is faced with a most difficult life: Live forever, but live it as a child. She spends the first 30 years in simple tutorage, but then moves on to become the angst ridden, anger filled woman-child that brings her milky white, smooth as death skin to life.
The burden of all this falls on Louis however, who feels the pain of her loss of innocence more than she ever could. With the years to look upon her, he observes as only an eternal father could, with sadness. During a poignant sequence which serves to tear out the souls from the viewing audience, Louis's first and only tears fall from his face. It is in this moment that we see the undying love he feels for Claudia, and how mortal these creatures really are.
Even a movie as well directed as this one, however, is nothing without an incredible score to accompany it, and Interview With The Vampire is no exception. Elliott Goldenthal scores this film with a deft hand, capturing the most intense moments with stunning violin solos, swooping cello and bass parts, and tops it all off with a cover of the classic "Sympathy for the Devil," covered by Guns N' Roses. This beautifully reworked Rolling Stones Masterpiece ends the film in a staggeringly twisted climax that will leave you begging Ann Rice for more. In short, Interview With The Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles is a demonic treat, a sinful feast for the eyes, and a film that will sate your lust for cinematic blood for centuries to come.
~AmericanNamedBob
