Neil Jordan and Interview with a Vampire

[John Marchioro]

There are always those cultural excrescences that elude the attention
of your Dear and Humble Moderator. While I saw both "The Crying Game"
and "Mona Lisa" back in the day, somehow I never watched a minute of
"Interview with a Vampire", even when it was being shown on TNT or AMC
or whatever. So I finally downloaded it and took a gander today. Got
through the first 45 minutes before I had to get back to work on some
in-house automotive documents.

A couple of comments:

1. The plot is original in that it is about psychodynamics of
vampirism, rather than the usual rock 'em sock 'em fight between the
vampire and the vampire hunters (Van Helsing, James Woods in John
Carpenters' trashy but enjoyable "Vampires", the truly weird "From
Dusk Till Dawn", a heist movie that goes vampire south of the border).

2. Tom Cruise is beyond dreadful in this film. If you ever needed
evidence of his limited acting range, log this one in as Exhibit A. I
rest my case for the prosecution.

3. The first 30 minutes or so of the film seems to offer a rational
basis for voodooism. Not that I am opposed to paganism in its various
forms, equal time for the pagans as I always say..... But I am going
to have to go back to the coverage of the film when it first came out
and see if any fundamentalist groups picketed it over this doctrinal
issue.

4. There are some other curious twists, like vampires feeding on rats....

I watched up to the point where Kirsten Dunst becomes a
vampirette..... Still waiting for Antonio Banderas, who I am assuming
is some kind of vampire hunter.... Or maybe he is a Mexican vampire,
introduced to cover all the potential viewer demographics out there.
So far it has been white vampires against black (and white)
victims...... Seems very dated if you ask me. There should be a full
vampire rainbow. Along these lines, there are definite homoerotic
undertones to this whole thing at times, a point that has been made
about many vampire films (or more accurately, erotic overtones with
occasional homoerotic undertones).

I have never watched "Twilight" either.... Perhaps I should have a
look, would not want to be behind in my vampire lore.

I very much liked the Coppola film of the original Bram Stoker novel,
thought Gary Oldman was excellent in the main role.

[Matthew Schlecht]

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 8:58 PM, John Marchioro <jkmar...@gmail.com> wrote:

There are always those cultural excrescences that elude the attention
of your Dear and Humble Moderator. While I saw both "The Crying Game"
and "Mona Lisa" back in the day, somehow I never watched a minute of
"Interview with a Vampire", even when it was being shown on TNT or AMC
or whatever. So I finally downloaded it and took a gander today. Got
through the first 45 minutes before I had to get back to work on some
in-house automotive documents.

A couple of comments:

1. The plot is original in that it is about psychodynamics of
vampirism, rather than the usual rock 'em sock 'em fight between the
vampire and the vampire hunters (Van Helsing, James Woods in John
Carpenters' trashy but enjoyable "Vampires", the truly weird "From
Dusk Till Dawn", a heist movie that goes vampire south of the border).

     The Anne Rice Vampire series is a breath of fresh air amidst all the "Twilight"  drivel.

     Loved the novels, although they got as bit tiresome (for me) by the fourth installment (The Body Thief), but Rice wrote very well during that dark period in her life.

     Rice supposedly said that she liked the movie when it came out, but was also asking many moviegoers if they too liked it.  So, maybe it was wishful thinking on her part.

     I read that she has reacquired the rights to her work, and wants to produce a vampire television series now.  I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

2. Tom Cruise is beyond dreadful in this film. If you ever needed
evidence of his limited acting range, log this one in as Exhibit A. I
rest my case for the prosecution.

     He was completely wrong for this role, and Rice opposed the casting decision.  See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire_(film)

    Julian Sands was considered for the Lestat role, and would have done a far better job, but was rejected because he wasn't well enough known to American audiences, while Cruise was box office gold, whether or not he was right for the role.

     River Phoenix was slated to play the interviewer, Daniel Molloy, but died two weeks before filming started, and Christian Slater stepped in.

 

3. The first 30 minutes or so of the film seems to offer a rational
basis for voodooism. Not that I am opposed to paganism in its various
forms, equal time for the pagans as I always say..... But I am going
to have to go back to the coverage of the film when it first came out
and see if any fundamentalist groups picketed it over this doctrinal
issue.

      In the 2nd and 3rd novels, Rice goes into much more detail about the where the vampires come from and how they have developed their own mythology and customs and taboos, many of which Lestat proceeds to break, such as making vampire children.

     They made a movie of the third book, "The Queen of the Damned", actually incorporating elements of the 2nd and 3rd books.  Rice was much less cooperative with this venture, for many reasons, and it was a major flop.  Not the least because the woman who played the vampire queen, Aaliyah, died in an airplane crash after production wrapped but before release, and so was not around to help build any hype.  Not that that would have saved the film, which is an embarrassing hodge-podge of Hollywood-does-a-sequel.

 

4. There are some other curious twists, like vampires feeding on rats....

     Yeah, Louis just cannot bring himself to attack humans, feeling that it is morally wrong to take life to save his own.  The Hamlet of the vampire set!  Much of the plot is driven by his eventual acceptance of the predator role thrust upon him by fate (and by Lestat, for his own selfish purposes)

 

I watched up to the point where Kirsten Dunst becomes a
vampirette..... Still waiting for Antonio Banderas, who I am assuming
is some kind of vampire hunter.... Or maybe he is a Mexican vampire,
introduced to cover all the potential viewer demographics out there.

     Antonio Banderas played Armand, a worldly older European vampire who was not entirely happy about Lestat's antics and violation of custom.
 

So far it has been white vampires against black (and white)
victims...... Seems very dated if you ask me. There should be a full
vampire rainbow. Along these lines, there are definite homoerotic
undertones to this whole thing at times, a point that has been made
about many vampire films (or more accurately, erotic overtones with
occasional homoerotic undertones).

     There are certainly erotic undertones, as there should be in any well-made vampire story.

     Armand's troupe runs a night theater series in Paris (Théâtre des Vampires) in which a female victim (usually a random prostitute) is seduced and vampirized before the audience, who believe it is all playacting.

 

I have never watched "Twilight" either.... Perhaps I should have a
look, would not want to be behind in my vampire lore.

     I wouldn't bother.

     Read Rice's books.

 

I very much liked the Coppola film of the original Bram Stoker novel,
thought Gary Oldman was excellent in the main role.

     Definitely!

     Even Bram Stoker's well-worn version plays well when played well, although much of the social structuring seems archaic by today's standards.  Some of Stoker's curious inventions boggle the mind, such as making a paste of chopped-up Eucharist and water to seal a door against intrusion by vampires.  One of Rice's inventions is to dissociate vampirism from a Good/Evil duality.  There are also a lot of random blood transfusions in the original novel, with little regard for blood typing.  One must suspend disbelief, I guess.

     What can I say - I went through a vampire phase about 20 years ago!

Matthew Schlecht, PhD
Word Alchemy Translation
Newark, DE, USA
wordalchemytranslation.com

[John Marchioro]

I wrote:

4. There are some other curious twists, like vampires feeding on rats....

And Matt responded:

Yeah, Louis just cannot bring himself to attack humans, feeling
that it is morally wrong to take life to save his own.

This could not have gone down well with the folks at PETA.

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[Matthew Schlecht]

On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 5:39 AM, John Marchioro <jkmar...@gmail.com> wrote:

I wrote:

4. There are some other curious twists, like vampires feeding on rats....

And Matt responded:

     Yeah, Louis just cannot bring himself to attack humans, feeling
that it is morally wrong to take life to save his own.


This could not have gone down well with the folks at PETA.

     Guess I should have specified, "...morally wrong to take a human life..."

     Can't wait for the starlets dressed in bloody rat fur to do the PETA protests for this one.

[John Marchioro]

Rats are people too.

I probably told this story here more than once, but..... Years ago I
was in Varanasi and I asked my driver to take me somewhere where I
could buy some nice silk scarves, and he took me to a factory. And I
bought a bunch, nice stuff. And then I went outside and a bus full of
Spanish tourists had just pulled up. My driver was nowhere to be found
so I sat down and waited. And one of the Spaniards - and extremely
pretty young lady - did not go in the factory, just stood outside. So
I asked her where they were from, that kind of thing, total
politeness, and then "Why don't you go inside with your friends". And
she said, "Animal cruelty". And I said, "What?" And she said, "Animal
cruelty. They are cruel to the animals who make the silk". And I said,
"Ummmm.... They aren's animals, they are worms." And she said, "YES,
YOU SEE! ANIMAL CRUELTY!!!" And I had no answer for that.

I wonder if she ever eats honey.

My dad was a surgeon and had to deal with this stuff all the time, but
that is another long story. One of colleagues said on a TV Town Hall
(my dad was on too) that if these PETA people want to be 100%
consistent, they should refuse to accept any modern medicine and
surgical procedures and a long list of other things, since they are
all the result of centuries of testing with animals. Not a happy thing
to contemplate, but it is a fact.