#BookToFilm of Interview with the Vampire

 

Based on Anne Rice’s wildly popular 1976 novel, the film version of Interview with the Vampire was mired in controversy from the moment its casting was first announced.  Rice, and myriad fans of the novel objected publicly to Tom Cruise being cast in the role of French vampire, Lestat.  The controversy remained until Rice saw a version of the completed film and made an abrupt about face, taking out a full page add in Hollywood trades to admit she was wrong and that Cruise is wonderful in the role.

Neil Jordan’s lavish adaptation of Rice’s novel (based on her script, but re-written by Jordan without credit) is part horror, part historical and all glorious to look at.

The popularity of this book spawned several sequels and spin-offs and Lestat is a very different vampire in his own eyes than seen through Louis’ as he is in Interview with the Vampire.  I feel like this is part of the reason for the controversy around Cruise’s casting in the role. Personally, I don’t think Cruise is that bad in the role – he certainly appears to be having a good time as the villain of the piece!

Rice wrote the book initially as a way to explore the grief she experienced after the death of her young daughter who is personified in the book as Claudia, a child made immortal, played in the film by a 10-year-old Kirsten Dunst. Grief looms large over the story with the main character, Louis, beginning the book drowning in grief over the death of his brother.  Once Lestat turns him into a vampire, his grief over this death wanes, only to become a new grief – for his humanity.

Becoming a vampire isn’t something Louis embraces.  He despises his need for blood and tries, for a time, to survive on the blood of animals to avoid the need to take human life.  He is frustrated by Lestat’s apparent glee at feeding on humans.  In one scene, Lestat entertains a pair of prostitutes, draining them them slowly while Louis watches on in horror as they begin to understand the reality of what is happening to them.

Louis, and later, Claudia, are obsessed with finding out more about what they are as vampires.  Lestat won’t tell them anything, but mentions that he came from Paris.  Louis and Claudia, a grown woman still in the body of a child, escape Lestat and head to Europe in search of others of their kind who might know more.

Unfortunately, when they find them, they are not what either expects and Louis experiences even greater grief when he discovers the truth – that being immortal is not a gift, but a curse.  Even Lestat whose obvious enjoyment of his monstrous nature made the early part of the story fun, falls victim to this curse, unable to adapt as the world changes rapidly around him.

Brad Pitt makes a beautiful Louis – it’s easy to see why Lestat set his sights on him – and Kirsten Dust gives a mature, nuanced performance as Claudia, the child who can never die, but can also never grow up.  Her frustration at her child’s body is palpable, even as she uses it to lure prey.  Antonio Banderas is criminally underused in the role of Armand (and perhaps miscast given Rice’s description of Armand as the embodiment of a Renaissance cherub), the head of the Paris coven, as is Stephen Rea as another member.

There is a distinct homoerotic tone to the film despite there being no sex on screen.  I read once that vampires are so popular with teen girls because the act of drinking blood is incredibly sexy, yet vampires (at least in most mythologies) don’t have intercourse.  They are passionate and, at least in Rice’s version, fiercely protective of their “families”. 

Here, Lestat attempts to keep Louis as his companion by creating the child, Claudia.  And in turn, Claudia begs Louis to make her a vampire mother out of fear he will leave her for Armand.

In terms of an adaptation, Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire captures most of the book’s story and nuance.  Where it differs is in tone.  The book is dense with grief and longing and has none of the campiness that threads through even the film’s most serious moments.  I think it is this sense of fun, the kind of half-wink at the audience Lestat gives throughout the film, that makes its two-plus hour running time fly by.

Which makes it hard to say if this film is as good as the book – they are similar, but different.  Does that make sense?  What do you think?  Better than the book or not?

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