¶ … Movie: Interview with a Vampire
Before the modern infatuation with vampire, werewolves, and other supernatural things, stories that dealt with the supernatural were often relegated not only to the fantasy genre, but also considered beneath consideration. However, the genre shifted with Anne Rice's 1976 publication of Interview with the Vampire, a novel that told the sweeping story of an vampire Louis, his life as a human being, his transformation into a vampire, and his troubled relationships with his sire, Lestat, and their child, Claudia. The novel, which is often considered the second most influential vampire novel after Bram Stoker's Dracula, did much to change the modern image of the vampire. Rather than being viewed as monstrous and evil, Anne Rice's portrayal of Louis characterized him as a victim who did not understand his immortality when he received it, and, as a result, simultaneously feared and embraced death. The book developed a significant following and was the first in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Moreover, the characters introduced in the book went on to play cameo roles in many of her other works, so that almost every one of her books that features a supernatural storyline has some connection to the Interview with the Vampire. In other words, there were exceedingly high expectations for any movie adaptation of the novel.
As one might expect, the huge fan base for the entire book series meant that any movie adaptation of the book was going to face severe criticism. The time constraints of a movie make it impossible to capture all of the details in a novel the length of Interview with the Vampire. Moreover, some of the novel's more troubling ethical elements would have created ethical issues for the filmmakers, necessitating some changes that changed not only the content, but the tone of some of the characters. Perhaps most controversial was the casting of the movie, with even Anne Rice initially lamenting the director's choice of Tom Cruise to portray the vampire Lestat. This paper will examine the book and the movie, noting their differences and similarities, and determine which one of them is the most successful at portraying the atmosphere desired by Anne Rice when she initially wrote the book.
In order to determine whether the book or the movie did a better job of capturing Rice's perspective on vampires, it is important to look at the approach that Rice took in the story. "In Interview with [the] Vampire, Anne Rice had a tough point-of-view choice to make. She wanted to tell the story of the intense emotional longings of a moral being after two hundred years as a vampire" (Smith, N.p.). However, in addition to sharing the vampire's personal perspective, she also wanted to reframe the vampire mythology. "Rice also wanted the reader to feel the seductive pull of the vampire, to see him as The Other, someone who is different from the 'normal' people in society, a tragic outcast, inhuman and beautiful" (Smith, N.p.). This helps explain her choice of a third person narrator in the novel, even though the novel is essentially Louis' autobiography. Movies are generally told through an omniscient third person perspective, but the differences between an omniscient narrator and a third-person narrator can be very significant and those differences come out in the movie.
In fact, his third person perspective may be one of the most critical differences between the book and the movie. In the book, the reporter Daniel Molloy, repeatedly gives insight into his thoughts about the vampire, Louis de Pointe du Lac. He is the one who describes Louis' physical beauty and magnetic allure, so that the reader sees Louis through Daniel's eyes. Whether Louis is actually physically beautiful or not is, essentially, unimportant; what is important is that Daniel perceives him to be beautiful and alluring but also alien. Within the first few paragraphs of the book, Louis turns on a light and reveals himself to Daniel, and he is "utterly white and smooth, as if he were sculpted from bleached bone, and his face was seemingly inanimate as a statue, except for two brilliant green eyes that looked down at the boy intently like flames in a skull" (Rice, Kindle). Daniel continues to examine Louis and describes details about his physical beauty, which recur throughout the novel. The description he gives makes Louis appear to be a preternatural beauty, who, in
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