| Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles | |
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Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Neil Jordan |
| Produced by | David Geffen Stephen Woolley |
| Written by | Anne Rice |
| Based on | Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice |
| Starring | Tom Cruise Brad Pitt Stephen Rea Antonio Banderas Christian Slater Kirsten Dunst |
| Music by | Elliot Goldenthal |
| Cinematography | Philippe Rousselot |
| Editing by | Mick Audsley |
| Studio | Geffen Pictures |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | November 11, 1994 |
| Running time | 122 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $60 million |
| Box office | $223,664,608 |
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles is a 1994 American drama and horror film directed by Neil Jordan, based on the 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. The film focuses on Lestat and Louis, beginning with Louis' transformation into a vampire by Lestat in 1791. The film chronicles their time together, and their turning of a twelve year old Creole girl, Claudia, into a vampire. The narrative is framed by a present day interview, in which Louis tells his story to a San Francisco reporter.
The film stars Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst, with Antonio Banderas and Stephen Rea co-starring. The film was released in November 1994 to generally positive critical acclaim,[1] and received Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Original Score.[2] Kirsten Dunst was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film.
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In modern-day San Francisco, reporter Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater) interviews Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt), who claims to be a vampire and tells the story of his past.
Louis' story begins in Louisiana in 1791, when he was 24 and suffering from a death wish after the loss of his wife and infant child. The vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise) offers him a chance to be reborn and proceeds to turn him into a vampire. Lestat teaches Louis how to live as a vampire. At first, Louis rebels against hurting humans, drinking animal blood instead. He finally succumbs and kills his faithful house slave. He tries to kill himself by setting fire to his house, but Lestat rescues him and they flee.
In New Orleans, Louis is wandering the streets amidst an outbreak of plague. He finds a plague-ridden girl in a house with her dead mother. He bites the young girl, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), whom Lestat later transforms into a vampire "daughter", to discourage Louis from leaving him. Lestat begins to teach Claudia how to live like a vampire, making her copy his actions, as to killing. As thirty years pass, Claudia becomes a sadistic killer and closely bonded to Louis and Lestat. But when she realizes that she will live forever and never grow up, she becomes furious with Lestat. She tricks him into drinking the blood of the corpses of twin boys, whom she killed by overdosing them with laudanum, with the knowledge that the blood from the body of a creature already dead is fatal to vampires. This weakens him and she then slits his throat. Claudia and Louis dump Lestat's body in a swamp but he later returns, having drained the blood of swamp creatures to survive. Lestat attacks them but Louis sets him on fire and flees to Paris with Claudia, assuming Lestat is dead.
In 1870 Paris, Louis and Claudia live in perfect harmony but Louis is still bothered by the question of how vampires came to be and if there are any other vampires on earth. One night, while walking the streets, he meets vampires Santiago (Stephen Rea) and Armand (Antonio Banderas), who tell him that there are other vampires in Paris and that he knows the answers Louis has been searching for. Armand invites Louis and Claudia to his coven, the Théâtre des Vampires, where they witness Armand and his coven dispatching a terrified human woman before an unsuspecting human audience. Armand later takes them to his lair and offers Louis a place by his side, while secretly telling Claudia to leave him. Louis refuses to leave his beloved Claudia, however, and leaves the lair. As he does, Santiago warns him that his vampire coven knows about Lestat's murder and that it is forbidden for vampires to kill another vampire. Louis returns alone to Armand's lair, where Armand proceeds to reveal that Louis is a unique vampire as he possesses a human soul and is connected to the "broken-hearted" spirit of the 19th Century. Louis becomes thoroughly smitten by Armand and resolves to leave Claudia at long last.
Returning to his residence, Louis finds that Claudia has brought home a human woman, Madeleine, with the intent that Louis turn her into a vampire to serve as a companion and protector before he leaves. Louis reluctantly gives in and transforms Madeleine, forcing Claudia to admit that they are now even and can part on good terms. Immediately after, however, the Parisian vampires burst in and abduct all three of them. As punishment for Lestat's murder, they imprison Louis in a metal coffin and lock Claudia and Madeleine into an airshaft with an open roof. The next morning, the rising sun floods the airshaft and Claudia and Madeleine turn to ash. Armand frees Louis, who searches for Claudia and is horrified and grief-stricken when he comes across her ashen remains. He returns that night to the Theatre and seeks revenge for Claudia by burning all the vampires alive in their own theatre as they sleep and bisects Santiago with a scythe. Armand arrives in time to help him escape, and once again offers him a place by his side. Louis once again refuses, knowing that Armand choreographed Claudia's demise in an attempt to get Louis all to himself, and he leaves Armand for good.
As decades pass, Louis explores the world alone, still grieving for Claudia, before returning to the United States. He is seen and heard telling how he saw "the sun rise for the first time in 200 years", in a movie theatre, watching Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Nosferatu, Gone with the Wind and Superman. He returns to New Orleans in 1988 and finds Lestat, still alive but a mere shadow of his former self. Louis unwittingly gives Lestat some insight about modern technology; Lestat asks Louis to rejoin him, but Louis rejects him and leaves.
At this point Louis concludes the interview, which Malloy, the interviewer, cannot accept. He asks Louis to transform him so he can see what it is truly like to be a vampire, but Louis throttles him in a fit of rage and vanishes. Malloy hurriedly runs to his car and drives away, feeling happy with his interview as he plays it through the cassette player. Just then, Lestat appears, attacking him and taking control of the car. Revived by Malloy's blood, he then offers a dying Malloy "the choice [he] never had" as they drive off into the San Francisco night, taking out the cassette and turning on the radio, which is playing Guns N' Roses cover of The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil".
British actor Julian Sands was considered to play the role of Lestat by Rice herself; but, because Sands was not a known name, being only famed for his performance in A Room with a View, he was rejected and the role was given to Tom Cruise. This was initially criticized by Anne Rice, who said that Cruise was "no more my vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler" and the casting was "so bizarre; it's almost impossible to imagine how it's going to work". Nevertheless, she was satisfied with Cruise's performance after seeing the completed film, saying that "from the moment he appeared, Tom was Lestat for me" and "that Tom did make Lestat work was something I could not see in a crystal ball". In fact, after she saw the premiere of the movie, she wrote a letter of apology to Tom Cruise and commended his performance.
Originally, River Phoenix was cast for the role of Daniel (as Anne Rice liked the idea), but he died four weeks before he was due to begin filming. When Christian Slater was cast in his place as Daniel, he donated his entire salary to Phoenix's favorite charitable organizations.[3] The film has a dedication to Phoenix after the end credits.
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles opened on November 11, 1994. Opening weekend grosses amounted to $36.4m, placing it in the number one position at the US box office.[4] In subsequent weeks it struggled against Star Trek: Generations and The Santa Clause. Total gross in the United States was $105 million, while the total including international gross was $224 million, with an estimated budget of $60 million.[5]
The film received mixed to positive reviews among film critics. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports the film as holding an overall 60% "Fresh" approval rating based on 47 reviews, with a rating average of 5.9 out of 10.[6] Praise from The New York Times' Elvis Mitchell and the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert was tempered by poor reviews in The Washington Post and Time magazine.[7][8][9][10]
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards—for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo) and for Best Original Score, but lost to The Madness of King George and The Lion King, respectively.[2]
Almost a decade later after this film an adaptation for The Queen of the Damned, the third book in the series, was produced and distributed once again by Warner Bros. Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt did not reprise their roles as Lestat and Louis. Many characters were also written out of the film as well as much important storyline and the film itself was a combination of The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned. The film was negatively received by critics and with Anne Rice dismissing it completely as she felt the film had "mutilated" her work. During pre-production, Rice had pleaded with the studio not to produce a film on the book just yet as she believed her readers wanted a film based on the second book in the series, The Vampire Lestat. Rice was refused the cooperation of the studio.
In August 2009, rumors surfaced that Robert Downey, Jr. was to take on the role of Lestat de Lioncourt in Universal Studios-planned reboot of The Vampire Chronicles. This turned out to be false.
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