Interview with a vampire

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Movie
German title Interview with a vampire
Original title Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1994
length 123 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Neil Jordan
script Anne Rice
Neil Jordan
production Stephen Woolley
David Geffen
music Elliot Goldenthal
camera Philippe Rousselot
cut Mick Audsley ,
Joke van Wijk
occupation

Interview with a Vampire is a 1994 horror drama about the undead Louis, who has retained his conscience beyond death. It is based on the novel Interview with the Vampire (German original title Conversation with a Vampire ) by Anne Rice from 1976. Anne Rice also wrote the first version of the script, which was then revised by Neil Jordan.

The film was produced on a budget of $ 50 million and grossed $ 223 million. In Germany, 1.61 million visitors saw the film in cinemas.

action

The framework story takes place in a hotel room in contemporary San Francisco . The vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac reports there to the reporter Daniel Malloy about his life in the different centuries and he records the story on cassettes . It forms the actual content of the film.

Louis begins his story in 1791, when he was 24 and lived as a plantation owner in New Orleans . He tells the reporter that he was tired of life for a long time after the death of his wife and child. After a dissolute life, the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt finally becomes aware of him. This falls on Louis in the harbor and brings him to the edge between life and death. In his house, Lestat Louis offers with the words "I will give you a choice that I never had" to either let him die or to make him a vampire and thereby immortal. Since Louis is now afraid of death, he agrees and becomes a vampire after drinking Lestat's blood.

Both vampires now live on Louis' estate. Louis tries to pretend that he and his new companion are human. However, the slaves revolt when Louis kills an employee. She had told him that the slaves were afraid of both because they believed that Louis and his creepy companion were possessed by the devil . For example, Lestat roamed the slaves' settlement evening after evening. There he randomly killed one after the other. To regain his peace of mind, Louis sets fire to his house to burn in it, but is saved from the flames by Lestat. They both move into an apartment in New Orleans . As Lestat enjoys his life as a vampire to the fullest, Louis becomes more and more unhappy. Differences arise between the two, as Louis, in contrast to the sadistic Lestat, feels pity for his victims. In the end, he refuses to kill people for their blood, and only eats rats and other animals.

His attitude only changes when he accidentally meets the orphan Claudia. The plague is raging in Louisiana and Louis finds a ten-year-old girl in the port district. Claudia has been sitting with her mother's corpse, who died of the plague, for days. Happy to finally have someone in front of her, the girl hangs around Louis' neck. He hears and feels your heartbeat as if it were his own. He can no longer resist the urge to drink the child's blood. Louis is surprised by Lestat, who has followed him into the neighborhood.

In an inner conflict with himself and firmly in the belief that he has killed the girl, Louis escapes. But Claudia survived and Lestat turns her into a vampire. He knows about Louis' relationship with the child and thus has the opportunity to bind Louis to himself.

Since Lestat in particular introduces the girl to the world of vampires, they initially have an intimate relationship. Claudia is a docile student and for some time enjoys the power of life and death. 30 years pass and Claudia matures internally, but she is still trapped in the body of a ten year old. Claudia realizes that she will never grow up. She hates Lestat for doing this to her and seeks revenge. After a major argument, she persuades Louis to leave Lestat with her. However, since he could track them both anywhere, Claudia decides to kill Lestat. Claudia lures two children into her apartment and kills them with laudanum , which keeps their blood warm like that of the living. She offers Lestat the children as a reconciliation gift. The "dead" blood mixed with laudanum paralyzes it. He calls Louis for help, but Claudia cuts his throat.

Louis sinks Lestat's bled lifeless body in the swamp. He and Claudia begin to lead an inconspicuous life, but after a while Lestat shows up in their house. Contrary to expectations, he survived the assassination attempt and for a while lived in the swamp on the blood of alligators, snakes and other animals. Lestat attacks the two traitors in order to kill them. In his desperation, Louis throws a kerosene lamp at Lestat, which goes up in flames. The fire spreads to the house and eventually the whole neighborhood burns.

Louis and Claudia - anxiously looking whether Lestat will rise again from the sea of ​​flames to take revenge for their renewed betrayal of them - decide to leave America. They want to go looking for other vampires. So they cross over to Europe by ship. But their search is initially unsuccessful. In Paris in 1870, Louis met the vampire Santiago by chance - he was part of the “Theater of the Vampires”, a group of vampires that pretended to be people playing vampires. Santiago provokes Louis, but before it comes to an argument, the charismatic vampire Armand enters Louis' life. Armand invites Louis and Claudia to see a performance of the theater. Claudia immediately notices that the vampiric actors have all fallen into decadence and that Armand alone is different. She sees him as a competitor who is endangering her relationship with Louis. After the performance, Armand leads both of them into the basement, and Claudia and Louis meet with pure hatred on the part of the other vampires. Louis notes that Santiago is the cause of this open hostility.

Claudia roams Paris every night, and so Louis has the opportunity to have numerous conversations with Armand. He sees in this the leader of the Parisian vampires. This does not contradict him. Armand proudly tells Louis that at over 400 years old, he is the oldest vampire still alive. Now Louis wants to know everything about the history of the vampires. But Armand answers evasively and points out to Louis that he is asking the wrong questions. Armand casually mentions that there is only one crime among vampires that is punishable by death: the murder of a vampire. At that moment, Louis thinks about the Lestat assassination. Armand has a mind-reading ability and warns Louis that the other vampires will see them as vampire killers. He knows Lestat himself and personally does not regret his death. But if Louis wanted to save Claudia, then both would have to leave Paris immediately.

Claudia fears that Louis will turn away from her and join Armand and goes in search of a new mate. That's how she met Madeleine one evening. Her daughter had died shortly before and the woman volunteered to follow Claudia into the world of the undead. When Louis returns to the hotel from a conversation with Armand, they are waiting for him. Claudia asks Louis to turn Madeleine into a vampire with his blood as well, because she is too weak because of her childlike body. Madeleine also expressly agrees to this request. Louis is reluctant to give in as he still has some respect for human life. But the vampires around Santiago surprise the three shortly after Madeleine's transformation and drag them off to the basement of the theater. Louis notices Armand is absent and calls out loud for his friend. Santiago locks Louis in a coffin and his friends wall him upside down in the cellar. Madeleine and Claudia are locked in a shaft that is open at the top, where they burn to death the next day in the sunlight. Louis in his coffin hears their death screams.

In the evening Armand returns to the theater and frees Louis. When he sees the charred corpses of the two women, he decides to take revenge. A few days later, Louis sets fire to the theater at dawn, setting fire to the vampires that are still in their coffins. Santiago alone can escape the flames and is killed by Louis with a scythe . Armand foresaw Louis's revenge and stayed away from the theater. With a carriage he picks up Louis just in time before daybreak in front of the burning theater and takes him to a safe place. At the museum, Armand asks Louis to become his new companion. This is a modern vampire who combines the old with the new. Louis refuses and insinuates that Armand is just as decadent as the burned vampires. So Louis turns his back on Europe and goes back to America.

In the past two hundred years, Louis has wished he could see a sunrise again. He stays away from other vampires. The only person he misses is Claudia. When the cinema was invented, Louis experienced his first sunrise in centuries. He integrates himself more and more into the modern age and enjoys its achievements.

Louis finally returns to New Orleans in 1988, the place where he lived as a human and where he became a vampire. In a ruin by the old port district, he noticed a barely perceptible odor of corpses. Louis enters the house and meets Lestat, who was believed to be dead, upstairs. The once proud and charismatic vampire is completely overwhelmed by the 20th century and therefore hides in the ruins. Lestat asks Louis to help him become "old" Lestat again. But he refuses and leaves his old teacher to his fate.

Back in the present, Louis ends his life story by saying that he feels empty and burned out. For the reporter Daniel a completely wrong ending. He asks Louis to make him a vampire too. Only in this way could he, Daniel, understand what Louis was talking about. Furious with anger that he did not learn from Louis' story, Louis grabs Daniel, chokes him almost to the point of unconsciousness and disappears from the room. Daniel also breaks out full of fear and drives out of the settlement in his red Ford Mustang convertible . While driving, he listens to the tapes on which he recorded the interview. Suddenly Lestat appears from behind, who was hiding in the back seat. He bites Daniel's neck and drinks his blood. "I'll give you a choice I never had" are the last words Daniel hears before a kind of swoon envelops him. Lestat stops the tape and says he doesn't want to hear this anymore, he has heard it for centuries. Laughing, Lestat takes over the wheel of the car and both drive out of town via the motorway.

synchronization

The German dubbing was commissioned by Film- & Fernseh-Synchron in Munich , Michael Brennicke was responsible for the dialogue direction and the German dialogue book .

role actor German speaker
Louis de Pointe du Lac Brad Pitt Axel Malzacher
Lestat de Lioncourt Tom Cruise Stephan Schwartz
Daniel Malloy Christian Slater Jan Odle
Claudia Kirsten Dunst Laura Maire
Armand Antonio Banderas Torsten Münchow
Santiago Stephen Rea Martin Umbach
Yvette Thandie Newton Irina Wanka
The naked girl, as a victim in the Parisian vampire theater Laure Marsac Katrin Fröhlich
Madeleine (Claudia's "new" companion) Domiziana Giordano Kathrin Simon

symbolism

According to Anne Rice, blood has several symbolic meanings: it stands for the process of regeneration (vampires need blood to survive), but also for sacrifice and death (the victim dies to allow the vampires to continue to exist). In addition, the high a vampire feels when drinking is like a sexual orgasm .

The fire stands for destruction as well as transition and change. In the film, Louis burns down three buildings, which in turn symbolize the “old” and no longer portable: for his apparent existence as a person on his plantation, for the conflict-ridden time with Lestat and for the decadent theater of the vampires.

useful information

  • The film is set in places in Paris in September 1870; it was not taken into account that the city had been besieged by German troops since 19 September 1870 .
  • The role of Daniel Malloy was originally intended for the aspiring young actor River Phoenix . When he unexpectedly died on October 31, 1993, Christian Slater took on the role of reporter and donated his fee to organizations that would have been interested in Rivers. The film's credits are dedicated to “In Memory of River Phoenix”.
  • The reporter's name is not mentioned in the film or the novel. Only in the third volume of the vampire chronicles Queen of the Damned , dt. The Queen of the Damned , gives Rice named Daniel Malloy, in the film credits, this name is given.
  • Since the role of Claudia, who is only 5 years old in the book, is very demanding for a child, Geffen decided, in consultation with Anne Rice, to make Claudia older (around 10 years) and to cast the role with an experienced child actress: the one for this role Selected Kirsten Dunst was 11 years old when the film was made.
  • The vampires are presented differently in the film than in many older and new films: In the film it is clearly evident several times that the vampires shown have a mirror image , while in other productions, such as Roman Polański's classic Dance of the Vampires or in Van Helsing by Stephen Sommers , the lack of a mirror image contributes significantly to the course of the film. In addition, Louis claims that crucifixes and wooden pegs pose no danger to vampires, he even likes them.
  • The piece that Claudia learns from a strict piano teacher and later plays for a rich family is Antonio Soler's Sonata for Piano No. 90 in F sharp major .
  • The piece that Lestat plays on the piano in various scenes of the film is an excerpt from the 2nd movement Adagio e cantabile of the Sonata in E flat major, Hob.XVI: 49 by Joseph Haydn .
  • When Anne Rice found out about the cast, she was very negative about Tom Cruise in the role of Lestat and asked for a cast to no avail. This led to a conflict between Rice and producer Geffen, as Rice's public criticism of Cruise mobilized fans of the vampire books against the filming. However, when the film hit theaters, Rice changed her mind and published a full-page personal film advertisement in Variety at her own expense , praising Tom Cruise's performance and encouraging her fans to watch the film.
  • Due to the homophobia in Hollywood in the 1990s, the character Louis was originally rewritten as a female character for the film adaptation in order to be able to depict a heterosexual relationship with Lestat. Rice suspected this would be the only way to produce the film, and singer Cher was considered for the role.
  • A song called Lovers Forever , which Cher wrote for the film's soundtrack, was discarded by the producers. In a modern version it finally appeared only in 2013 on their studio album Closer to the Truth .
  • After the shooting, there was a conflict between Anne Rice and Neil Jordan, because Anne Rice wanted to be named alone as a screenwriter in the credits, although Jordan had created the script version ultimately used for the film.

Reviews

The film received mixed reviews. The film review portal Rotten Tomatoes gives 63% positive reviews for the film and it has a Metascore of 59 out of 100 on Metacritic .

“The film adaptation of a cult novel distances itself from the 'horror film' from the outset in order to speculate on pompous time and figure designs instead. The actors don't do justice to the concept and the tension is suffocated in endless papery dialogues. "

- Lexicon of International Films (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997

“Since the story relies too much on the emotional world (between desire, love, doubt, grief, terror, ecstasy and longing) of a vampire, the cinematic implementation is just as boring as the literary model by Anne Rice. In this respect, Neil Jordan succeeded in making an adequate film adaptation with a lot of sucking, but unfortunately no tension, not to mention the horror. "

- prism-online

"Brilliant revival of the vampire film."

- Cinema

"A brilliant epic about the futility of an eternal life full of unfulfillable longing, suffering and weariness, sadness and loneliness."

- Must-have films

“Neil Jordan's splendid, gloomy, morbid, poetic adaptation of the Anne Rice bestseller depicts vampires as lonely, lost victims of their otherness. A grandiose, tragic dance of the vampires. "

- TV movie

Awards

continuation

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=interviewwiththevampire.htm
  2. ↑ http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/40993-Interview-mit-einem-Vampir.html
  3. ↑ Synchronkartei.de
  4. ↑ Harry M. Benshoff: Monsters in the closet: homosexuality and the horror movie , Manchester University Press. 
  5. ↑ Cher On 'Closer to the Truth': 'I Took Some Chances on This Album' . Billboard.com , June 19, 2013. By Phil Gallo.
  6. ↑ Interview with a vampire at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
  7. ↑ Interview with a vampire at Metacritic (English)
  8. ↑ http://www.musthave-filme.de/horror/interview-mit-einem-vampir/
  9. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110148/awards