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November 1994, Week 2

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Subject:
From:
"Shari L. Rosenblum" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 14 Nov 1994 16:13:47 CST
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----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Dianne L. Brooks solicited reviews of Interview with the Vampire.  I have
to say that I'm with Janet Maislin on this.  I thought the film was very
nicely done -- not only for the art direction, which was, imho, spectacular --
but for it's characterizations and its tone.
 
Perhaps too much was made of the difficulty Cruise would have in portraying
Lestat.  I thought he did the character more than due justice.  The
criticism of his performance derives more, I suspect, from dissatisfaction
with the actor's off-screen persona or on-screen stereotype than from his
personification of the vampire brat that Louis saw Lestat to be.
 
The novel's homoerotic subtext -- which I think is better characterized as
panerotic -- is not lost in the film.  In fact, in the film it hovers
somewhere on the boundary between text and subtext -- more patent than the
novel makes it -- less so perhaps than the reader might assimilate.  It is
important to keep in mind, I think, that, at least in part, the novel/film
substitutes bloodlust for lust.  Louis is uncomfortable with both -- as is
Lestat -- uninitiated as he is.  The eroticism between them grows of
need and desire that neither quite understands.  It is perfectly fitting
for Cruise as Lestat to be less than easy with this natural sensuality.
And though I don't find Pitt to be particularly appealing either, I thought
the scenes between them sizzled with the tension of misapprehensions of lust.
(Contrast this with Armand's character -- whose ease with the pansexual is
grounded -- we will learn -- in extensive rites of passage.  He knows
because he has been initiated.)
 
There's more to be said, but I'll leave it at this for the time being :).
 
                                       Shari ([log in to unmask])

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