Night Visits with the Vampire
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Night Visits with the Vampire
Originally published by Anne Rice[US]
Title: Night Visits with the Vampire (Vampire Obsession)
Originally published as Interview with the Vampire
Production: Warner Bros. 1994
Directed by Neil Jordan
Produced by David Geffen Stephen Woolley
Written by Anne Wright
Starring Antonio Banderas as Armand
Tom Kirkpatrick as Vampire. p>
Tom Cruise as Lestat
Kirsten Dunst as Claudia
Brad Pitt as Louis
Stephen Rea
Christian Slater ( Christian Slater) as a young reporter
Plot Summary:
Louisiana in the 18th century. Louis, the lord of the manor, is devastated after the loss of his wife and daughter. He meets a vampire, Lestat, and is transformed into a vampire by his spell. The good-hearted Louis is unwilling to kill people for the sake of bloodsucking, and he lives by sucking the blood of animals. Lestat, on the other hand, is determined to teach Louis to be a true bloodsucker of his kind.
In New Orleans, Louis meets Claudia, a young girl who has lost her family to the plague. Louis finally cannot resist the temptation to suck Claudia's blood, and Lestat turns Claudia into a vampire as well, despite Louis' objections. Together, the three form a strange family.
Time flies and decades pass. Claudia began to resent Lestat for depriving him of his right to grow up. In order to leave Lestat with Luis, she lures Lestat into drinking the blood of a dead man, stabs him and throws him into a swamp. However, as Louis and Claudia are preparing to leave for Paris, Lestat, who has been disfigured, suddenly appears. During the struggle, Louis grabs an oil lamp and throws it at Lestat, and the flames immediately engulf him. In the flames that engulfed half the city, Louis and Claudia boarded the ship to Paris.
The two lived like father and daughter, like lovers, in Paris. They also meet their kind: a group of vampires, led by Armand, who live underground in the theater. Amande gives Louis many lessons. However, in the vampire world, murdering one's own kind is the only crime. For this reason, a rift develops between Louis and Claudia. At Claudia's request, he turned Claudia's female companion into a vampire as a replacement for Claudia when he left her. However, the vampire Santiago suddenly appeared in force and captured them. Luis was sealed in a wall, while Claudia and her companion were exposed to the sun and executed.
Louis is rescued by Armand, who vows revenge. Soon after, he set fire to the vampires' lair while they slept, killing Santiago and numerous vampires. He refused Amande's request to live with him and left Paris alone. Louis was doubly devastated by the loss of Claudia. He wandered but could not heal his wounds, and in 1988, Louis returned to New Orleans to meet Lestat, who was wounded and weak and living alone in seclusion. Louis told a young reporter, Malloy, about his experience, hoping that it would serve as a lesson for future generations. Malloy is captivated by the story and insists that Louis turn him into a vampire. Louis leaves him in disgust. Disappointed, Malloy drives home alone. However, Lestat suddenly appears in the back seat of the car. He sucks Malloy's blood, heals the wound and drives off into the distance with Malloy. A new vampire story is about to begin......
Behind the Scenes:
◇About the Film
Vampire films have always been a popular subject in Western cinema, with many films adopting this theme since the silent era. Many great directors have been interested in vampire movies. The first vampire movie "Dracula", made by the German silent era director Maunau, became a classic in the history of cinema. Herzog remade it decades later. In the United States, there were even more B-movies that were based on vampire stories and were popular in the 1970s. In the 1990s, when neo-conservatism took over the mainstream of society, a variety of films using vampires to insinuate abnormal human life and ideology were released one after another. Moreover, these films have made a great breakthrough compared with the previous low-budget horror film mode, represented by Coppola's "Bloodsucking Zombie Scary 400 Years", these horror films have gradually become the mainstream of Hollywood's A-grade large-scale productions.
In 1994, "A Visit with the Vampire by Night" came out of nowhere, and the movie was a huge hit, with rave reviews. It was a magnificent masterpiece that spanned time and space and spanned the imagination. In the movie, the director takes the unique dimension of the vampire's world as a starting point, as a way to insinuate many potential crises and evils in contemporary society. The director grasps the proposition of human nature and expands on it in the movie. As a result, while vampire films are commonplace, this one stands out for its tension and emotional power.
The mother theme of the movie is actually the eternal pain of human beings - loneliness. Tom Cruise plays the vampire Lestat because he is unwilling to continue to endure endless centuries of loneliness before choosing Louis as a companion; while Louis in the loss of his wife and son in the lonely despair of death, willing to become a goodbye not to see the light of the blood-sucking zombies. The movie is about ghosts, but naturally, they are still human beings, and there is still a struggle between morality and conscience, which has always been Hollywood's specialty.
The first two vampires in the film, Lestat, are y immersed in their new, alienated way of life, and Louis is never able to enter into his alien role, futilely suppressing his physical desires and psychological belonging. These are the first deviants in the American New World, and it is here that the director begins to trace the roots of the "evil" of same-sex love life, which is the film's most prominent theme.
◇Director
Neil Jordan is a famous Irish director, who has made famous films such as Mona Lisa and We Are Not Angels, but it was not until a movie called The Crying Game in 1992 that he got the attention of Hollywood, which allowed him to make this big movie with the participation of new and old iconic stars such as Tom Cruise. The moral of his quest to trace the roots of gay Americans to their vampire roots is what gives this Hollywood movie its apocalyptic, epic style.
Despite the bloodshed in this vampire movie, the protagonist's determined search for his roots and the minimal portrayal of horror set it apart from blood-sucking horror films in the usual sense. Like many of his artistic predecessors, Jordan sees vampirism as a physiological phenomenon and behavior alien to humans as a universal alternative life.
◇Actors
The strength of the cast is also a major feature of this movie: Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Antonio Banderas, are all powerful iconic superstars with great box office appeal. Their acting skills are naturally played to the fullest in the movie, and they do not give way to each other. It's a star-studded, almost dazzling movie. Even the guest star of the supporting role of Malloy is also quite famous young actress Kristen Slater. Its cast is unprecedentedly strong, and several actors and actresses between the big comparison of acting skills also makes the film shine, so that the fans are very happy. Tom Cruise in the film changed the image of good youth, playing a brutal vampire Lestat; and Antonio Banderas, although it is a supporting role, its charm is no less than the protagonist, really grabbed a lot of footage; the career is in the rapid rise of the trend of Brad Pitt naturally did not weaken, so that the fans once again to see his superb acting, and to the audience to show that he deserves to be the protagonist of the position of the strength. The movie is a great success. The movie was a huge success thanks to the efforts of all the actors.
◇Soundtrack
The film's score was composed by American composer Elliot Godsell. Elliott Godsell attended the prestigious Manhattan School of Music and studied with Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and is a popular and respected soundtrack artist. Godsell is one of the most creative and pioneering soundtrack artists working today. His compositions utilize a great deal of electronic and other instrumental music and are well integrated into the film's plot. His compositions are generally consistent, based on orchestral and electronic synthesizers, with melodic shapes that favor harmonic weaving and fantastical soundscapes to create an overall haunted atmosphere. His beautifully dark and moving music for "A Visit to the Vampire by Night" was nominated for its first Academy Award for Original Score.
Highlights:
-River Phoenix was once a candidate to play the Visitor, but he died before the movie started shooting. Leonardo DiCaprio was to replace him in the role, but Christian Slater eventually got the part and donated his fee to Phoenix's favorite charity during his lifetime.
- Christina Ricci, Dominique Swain and Ewen Rachel Wood all auditioned for the role of Claudia.
- Novelist Anne Rice, who wrote the character of Lestat with Rutger Hauer in mind, was very disappointed when she learned that Tom Cruise had been cast in the role and worried that he wouldn't be able to play it well, but after seeing the pilot she wrote a special letter apologizing and saying she was pleased with Tom's performance.
-Tom Cruise asked for a private location, with tunnels for the actors to enter and exit, so that the vampire makeup effects could be kept secret.
In some scenes Tom Cruise used a platform to bulk up to minimize the height difference between him and the other vampires.
- The river scenes were done this way: in post-production those modern structures such as the New Orleans Bridge and signal towers were removed and replaced with 18th-century sailing ships.
-Many of the city's businesses and streets were dimmed for the film. Sets were cleaned up immediately after filming. And the Victorian house that inspired the original novel sits on Divisadero Street in San Francisco's Alamo Square.
- Steven Rae (who plays Santiago) is often seen in Neil Jordan's movies.
-The visitor's name, Daniel, is never mentioned in the movie; in the books, Luis calls him "the boy". In the third book, Armand gives him the "gift of darkness" - the "Queen of the Damned".
-Johnny Depp was offered the role of Lestat. Daniel Day-Lewis declined the role. For a while producers also wanted singer Sting to play the role and sing songs from the soundtrack, but the plan fizzled. David Cronenberg had turned down the chance to direct the movie.
-Anne Rice loved this version of the adaptation and wrote a two-page article in Vanity Fair and The New York Times praising it as "a masterpiece.
-Tom Cruise was paid $15 million for this movie.
-The theater where Louis returns to New Orleans in 1988 to see Tequila Sunrise burned down in a Feb. 3, 2006, fire.
-When Louis cries the tears he sheds are not blood. In the original Anne vampire tears were blood.
Great dialogue:
Louis: That morning I was not yet a vampire, and I saw my last sunrise. I remember it completely, and yet I can't recall any sunrise before it. I watched its whole magnificence for the last time as if it were the first. And then I said farewell to sun light, and set out to become what I became.
Louis: I hadn't turned into a vampire that morning, and I watched the sunrise for the last time as if it were the first. I remembered it in complete detail, but I had forgotten every sunrise before it. I took in the spectacular view for the last time as if it were my first. Then I said goodbye to the sunlight forever and became what I am now.
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Louis: You see that old woman? never happen to you. You will never grow old, and you will never die.
Louis: You see that old woman? You will never be like her. You will never grow old, and you will never die.
Claudia: And it means something else too, doesn't it? I shall never ever grow up.
Claudia: And it means something else too, doesn't it? I shall never ever grow up.
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Lestat: You are a vampire who never knew what life was until it ran out in a big gush over your lips.
Lestat: You are a vampire who never knew what life meant until, well, blood gushed over your lips.
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Louis: Where are we?
Lestat: Where do you think, my idiot friend? We're in a nice, filthy cemetery. Does this make you happy? Is this fitting, proper enough?
Leigh Stout: Where do you think, my idiot friend? We're in a nice, filthy cemetery. Are you happy now? Is this fitting, proper enough?
Louis: We belong in hell.
Lestat: And what if there is no hell, or they don't want us there? Ever think of that?
Lestat: What if there is no hell? Or hell doesn't want us there? Ever think of that?
Louis: But there was a hell, and no matter where we moved to, I was in it.
Awards
The film was nominated for two 1995 U.S. Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction and Best Original Score.