A richly-illustrated adaptation of Anne Rice's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, told through the eyes of the vampire Claudia, who was just a little girl when she was turned by the vampire Lestat. Though she spends many years of happiness with her two vampire fathers, she gradually grows discontent with their insistence upon treating her like a little girl, even though she has lived as long as any mortal man...and her lust to kill is certainly no less than theirs...
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Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Episodes 1-4 of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.AMC's Interview with the Vampire has finally introduced us to Claudia (Bailey Bass), who was saved by Louis (Jacob Anderson) from a burning building at the conclusion of the episode prior. Episode 4, "... The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding," begins with Louis convincing Lestat (Sam Reid) to turn a badly injured Claudia into a vampire with the hopes of saving her. After hesitating for a bit, Lestat agrees, and the duo officially becomes a trio. Louis and Lestat treat Claudia like their daughter, training her how to hunt, spoiling her, and loving her. They are living this happy life, and it looks as if they're just a perfect little family without ever having to worry about anything. However, Claudia, who becomes a vampire when she is 14 years old, starts to feel frustrated about being stuck in the body of a child as her mind grows older. Both the show and Bass perfectly translate this exact maddening feeling on screen.
The novels and adaptations prove Claudia's age plays a very important role in the storyline. In the novels, she was turned into a vampire when she was just five years old, which is sad to even think about. Claudia navigates the world without the chance to properly grow like a normal person and so it's only obvious that she becomes a repressed and traumatized vampire. In the 1994 film, Claudia is ten years old. While it really wasn't that big of a change, one clearly made to allow for Dunst's casting, aging the character up led to different questions and realizations about the dangers of being a child vampire.
When the show adaptation was first announced, one of the first questions posed was whether Claudia would be the same age as the books or the film. Much to anyone's surprise, it was revealed that this new version of Claudia would be a teenager instead. This decision ended up changing a lot in terms of how the plot moves forward. Dealing with a child vampire is one thing, but having a teenage vampire is a completely different story. The producers did not really provide an in-depth explanation about this choice at the time Bass's casting was confirmed, but in the wake of Episode 4, it is safe to say that the people behind the show know what they are doing.
Interview with the Vampire shows the many drawbacks of being a teenage vampire. In Episode 4, Claudia meets a boy named Charlie (Xavier Mills) and becomes infatuated with him. After a few days, they go on an ice cream date, where Claudia assures Charlie that she is 19 despite looking so much younger. Having crushes and rebelling against your parents is a pretty normal thing for any teenager to go through, and Claudia is feeling this exact same dilemma. Later on, the young couple makes out in a carriage and almost has sex when Claudia bites his neck, killing him. She pleads with Lestat to turn him, but it's no use. Charlie, her first crush, is now dead, and that harsh realization is just one of the things that further sends Claudia spiraling into a dark hole.
Surrounding the proceedings, the settings are beautifully rendered, whether we see the opulence of the vampire lifestyle, the ecclesiastical hue of a church, or the grit and mud of the backstreets. All of which come to life when splattered with the red vino on tap. The framings are exquisite, and the tapestry of shooting styles merge into a unified landscape, from the bayous to Dubai. The score is so exciting, Louis is moved to do a soft-shoe. Another highlight is seeing the classically-trained musician Lestat boogie-woogie his way through a jazz set.
Anne Rice purists will have their gripes, all of which are justified, but Interview with the Vampire does the spirit of the source material justice. This is the more nuanced or rehearsed version of the story, as Louis and Daniel debate. The series takes on social, economic, and political issues which may or may not have bearing on vampires, but add layers to the characters, who will grow into themselves. Or die, again, trying. The adaptation is changed, but still sucks you in.
There are some works, such as Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman," that use the source material as a storyboard directing elaborate visions to come to life while making a few casting adjustments that honor the spirit without altering from the script. Maybe this is simple fan service. On the other hand, maybe this is also realizing a long-deferred dream fans have had since the comics were first published. Either way, it works.
Then we have AMC's adaptation of "Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire," an update of a story passed around by teens and tweens a generation or two before "The Twilight Saga" swept the graveyard. Rice's vampires are a reconfiguration in themselves, romantic beings who stride across history like gods, watching human ages rise and fall while remaining steadfastly apart from it.
That would not go over well in 2022, reason enough for producer Mark Johnson and showrunner Rolin Jones to transplant Louis and Lestat into early 19th century New Orleans. Choosing to reintroduce Louis as a Black man in the post-Reconstruction era South (played by Jacob Anderson) and having him and Lestat (Sam Reid) live as prominent members of New Orleans society recasts the reader's relationship with the pair and the nature of Louis' psychic turmoil.
But the way "Interview" uses Louis' Blackness, and that of their vampire daughter Claudia (Bailey Bass), transforms a familiar and beloved story while remaining true to its roots. That choice makes the universe Rice built less predictable, more heartbreaking and frightening in a completely fresh way. The love between Louis and Lestat is eroticized and defined in clear terms: they are gay men, tolerated to a point because they're rich.
It must be said that the producers made one choice with Claudia that was completely unnecessary and lazy, which is to have her survive a sexual assault that occurs while she's run away from her vampire guardians. The writers don't show it, perhaps regarding that as progressive; it's still a reductive, damaging excuse for explaining how a female character becomes tougher and smarter while she's living her part of the collective story separately from the rest of the coven.
That also fails to make the most of what makes Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" so compelling. They are competing perspectives of various unreliable narrator, each approaching a shared history with their own agenda.
Sam Reid as Lestat De Lioncourt in "Interview with the Vampire" (Alfonso Bresciani/AMC)Eric Bogosian's journalist Daniel frequently calls this out throughout the season. (He's another inspired change, albeit an older version of the novel's young journalist, hired by Louis in the sunset of his career to record the vampire's updated and, from his report, more honest version of his life story.) Louis professes his wish that Daniel's work mean something, while Daniel reminds his predator host that once the story published, how the public interprets it will be completely out of their hands.
One could easily view that as the producers' rebuttal to malcontents eager to take them to task for making over Rice's characters to believably meet the modern word in all of its complexity. But the way "Interview with the Vampire" has been realized for the small makes that unnecessary. The effort to portray an inclusive world is wonderful, of course. But the way it uses its creative shifts from the novel to augment what Rice left her readers makes it especially toothsome and unpredictable, leaving room to live and grow for many seasons. For now, we'll accept the gift of knowing it'll return for a second.
Interview with the Vampire was originally a short story but, in 1973, while still grieving the loss of her daughter, Rice turned it into her first novel. It took a few years to find someone willing to publish it, but it became a bestseller. After that, she wrote historical novels and erotic novels before returning to the world of vampires.
The footage recounts Louis de Pointe du Lac's (Game of Thrones' Jacob Anderson) first encounter with his mentor/tormentor Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) and his temptation to receive the vampire's "dark gift."
Anne Rice, bestselling author of The Vampire Chronicles, passed away on Saturday, December 11, 2021. Rice was a highly influential author in the modern vampire genre, and in the horror genre in general. Interview with the Vampire is her first and best-known book. In it, the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac shares his story. Because it is written as Louis talking throughout, it features many double quotation marks.
Anne Rice did an interview with CBC's Mary Hynes in our Appel Salon on February 13, 2012. In this three-part recording, Rice discusses her book The Wolf Gift. The Wolf Gift and its sequel The Wolves of Midwinter are Rice's take on the modern werewolf genre. 2ff7e9595c
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