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QUIBBLES
Loving this film as I do, I hesitate to say anything critical really. But there are a few things that struck me as not so good. Mostly they had to do with editing, or with the unfolding of the story. They are the kinds of things that can be fixed.
The film watcher in me really wanted to know:
Why didn't the vampires, Louis and Lestat, smell the decaying human body under Claudia's dolls? If I lived in that apartment, I would have smelled it. Certainly they would have. Why and how did the human body remain undiscovered? Do these characters have powerful senses or not? I'm puzzled.
Why would dead blood affect a vampire? Why did Lestat get so hurt by drinking "dead blood?" I don't get it.
Did Lestat receive enough wounds from Claudia to really disable him? I don't think so. It should have been a much more violent attack with much more rents in the flesh. Lestat is a very strong guy. I don't get it.
How the hell did Lestat survive the fire in New Orleans?
Why wasn't Lestat in Paris? Shouldn't he have been there to show us 1) that he had survived and 2) to climax the dreadful kangaroo court trial of those who had attacked him? I missed him in Paris. I don't think the film lagged -- I cherish the discussion between Brad and Antonio in this portion of the film -- but Lestat's appearance would have been highly effective for me. This doesn't mar my enjoyment of the film. I just wish it had been different.
I thought the shot of Superman on the theatre screen, as seen by Louis, and the shot of the theatre marquee saying TEQUILA SUNRISE as Louis walks off were unforgivably indelicate and stupid. To throw up the words TEQUILA SUNRISE at that moment blew the mood utterly. I winced. When I watch the film now, I close my eyes at that part!
Why did the vampires break so many necks and spill so much blood? Aren't they too powerful to be so unskilled? Why were we treated to the scene of the prostitute with her legs sprawled apart with blood gushing down her dress? In the context of the film, does Lestat really go for that sort of thing? I know, I know, Janet Maslin thought this was the central image of the film. I didn't.
Why did the vampires so brutally bully the girl on the stage of the Theatre of the Vampires? I don't get it. Why did they push her and shove her? They are immortals. They are very strong, and she is very weak. Why the indignity, the vulgarity? Why wasn't she thoroughly and mercifully enchanted at the end the way she was in the book? Why was the scene so gratuitously nasty?
Why was the final exchange between Louis and Lestat so brief? Good grief! Didn't Louis have a few questions? Didn't he have more to say to Lestat after all that time? I don't get it. How could he just walk out of there? I couldn't have. Again, it was beautifully done, but I wish it had been different.
How did Lestat get to his position at the very end of the film? How? Couldn't there have been some indication of how he managed to be where he was in his last scene? The overall effect would have been stronger for me if there had been some clues. Again, I love the film, it worked. But I wonder...
Once again, why didn't the vampires cry blood tears!
My last question: why was this film an R rated film? Couldn't it have been just as significant and just as thrilling without being an R rated film? I am assuming of course that the R rating had to do with the nudity and the misogyny in the film, the sadism towards women with heavy sexual overtones. If I'm right, then why was that necessary?
Vampires don't have sex. They transcend gender. Vampire gore appears in comic books, cartoons, and PG movies, doesn't it? What's with the rating system? And what's with the gratuitous cruelty to women in this film? Why? I think the film could have kept all of his philosophical and psychological complexity and been PG or PG-13.
I'm raising this point because the Vampire Chronicles have thousands of very young readers. For them, the books are extremely accessible. They read the books in school. They talk about them with their teachers. They write papers on the books. They call me with questions and write me wonderful letters. I've been asked to speak at schools about these books, and I have.
I have spoken at an elementary school. I have spoken at a college. I have been interviewed in school newspapers as well.
Couldn't the film have been just as accessible to the young as the books are?
I hope kids and their families disregarded the R rating. I hope the young readers got to see the film or that they will when it comes out on videotape. I think it says important moral things, and it is enchanting and spectacular. It's a banquet of images and words and colors and movement. I hope kids overlooked the vulgarity and the brutality of some of the scenes. If they can overlook prime time TV and cable, why can't they see this film?
These nasty and mean scenes didn't ruin the movie for me, and I would let any child go to see it. The film has a redeeming moral context and undeniable splendor that kids are entitled to enjoy. But I don't like the handling of those anti-female sadistic parts. And I would have softened them, tried to transmute them with style, or -- to put it bluntly -- done them in such a way as to achieve a wider audience rating.
We cannot make only that art which is acceptable to children, but we must remember that MOBY DICK and THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, and HAMLET can all be read or viewed by children without risk. Consider the appeal of THE RED SHOES and TALES OF HOFFMAN. Consider perhaps that the kids who did get to see IWTV may remember it in the way my generation remembers THE RED SHOES and TALES OF HOFFMAN.
There
is a venerable tradition to making the most serious statement in a form
that can be understood by an eight year old. I respect that tradition.
That kids read my books gives me joy. I'm proud of all my readers, the
very young, the very old, the seemingly mainstream, the eccentric, the
cerebral, the whole crowd. I ought to be. I'd be a fool not to be proud
of being a "popular" and "mainstream" writer. It feels great.
This
section last modified 11-11-99
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