Screen Scene
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE [1994. Directed by Neil Jordan. Cast: Torn Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater. Geffen Films. 122 mins.]
There ought to be a rule in the movie business that says you can't produce a film you don't believe in. For if such a rule was adopted, stories like Interview With the Vampire would eventually find their legitimate métier.
The fact that Neil Jordan has seemingly betrayed his better instincts only makes this issue that much more significant Jordan has directed two of the most interesting films in this half-decade - Mona Lisa and The Crying Game - that have grappled with the trials of same-sex relationships. Both of these films have a natural grittiness that makes their protagonists' stark tangle of nerves seem revelatory.
Unfortunately, this sharp-edge is lost in Interview With the Vampire. The film begins with the interviewer, Malloy (Christian Slater), being led to an abandoned San Francisco Market Street room by the abnormally pale Louis (Brad Pitt). After settling down with a tape recorder, Louis proceeds to tell Malloy his centuries-old tale of woe.
He was seduced in 1791 by an aristocrat, Lestat (Torn Cruise), who was cruising New Orleans' wharves fora late-night snack. After bleeding his quarry, Lestat gives Louis a choice: Ether drink the blood of the vampire, and thereby live an immortal life preying upon others, or die an extremely painful death.
Whether through cowardice or better judgment, Louis takes up Lestat's offer and the two proceed to live a satyriasis delight until they turn an orphan (Kirsten Dunst) into the third member of their night life. The result is a trail of vampyric gore leading up to the apartment where Louis unburdens himself on his interlocutor.
Perhaps this story made atmospheric sense in Ann Rice's best-selling novel, but on screen Interview With The Vampire becomes a soapy confection of foggy corners, dank cellars, and grisly blood-ridden incisors. It's a little gross, but certainly not very scary.
But even this compromised slushiness would be tolerable if the fílm had a core of integrity. Instead, its high priced talent goes to waste in recurrently burnt set pieces that are sharply off-set against the screenplay's falsely rung dialogue.
The argument might be made that filming what is essentially a gay subtext - boy bites boy - would not have garnered the participation of Cruise, Pitt, Slater, or Banderas. But so what? Cathy Tyson in Mona Lisa and Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game weren't exactly household names when those eartier films were released. Much better to aim for a script and cast that would roll with the story's punches and not worry so much about collective images and incomes.
Instead, Jordan's heart is clearly not in his film. He's a directoral gun for hire on what is supposed to be a cash cow and he substitutes cinematic flash (and not nearly enough cinematic flesh) for substance. We're reduced to watching a cast of handsome actors playing at what Ann Rice thinks vampires should be. But when the entire logic of the film impels good-guy Louis to lovingly embrace the handsomely satanic Armand (Antonio Banderas) - and they both back off nervously atwitter - somebody's not dealing in good faith.
IT'S ALL TRUE [1993. Directed by Richard Wilson, Myron Meisel, Bill Krohn. Cast: Orson Welles and his ego. Paramount/Paramount Home Video. 83 mins.]
Essentially a morality tale draped in the guise of a murder mystery, the lesson behind It's All True is enough to chill the heart of all independent filmmakers. For it is, indeed, all true: Don't take a million of your bosses' dollars and run off to Rio while you're supposed to be editing your masterpiece.
It's AII True tries mightily to cast Orson Welles in the role of a victim, but this is easy to do when most of the principles are deceased. Besides, RKO was the studio being dunned in the '40s and Paramount (in conjunction with the American Film Institute) can take the high road releasing the remains of his South American pet project a half-century later.
Here are the facts: In 1941 Welles was asked by Nelson Rockefeller on behalf of the U.S. State Department to be a cinematic "goodwill ambassador" to Latín America during World War II. And once he was convinced that only he could save western civilization, he took the loot offered by RKO to shoot Brazil's carnival as part of a projected documentary he was supervising called It's All True.
What he was supposed to be doing was edit The Magnificent Ambersons with Robert Wise in Hollywood. Instead, Welles tried to rig up a system where he could edit by long-distance cable and telephone; but needless to say, the gambit didn't work...especially when RKO got swallowed in a merger and the studio's new owners were looking for ways to save money.
The first thing they noticed was one of their "star" directors being a couple of continents out of pocket spending their money on a samba documentary that didn't have a screenplay or any of the other niggling details one typically thinks in terms of when pitching film projects. Even by Hollywood standards, this is extraordinarily "high concept".
Meanwhile, back at the Rio, Welles heard about the story of four fishermen who had captured the heart of South America through a remarkably heroic Atlantic sea-hopping odyssey. These fishermen had endured potential death daily to bring their fellow jangadeiros' plight to the attention of the Brazilian government. In a moment of cinematic inspiration, Welles prevailed upon them to reenact their triumphant entry into Rio's harbor upon which their leader drowned in a freak accident.
This sad turn of events led a chastened Welles to turn his attention towards filming their adventure for posterity in his documentary. But RKO tightened the screws and left him with just enough funds to hire a cameraman and stripped-down crew to film his quixotic journey. It's this footage that creates the drama in It's All True.
In 1985, Paramount executive, Fred Chandler, stumbled across 90,000 feet of black-and-white film in their archives that turned out to be the raw stock of Welles' lost feature entitled "Four Men on a Raft." Using modem technology, the assistant director on that trip, Richard Wilson, restored the sense of what Welles improvised on a day-by-day basis.
The footage is simply stunning. Welles has so thoroughly stamped his imprint on this project- no matter how meager his resources - by sheer force of personality, "Four Men on a Raft" becomes an exciting tale of love, death, and adventure. Every image in this short film has been pulled from his magnificently fertile imagination.
Ultimately, however, one has to be stunned by the profligate - as well as protean- talent revealed in It's All True. Working with only one camera, and inspiring his amateur South American cast well beyond their comprehension, Welles demonstrates how much beauty and tension a talented filmmaker can create even with his back against the wall.
The Magnificent Ambersons got mangled and it failed at the box office. The original It's All True got shelved, and Welles bought all the footage shot in the 40s, but it was never completed. Even "Four Men on a Raft" was abandoned and it languished in studio cans until being miraculously resurrected by the ever-faithful Wilson.
But Welles was not the one who got cheated.We were all cheated. One of cinema's greatest talents would never discipline himself and as a result Welles wandered the rest of his life grasping for the elusive funds to complete his visions. It's all-too-true: Despite intermittent success, he never fully regained his balance.