Interview With a Vampire - Week Two

I think a central theme that almost every piece of vampire literature (that I've read at least) is the idea of immortality and relationships and how they work (or don't work as is much of the case of Interview With a Vampire).

This week was my very first time reading Interview With a Vampire, and I'd actually enjoyed reading it. While there was a pretty noticeable lack of gore and human feeding, as I'd come to expect in my vampire literature, I was pleasantly surprised by how much Anne Rice explored the relationship aspect of immortality. We always hear about Vampires tending to mope around when they reach a certain age, discontent with losing all their friends, watching their loved ones die, and not being able to connect with many other Vampires who are busy with their own bloodlust to care much about forming bonds with anybody else.

"Immortality: what a drag"
Sure, immortality at times can be daunting, but Anne Rice shows us, through the protagonist and narrator of the story, Louis that it's important to make friends when you're going to be around for a long time.
Louis and Lestat (the Vampire who creates Louis out of desperation for a companion) spend a good chunk of the book warring with each other. They constantly argue, bicker, and disagree about many things, such as what/who to eat, how to treat Louis' preexisting servants, and what to do with Louis' money and property. Louis does not trust or even like Lestat but must stay with him because Lestat has conveniently left out certain parts about living as a Vampire that could potentially lead Louis down a path of destruction. I thought the parallel of parasitic Vampires living in a parasitic relationship was killer (pun intended?) and thought it was fleshed out pretty well.

Eventually, of course, Louis finds proper and healthier company in Armand, a centuries old Vampire who's been living in Paris and took to Louis from the very first moment he'd seen him. It was interesting to see Louis actually push Armand away after several years of living together, still poisoned by Lestat's cruelty and crushed by the loss of the only other Vampire who was nice to him (Claudia). I guess the saying 'time heals all wounds' isn't true for even the most eternal of beings.

In the same way, the movies Byzantium explore different types of Vampire relationships that are almost exactly opposite Louis and Lestat's. Eleanor and Clara in Byzantium are mother and daughter and have counted on each other for nearly two hundred years. Clara does everything in her power to keep Eleanor safe, which includes not being completely truthful with her daughter about the people that are hunting them, and have been hunting them for as long as they've been changed. Clara and Lestat have similarities when it comes to the truth. They don't tell it, and it ultimately ends up hurting the one they're keeping in the dark for their protection.

In the end, Eleanor decides to change a boy she'd met, who is dying from Leukemia, and wishes to part ways with Clara, choosing her own path for the first time in her life, which was what I really liked about the movie. The mother/daughter relationship felt real, the audience can see the issue from the eyes of both sides and understand where each character is coming from. The mother only wants whats best for her child, and to keep her child safe and healthy, but might not understand the impact of making every decision without consulting their child first. Even with Vampires, if you love someone you've got to set them free at some point.

I could probably go on about relationship aspects for ages to be completely honest. I really enjoyed both Byzantium and Interview With a Vampire. Their uniqueness is what makes them good media and relationship exploration is what makes them interesting.

I guess if you're going to spend eternity with someone it had better be someone you like.

Frankenstein - Week One

When someone brings up the 'gothic' in todays times, we'd usually jump to thoughts of groups of teenagers dressed all in black, scowling at the world and hiding from the sun, but it's much older and a lot more complex than that. 

In terms of the gothic as it appears in contemporary culture, the first two things that popped into my head were The Woman in Black and Sleepy Hollow.

The Woman in Black centers around a young lawyer from London, Arthur Kipps, who has to go to a small town to arrange a sale of an old estate called the El Marsh house, left when the owner of the house sudden passed. What Arthur doesn't realize is that there is a specter that resides in the house who is the cause of many deaths of children from the nearby town. The Woman in Black, as a whole, is a classic example of the gothic because it covers many of the elements that make up the gothic genre, like the main character, after living in London his whole life, finds himself in an unfamiliar house, that seems far removed from the rest of society. There is a definite air of mystery and suspense in the air as he explores the massive amounts of stuff that the woman who owned the house left behind and the entire film is dominated by a dark and gloomy atmosphere, which sets and keeps the mood for the entirety of the film. 

In a similar vein, Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow is a good example of a gothic film, as well as an exaggerated gothic film. Normally, gothic films have a more serious tone to them, as somebody has usually died, or the threat of death looms above the character's heads so there's very little room for comedy or much lightheartedness. Sleepy Hollow manages to keep a fairly gothic atmosphere, through the colors, the isolation and unfamiliarity, as well as the supernatural elements that pervade the storyline, but because it is also Tim Burton, there is underlying humor that comes with the dialogue and actions of the character that show that a movie can still be true to the nature of the gothic genre and yet twist it in new and interesting ways without detracting from the overall theme of the film.