INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

时间:2007-10-23 05:38:36来源: 作者:

LOUIS (VO)
She grew, yet stayed the same. She wanted a bed of her own, yet would climb back into mine.

INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

The child's coffin on the floor. The lid lifts. Claudia emerges, yawning, wanders through the flat into. -

LOUIS' BEDROOM

Where his coffin sits. She slides the lid off, and curls in beside him.

INT. PARLOUR. NIGHT.

Claudia playing the piano, now with remarkable dexterity. The piano-teacher sits mute beside her. As she plays, he topples over and falls to the ground. We see the puncture-marks in his neck. Lestat, hearing the noise, comes in.

LESTAT
Claudia, Claudia! Didn't I tell you, never in the house!

Claudia smiles to herself, keeps playing.

INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

CANARIES sing in a cage, above a child's coffin.

Claudia is writing at a secretaire. She is writing in a diary with a quill pen in an adult hand. She murmurs the date as she writes.

CLAUDIA
September 21st, one hour after sunset. The sky is still violet, the way Louis loves and as always Lestat was gone when we rose.

She looks up and sees Louis in the doorway, watching her.

LOUIS
How did you learn to write, Claudia?

CLAUDIA
The way I learn everything. By watching you.

She closes the diary.

CLAUDIA
But you never let me see you kill, Louis.

LOUIS
Lestat taught you all you need to know about that.

CLAUDIA
Infant death, he calls me. Sweet daughter death. You know what he calls you? Merciful death.

LOUIS
He jests.

CLAUDIA
Why does he call you that?

LOUIS
Hush, Claudia don't talk about such things. Show me your book.

She opens it. Inside there is a beautiful pen and ink portrait of Louis.

LOUIS
Claudia! You did that?

CLAUDIA
Sit still. It's not finished -

She begins to fill in the sketch.

LOUIS (VO)
Time can pass fast for mortals when they're happy. With us it was the same.

EXT. RUE ROYALE. NIGHT (1800'S)

Street lamps are oil at this period. Houses are now tall two-story Spanish style. Streets are flagstone. Passing carriages are black.

LOUIS (VO)
It was a very different life. And a new century was beginning. what had once been a small godforsaken French colony was growing into a great port, giving us an endless train of magnificent strangers...

Claudia, Louis and Lestat, dressed in the same clothes walking through a racuous carnival with sideshows. Crowd milling around, sailors, whores, children, thieves, freed slaves, Indians. They pass a Wild West display, jugglers, fire-eaters, three-card tricksters...

LOUIS (VO)
All human life was here, for the taking. And we took, all three of us, in our different ways...

They come to a raised platform where a troupe of perfectly-formed midgets do a burleque show.

Claudia stops. She stares, at these small, perfect creatures like herself, intrigued and troubled.

Louis and Lestat walk on, not noticing as --

CLAUDIA

Circles the troupe. She comes to a small tent, behind it. At the entrance stands a midget youth.

YOUTH
You want to come inside, lovely?

CLAUDIA walks up to him.

YOUTH
Ever been kissed?

Claudia shakes her head. He kisses her. Claudia allow her to be kissed, then bites his tongue. he youth struggles, as Claudia holds him and drains him. She lets him go as Louis appears behind her.

CLAUDIA
She's like me, Louis. Small and yet not small at all. Like me.

Louis hurriedly draws her away.

LOUIS (VO)
I watched her grow yet stay the same, her doll-like face possessed of adult eyes, eery, powerful, seductive...

INT. FLAT NIGHT.

Claudia playing the piano, now like a demonic Liszt. Louis writing.

Lestat appears in the doorway. He has a big box in his arms.

CLAUDIA
Another doll? I have ten, you realise.

FOCUS ON early 19th Century French dolls -- wood, glass, wax, bisque -- all around the bedroom, on chairs, on the bed. Some newish, some tattered old.

LESTAT
Well, I thought you could use another.

He hands her the box. It is a fine Parisian Jumeau doll. She likes it and stokes its face.

CLAUDIA
Why always on this night?

LESTAT
What night? What do you mean?

CLAUDIA
You always give me the doll on the same night of the year.

LESTAT
I didn't realise.

CLAUDIA
Is this my birthday?

He examines the other dolls.

LESTAT
Some of these are so old and tattered. You should throw them away.

CLAUDIA
I have. Or there would be twice as many.

LESTAT
But you're the fairest by far.

CLAUDIA
You dress me like a doll. You make my hair like a doll. Why?

Lestat doesn't answer. Claudia stands up quickly, and strides out into the -

PARLOUR, where Louis is reading by the window. She walks to a mirrored cabinet, takes out a scissors and begins cutting her hair.

CLAUDIA
You want me to be a doll forever?

LOUIS
Claudia - don't -

CLAUDIA
Why not?

She continues cutting. She sees Lestat emerge from her bedroom in the mirror behind her then turns to him, an angelic little boy's face now with soft curls around her face.

CLAUDIA
Can't I change, like everybody else?

She walks past him, back into her bedroom and slams the door.

A beat. Louis looks from the mass of blonde hair on the floor to Lestat. Then a HORRID SCREAM pierces the silence. More screams, which become roars.

INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM.

She stands before the dressing-table, all her long hair grown back over her shoulders. She holds it with both hands, screaming and screaming. Lestat and Louis come through the door.

CLAUDIA
Which of you did it? Which of you made me the way I am?

LESTAT
What you are? You would be something other than you are?

CLAUDIA
And if I cut my hair again?

LESTAT
It will grow back again!

CLAUDIA
But it wasn't always so! I had a mother once! And Louis - he had a wife! He was mortal the same as she! And so was I!

LOUIS
Claudia -

She turns on Lestat.

CLAUDIA
You made us what we are, didn't you?

LESTAT
Stop her Louis!

CLAUDIA
DID YOU DO IT TO ME????

She runs at him with the scissors, scoring his face. The cut heals. She scores it again. It heals again. She stares at him in horror.

CLAUDIA (WHISPERING)
How did you do it?

LESTAT

And why should I tell you? It's in my power.

CLAUDIA
Why yours alone? Tell me how it was done!!!!

LESTAT
Be glad I made you what you are! You'd be dead not if I hadn't.

He storms out. Louis goes to Claudia and picks her up in his arms.

LOUIS (TENDERLY)
We're immortal. You've always known that.

CLAUDIA
Tell me why...you've got to tell me...

Louis carries her outside, onto the porch. There is an old flower-seller going by.

LOUIS
You see the old woman? That will never happen to you. You'll never grow old. You will never die.

CLAUDIA
And it means something else too, doesn't it? I shall never, ever grow up.

She clutches Louis desperately.

CLAUDIA
I hate him. But I cannot bear to lose you. You're the only companion I have, forever. You taught me everything I know. Please tell me Louis. Tell me how it came to be that I am this... thing...

Louis strokes her beautiful face, her hair.

LOUIS
Come... I've something to show you...

EXT. NEW ORLEANS STREETS. NIGHT.

Louis walking, holding Claudia as if he was about to lose her.

LOUIS (VO)
Though everything was changed, through the years had warped the contours of the streets, I found my way there, aware that I'd always known where it was and avoided it, not wanting to pass the doorway where I'd first heard Claudia cry.

Louis back in the same street, outside the same house. He stands with Claudia at the window. There is a family inside, a picture of domestic tranquility.

LOUIS
I heard you crying. You were there in a room with your mother. You were hugging her for warmth, crying pitifully as you had been for days. Because your mother was dead...

Claudia stares at him, suddenly very cold, very alert.

LOUIS
I opened the shutters... I came into the room... I felt pity for you. Pity, but something else.

He can't go on. Claudia's eyes are remoreseless.

CLAUDIA
You... fed on me?

LOUIS
And he found me with you. I ran, sickened at what I'd done. Then he cut his wrist and fed you from him. I tried to stop him, but you were a vampire then. And have been every night hereafter.

CLAUDIA
You both did it?

LOUIS
I took your life. He gave you another one.

Claudia speaks through indrawn breath.

CLAUDIA
And here it is. And I hate you both.

She runs.

INT. ROOM SAN FRANCISCO.

Malloy and Louis.