Immortal melancholy: technology, society and time in Interview with the vampire (1994)

Abstract

This article analyzes the film Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, USA, 1994) through the melancholic perspective of the protagonist Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt), focusing on his relationship with the transformation of society and technology over the centuries. As he narrates his journey from the late 18th century to the end of the 20th, Louis assumes the role of a somber and displaced observer, whose immortality condemns him to the endless repetition of loss and emotional detachment in the face of human ephemerality and technological progress. Louis’s melancholy shapes his view of temporality, otherness, and his own post-human condition, reflecting on existential emptiness amid a rapidly shifting society. Rather than marveling at modern achievements, Louis witnesses with disillusionment the rise of alienation, the erosion of affective bonds, and the triumph of superficiality. The film thus offers a critical reflection on time, memory, identity, and death — recurring themes within the melancholic tradition — reframed through a vampiric sensibility that, far from being monstrous, reveals itself as deeply human.