I want to talk about one of my favorite pieces of visual symbolism / visual storytelling in The Vampire Lestat.
Like, I think of it as the season's primary motif. A circle, and a line. That's the bowling alley + bowling ball. It's the ice-cream scoop. It's the tour bus + wheels ("the wheels on Lestat go round and round.") It's the music note. The first thing Lestat says to Louis is "a balloon is nice" and - in case we missed that - here's Louis with a bunch of balloons.
(and that word "nice" is important. It comes back in the finale as a happy ending, instead of the "not enough" Lestat feels it is in the beginning.)
We even have some incidental circles-and-lines, that aren't there for any reason other than visual cohesion.
(I like that the wrecking ball is the image the showrunner decided to put over his name.) (I also think that the stripper + stripper pole images belong here, but they were blocked by the tumblr content gods)
So the line is Lestat. Movement, progress, action, tight barreling forward. This is a season full of hallways, corridors, long tables, alleys. Our main set is the tour bus. And Lestat? Always doing a walk-and-talk, walk-and-sign-the-paper. He's showering when he's talking to Armand, he's watching strippers when he's talking to Christine and Gabriella, he's always doing SOMETHING. He refers to himself as things like the "scalpel" and the "last of the sutures." Y'know. Lines.
I think the constant movement gives him the illusion of control. Lestat's spent a pretty large chunk of his life trapped and stagnant (first by his family, then by Marius/Akasha). The thing about the "long table" is that it ISN'T him sitting at the head.
It's his father, it's Magnus, it's Gabriella, and it's a victory when he can finally do this:
Symbolically taking responsibility for the 'direction' his life is going.
And the most extreme version of Lestat-as-line is when he's speeding in the car, driving as a way to escape his memories of Magnus.
Because of course, that's the reason for this. Lestat is trying to escape his trauma by keeping himself busy, existing as just a body, just keep going, just keep going. Don't think about it.
But then the car flips, rotates. The next shot is the world upside down - we're rolling. The line is becoming the circle.
Because if the LINE is action, then the CIRCLE is contemplation and reflection. It's being inside your own head.
Which is very much where LOUIS has been trapped this whole season. Lestat is always moving? Louis is never moving. He's sitting, he's still. He's reliving and revisiting the past, cycling inside his own head, unable to move forward.
Our introduction to Louis is as a head on Lestat's iPad. Only a head.
And one more circle I want to throw in:
Like, the obvious interpretation of this shot is that Gabriella has Lestat by the balls. BUT... if circles are thoughts, contemplation, reflection. Well, that's showing us visually WHY Lestat doesn't particularly want to go there. Gabriella's in his head, making sure he circles around and around without making any progress, just like she plays with those ping-pong balls.
That's why it's lovely that the first time Lestat and Louis REALLY talk this season, make some real progress... it's in a parked car. Lestat is able to be still when he's with Louis. He can sit and think and process. And Louis can lean on Lestat's action, can get him to go in and end the situation with Regina, because he can't do it himself.
And that's why the finale, with its Beetlejuice-esque beheading, is kind of brilliant. Because really? The circle and the line... that's just a head and a body. Lestat has been finding pockets of stillness all season - with Louis, while composing (that's why it's important that he has to record the album in a literal underground bunker) but it's only when he is ONLY a head that he is forced to unpack, process, and come to the conclusion that he wants to stop. He doesn't want to go on stage.
And Louis' body (without his head) gets to struggle, and reach, and get out of Armand's saw trap. Get up out of the chair he's been sitting in all season.
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