Shadow of the Vampire
The genius of Steven Katz’s screenplay for “Shadow of the Vampire” is not that it tells the story of the making of one of the great horror movies of all-time, but that it takes that story, and turns it a devious dark comedy about perfection-driven directors and method actors that also has elements of horror in it. A movie about moviemaking about the production of “Nosferatu” might have been entertaining, but the way “Nosferatu” is not a normal film, and the two individuals at its center, director F.W. Murnau and actor Max Schreck, are not your typical collaborators; the result is as unique and entertaining as “Ed Wood,” but focused on a film Wood could never make artistically in his wildest dreams.
It’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing the central characters in E. Elias Merhige’s film than John Malkovich, who plays Murnau, and Willem Dafoe, who plays Schreck. The movie itself is a “go-for-broke” actors dream, and indeed, one of the best of that ilk- Nicolas Cage- helped produced it. (He would have been great in the Schreck role, as well.) The cast also includes Eddie Izzard, who plays actor Gustav von Wangenheim (Hutter in the film), Udo Kier (who plays producer Albin Grau) and Cary Elwes (cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner), all of whom excel at playing broadly-written characters. (Even Catherine McCormack as lead actress Greta Schröder has fun with her role.) There’s a very particular tone that is required of this movie in order to work, because you don’t want it to go too far into silly, and Merhige finds it by leaning in to the premise of Katz’s script, which is that Schreck was not just a diva method actor, but an actual vampire. That gives the film an air of unease that allows it to succeed as a horror film, in addition to a filmmaking comedy.
When I first watched “Shadow of the Vampire” in 2001 as it was on its way to two Oscar nominations- for Dafoe and the remarkable makeup effects on him- I had not seen “Nosferatu” yet, although I would blind buy it later in the year around my birthday. Now, I’ve seen Murnau’s masterpiece so often that it’s practically ingrained in my memory for all-time. As “Shadow of the Vampire” lays out in the early title cards, “Nosferatu” was Murnau’s unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula; after he had failed to secure the rights to make the film from Stoker’s widow, he changed the names of his characters, and enough of the story, to make it its own film, although it’s still similar enough to have been almost wiped out of existence, save for some rogue prints that survived destruction. Imagine the landscape of horror cinema without “Nosferatu”- even now, it is powerfully influential; every Dracula film afterwards owes it a debt.
“Shadow of the Vampire” is not as good as the film that inspired it, but that is perfectly fine. The scene-chewing performances by the cast- not just Malkovich and Dafoe, although their scenes together are the highlights of the film- make for one of the most entertaining films about insufferable filmmakers ever made. The horror elements surrounding Schreck cast a dark pall over his scenes when he’s “acting,” and the way that Merhige shoots those scenes with his cinematographer, Lou Bogue, makes for a surreal example of life imitating art for “Nosferatu’s” cast and crew, with the score by Dan Jones bringing it all home. The attention to detail in recreating silent film filmmaking is catnip for film buffs, and honestly, would be enough to recommend it to people. The scariest part of the film, though, is the finale, with Murnau, his opus completed, and debt paid, continuing to roll the camera to get every last second of the performance on film. His is the face of an uncompromising artist, getting all he can from his performers before they are used up. You may not forget it.
