Starring John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier, Cary Elwes, Catherine McCormick,
Eddie Izzard. Written by Stephen Katz. Directed by E. Elias Merhige.
Acclaimed German silent film director F. W. Murnau (Malkovich) has tried to get
the rights to the story of Count Dracula, but his family has refused. So Murnau has
decided to film the story under the name Nosferatu (which Murnau made and released
in 1922). After doing some filming at his Berlin studio, he takes his entire crew
to Czechoslovakia to film, to the consternation of producer Albin Grau (Kier). There
they meet the man who will play the vampire, whom Murnau has described as a sort of
method actor who must always stay in character, Max Schreck (Dafoe).
As the production starts filming, accidents and unexplained illnesses begin to happen.
The photographer takes ill and is replaced by flamboyant Fritz Wagner (Elwes). A crew
member disappears. The company begins to suspect that Shreck is not exactly
method acting. Lead actor Gustav (Izzard) soon believes Shreck is not an extremely
dedicated actor, and stage actress Greta (McCormick) is repulsed by the appearance and
obsessive interest Shreck takes in her. Murnau eventually reveals he has made a deal
with the devil with Shreck that might increase the realism of his film, but will
inevitably end in tragedy.
The 1922 film Nosferatu is often regarded as the best Dracula film, best vampire
film ever. The descendants of Dracula were not happy with the Dracula story being filmed,
and were actually successful in having all the prints
and negatives of the film confiscated and destroyed, except for some prints which were
hidden or lying around in other countries, which is why some scratchy prints of the
film still exist today in video form. The real Max Shreck was quite convincing as
the vampire, an elfin, slumped monstrosity who was once described as "an actor of
no distintion", and although Murnau is ostensibly who the film is focusing on, Shreck
is the most interesting character in the movie. Screenwriter Katz has fabricated a
wildly fictional story where the vampire in the movie is not an actor but actually a real
vampire.
The film doesn't entirely work. The film vacillates between genuinely creepy scenes
and dark humour (example, in talking about the script girl, Shreck says "I'll eat her
later"), and the humour takes away some of the tension and horror potential.
The film is meant to be a metaphor for film making - obsessive directors willing
to go to almost any length to obtain authenticity, temperamental stars demanding expensive
re-writes and holding productions for ransom, scriptwriter's held in very low regard
by "auteur" directors and movie-making being a "bloodsucking" industry. Some of the
best moments in the film are in seeing Murnau's dedication and enthusiasm in creating
"art", seeing scenes from the original Nosferatu come to life, and seeing how
filming was done in the silent era. One very negative note - the ending of this movie
is ridiculous, an unbelievable and over-the-top ripoff of Gloria Swanson's "closeup"
in Sunset Boulevard. But the best moments are with Shreck, his longing for
normalcy, his pretending to be an actor acting like a vampire and his all-consuming
desire for Greta.
Malkovich plays Murnau as an amoral, controlling egomaniac obsessed with creating
the first truly authentic vampire movie. The performances are generally solid throughout,
but they are dwarfed by the spectacular performance of Willem Dafoe. He is barely
recognizable and amazingly convincing as the elfin, grotesque Shreck. He adopts many
of the mannerisms of actors in the silent movie era, and moves between funny and eerily
creepy with ease. If the Academy voters are at all awake, Dafoe will earn an Oscar
nomination and he would be a totally worthy winner. Shadow Of The Vampire
is an OK movie and his amazing performance makes the film worth seeing.
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