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Shadow of the Vampire

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2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

As one who would rather pick through dusty attics than the *New Arrivals!* section of Blockbuster for a film to watch, this for me was a rare treat. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in a theatre with other people who had seen, or at least heard of, FF Murnau's wonderfully creepy film.

With the double whammy of being black and white and silent, the film might be at Blockbuster, maybe one copy, but probably a cheap one, badly reproduced, just reinforcing people's stereotyping of silent films. I hope Shadow of the Vampire keeps rental copies of Nosferatu hopping.

And it just may, because it's a great film. Max Shreck, the actor playing the Nosferatu, is a real vampire. FF Murnau is a symbolic bloodsucker, slurping his actors dry, thinking only of the film.

In addition to being a great vampire film, this is a great period piece. Sometimes 21st century audiences need reminding that even though Nosferatu is set in Victorian times, it was made in the 1920's. I assume the Victorian atmosphere is well done, just because I don't see any evidence of 1922. At any rate, an era that is viewed as innocent by both us in 2001, and the cast of the film in 1922 is recreated. This is important, because the 20's themselves were a not-so-innocent time. So we have a period piece within a period piece, smooth and fascinating.

The atmospheric effect of the film is so good, I wish the cameraman would give lessons. The color of the film is wonderful. Although gore is restrained, the entire film looks as though it was shot through a vial of blood. There is a creepiness, but not the sort that you feel at a space alien or slasher movie, waiting for the moment that the monster is finally shown in full view. The creepiness here is the kind you get when you make a wrong turn and find yourself in a strange neighborhood, where people dress oddly, the buildings are in an unfamiliar style, and the more you try to find your way, the more lost you become.

The performances are superb, and this is all around a film worth watching, even for people who don't like horror films.

SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE belongs to a curious subgenre of horror cinema: dramatized speculations on the inspirations of true-life horror artists. THE SPECTRE OF EDGAR ALLAN POE told a wildly fictionalized account of splattery tragedies that would inform Poe's work. GOTHIC similarly dramatized a night of debauchery suffered by Mary Shelley that would inspire her FRANKENSTEIN. GODS AND MONSTERS fictionalized the final weeks of James Whale's retirement, still haunted by the personal demons informing BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN: World War One's trench warfare and Britain's class system.

Of the above films, GOD AND MONSTERS hews nearest historic facts, whereas SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE veers to the opposite extreme, tossing aside history in a brilliantly imaginative, revisionist retelling of the making of F.W. Murnau's classic vampire film, NOSFERATU (1922).

In NOSFERATU, German character actor Max Schreck played the vampire, Count Orlock. So compelling was Schreck as Orlock, and so completely did he subsume himself in the roll, that his career was destroyed by subsequent typecasting. (A common risk for actors, one that ended the career of Karen Lynn Gorney after SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER). SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE posits that the reason for Schreck's compelling performance was that ... it was no performance. Schreck was a vampire, and his "makeup" was his real face.

It's an intriguing idea, sublimely executed. SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE opens with Murnau (played by John Malkovich), shooting his final scene in Germany, without Orlock. No one on his set knows yet who will play Orlock. Murnau informs them that he's found an obscure Method actor who's craft requires him to always be "in character." Thus, this mystery actor (named Max Schreck, played by Willem Defoe), will always be in makeup, and will only shoot at night.

The film company travels to the location in Czechoslovakia, where all are impressed with Schreck's "realism," even as they think he carries it too far. Such as when he goes overboard in attacking his co-star, or drinking a bat's blood. Murnau must control Schreck during the duration of the shoot, cajoling and bribing and threatening, at least until he has "his shot" and everything is "in the can."

John Malkovich's portrayal of Murnau is 90% perfect, but is hobbled to the extent that he plays a stereotype: the tyrannical, jackbooted, thick-accented German film director. Neither Malkovich, nor Merhige, nor Katz, do enough to raise the film's Murnau above this stereotype. One thing they might have done is lose the accents; since everyone in the film (except Orlock/Schreck) is German, there was no need for contrast. All could have spoken standard American English. But SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE does little to contravene Teuton stereotypes, and the result is that Malkovich's Murnau is nearly perfect, rather than perfect.

Malkovich's Murnau also overlaps with a related stereotype: the director as manipulative deceiver. This broader (and not necessarily German) stereotype is similar to the first, but without the accent or pre-World War Two milieu. It evokes Peter O'Toole's manipulative director in THE STUNT MAN, who lies and connives and blackmails to get his shots. John Vernon in the Canadian slasher film CURTAINS also fits this category.

Willem Defoe offers the film's standout performance as the vampire Orlock/Schreck. Dafoe's vampire is feral yet sympathetic, brutish yet poignant. He pines over a photo of the film's leading lady (Greta, played by Catherine McCormack), implying a romantic heart; yet later pounces on her, slurping her blood as the animal he is.

Vampires are usually depicted as either alluring romantics or repulsive beasts. To his great credit, Defoe successfully blends the two personas. His Orlock simultaneously inspires both our revulsion and sympathy. Defoe's Orlock compares favorably to Karloff's Frankenstein monster: both creatures are physically abhorrent, yet beneath their ugliness, we detect pain, self-loathing, and a desire for a nobler existence. Orlock relates his descent from past worthiness, expressing his self-revulsion at what he has become.

Seeing Defoe in makeup and character, it's hard to believe he was Jesus in THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST -- the most "human" and multi-dimensional Jesus I've yet seen on film, the only cinematic Jesus one could relate to [until the brilliant THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST]. Defoe also portrayed a genteel and guilt-ridden T.S. Eliot in Tom & Viv, and a memorably chilling biker/sadist in STREETS OF FIRE (another of my personal favorite films). Defoe's range is remarkable.

Great villains make for great horror films. Villains that are morally ambiguous, who confound us by simultaneously evoking our sympathy (or at least, our empathy) and our disfavor. Dafoe's Orlock is that, yet arguably Murnau is the real monster. He has bribed Orlock with Greta, who Orlock may have once they finish their scenes. It's unclear whether Murnau initially intends to sacrifice Greta for art's sake, but it's intimated the possibility was on Murnau's mind from the start. Greta's life is certainly no priority. Murnau would readily sacrifice his cast and crew, and betray Orlock, to get his precious shots. Murnau continues filming his crew's deaths rather than intervene, much in the manner of war correspondents.

Indeed, Murnau's callousness might in part be explained by his living in a Europe still traumatized by World War One, aside for the fact that the war and its after-effects are curiously absent in SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE. No hint of the war's human, financial, and political costs that burdened Germany in 1922. This is no irrelevant omission. Most film critics believe German expressionist cinema was influenced by the war. [See David J. Skal's THE MONSTER SHOW.]

The standout scene is also Defoe's, and will likely be remembered as one of those classic scenes in cinema that everyone recalls. (And proof of the poignant beauty of horror.) Orlock had earlier told Murnau that what he desires most is to see the sun again. After everyone has left the set, Orlock wanders to the film projector, gazes into the lens, and cranks the film. He sees a shot of a ship sailing with the sun behind it. Orlock is mesmerized, gazing into the lens, recalling all that he has lost, and how far he has fallen.

Willem Defoe deserves much credit, but credit is also due to director E. Elias Merhige, and screenwriter Steven Katz. Reportedly, this was one of those scripts that had been shuttled about for years before someone actually filmed it.

The film's title seems arbitrary. Orlock pines for the sun, and his lack of reflection in a mirror provides for a minor plot point, but there's nothing especially important about his shadow. Perhaps "shadow" is intended as a metaphor? The shadow of film's influence on the future? (Murnau speaks of film memory.) But if there's a metaphor to "shadow," it's unclear, and apparently not crucial. This film could just as easily have been called something else.

Udo Kier is likable as Murnau's producer, a contrast to Kier's sleazy Satanist in END OF DAYS. Catherine McCormack's Greta is debauched, shrewish, and thinly sketched, so we don't much care if Orlock desanguinates her.

A historical note: the Bram Stoker estate successfully sued NOSFERATU's producers for infringing Dracula's copyright. All prints were ordered destroyed, but NOSFERATU survived, so there's no excuse for a horror film fan not to have seen the original. SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE is worth seeing in any event, but you may appreciate it more if you first see NOSFERATU and review its history.

SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE is an amazing film. It operates on three separate levels. On one level it is a story of a filmmaker, F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich), obsessed with his own ambition and vision. He is remaking the Dracula legend, changing the name of the vampire to Count Orlock. His film will be called 'Nosferatu'. He has hired the 'ultimate method actor' named Max Schreck to play his vampire. Schreck is said to get into character and stay there, only wanting to be filmed at night and only responding to the name 'Count Orlock'. But as filming progresses, the truth becomes clearer and clearer... Schreck really IS a vampire, agreeing to star in Murnau's film in exchange for the chance to dine on the leading lady. It's a delicious concept, even more so after you've seen the classic, silent original. It's easier to believe that Schreck was some kind of monster then it was to believe he was simply an actor in makeup. That's how effective Schreck's performance in the 1922 German film is. The second level of the film is more familiar. It is a horror film. It has all the elements of a vampire film and it acts on all of them, actually reaching a degree of creepiness that you wouldn't expect from a film this (excuse the phrase) 'artsy'. And finally, SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE is a seething satire, one where the lead actor cannabalizes the cast and crew to get what he wants and the director is so focused on his vision that he ignores the fact that the people around him are falling ill, they are merely meat puppets (Hitchcock and Kubrick would have been proud). This is a fun little film, with aspirations towards greatness that it all but reaches. The production design and brilliant cinematography allow for an accurate reproduction of the settings of the 1922 film. So dead-on, in fact, that when actual footage of the silent film is inserted into the film, we can't tell the difference. Director E. Elias Merhige work beautifully with an amazing casy which includes Malkovich, Udo Kier (of 'Andy Warhol's Dracula' fame). Eddie Izzard, Catherine McCormack, Cary Elwes, and Aden Gillett. But the real star here is Willem Dafoe, whose performance of Max Schreck as long suffering and desperate monster is so accutely creepy and inventive that it'll make your skin crawl.

Say and call Shadow of the Vampire what you will, but I for one love this movie for everything it is and isn't. At first I wasn't sure what to make of the film, but after repeated viewings Shadow of the Vampire has become quite possibly my all time favorite film. Those expecting a normal vampire film will get a surprise, this is a different kind of vampire movie. A tribute of sorts to the original crew of the legendary German film Nosferatu, John Malkovich stars as director F.W. Murnau, and Willem Dafoe is "character actor" Max Shreck. As the film unfolds we learn Shreck is an actual vampire, and his personality comes out the more he is around the film crew. I will say that Dafoe gives a knockout performance, and he earned his Best Supporting Actor nomination, his makeup (which was also nominated for an Academy Award) was excellent as well. But what made Dafoe's performace so great was one scene in particular where he is talking outside to the film makers about why reading Bram Stoker's Dracula made him sad (you have to watch it, this is what acting is all about). Malkovich was haunting as the obsessive director, willing to go to any extreme to complete his masterpiece, and the question as to who the real monster is, Murnau or Shreck, will be something you'll be asking yourself. The special features are worth noting, Nicolas Cage produced the film and offers an interview, as does Dafoe, both of which are great and interesting to those who cannot get enough of the film. All in all, Shadow of the Vampire is an underrated hauntingly funny masterpiece that vampire movie fans will mostly enjoy.

What a great idea for a screenplay: What if the slightly mad German director of a legendary vampire film insisted on casting a real bloodsucker for the lead role? Sadly, the director has limited skills, and the supporting cast is just so-so. But, Willem Dafoe more than makes up for these flaws with an astonishing portrayal of an ancient, cranky vampire who is vain enough to want to be a movie star, and ordinary enough to be willing to suck the blood out of ferrets in return for being the center of attention on a movie set.

Is Dafoe's performance Oscar-worthy? I think so. It certainly is better than some of the mediocre performances that have won of late. The script is strong, as well, and the cinematography is beautiful at times.

This was one fun movie. The story is loosely based on the making on the silent classic NOSFERATU in 1922. It was directed by the German director, F.W. Murnau, and is considered one of the best (if not the best) vampire movies ever made. I still have memories as a kid watching it on TV. The scene where the vampire's shadow ascends the staircase gave me nightmares for weeks.

It was Murnau's radical idea (for that time) to film the novel DRACULA on location in an abandoned old castle in Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately, the estate of Bram Stoker wouldn't give Murnau the rights to film the novel. So he changed the plot very slightly and the name of his vampire from Count Dracula to Count Orlok.

The Count was played by an actor named Max Schreck, whose name is German for "Maximum Terror. The name fit him well. He is most unlike the vampires that one is used to in a vampire movie. He didn't have a flowing cape, was very ugly, had the ears of a rat, a bald head, long talons for fingernails, extremely dense and bushy eyebrows, and two pointed teeth in the front instead of fangs. He repulsed women instead of seducing them like the charming vampires later on like Bela Lugosi or Frank Langella.

The film was supposed to make Schreck an international star,but lawsuits from the Stoker estate stopped the film from wide distribution and he only did a few more films after. Little is known about him, and that's where the fun begins with SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE.

It's about the making of the silent film NOSFERATU, but it takes a lot of liberties with it. I want to make this clear - this is NOT a realistic account of how NOSFERATU was made. It is the premise of this new film that the director F.W. Murnau (played wonderfully by John Malkovich) would seemingly do anything to get his film made. For the vampire lead, he hires someone (Willem Dafoe) who thinks he is a real vampire - or is he? Murnau tells his cast that his choice for the role of Count Orlok is a theater actor named Max Schreck who likes to stay in character all the time, even when the camera's not running. He tells the cast just to play along with the demands of this strange actor. And the demands do get strange!

It was amazing how much Willem Dafoe's character resembled the original, and how well they recreated the scenes of the silent classic. There's a couple instances where they even inserted footage from the original, but unless you know NOSFERATU real well, you may not be able to tell.

I don't want to tell you anymore of the plot. Just go rent (or but) it and have a good time. There's parts that are funny, parts that are creepy, and even a part where Schreck talks about being a vampire with two of the crew that's a bit melancholic. It's not a real deep movie, but it will make for interesting conversation afterwards. The acting (with an Academy Award nomination for Willem Dafoe), art direction, cinematography, and soundtrack are terrific.

If you haven't seen NOSFERATU, you still should enjoy this movie. But if you have seen NOSFERATU before, you won't see it the same way again.

Early on in "Shadow of the Vampire," when director F. W. Murnau (John Malkovich) tells the cast and crew of his 1922 horror classic "Nosferatu" that he has hired unknown actor Max Schreck to play Count Orlock, he explains that Schreck has been studying with Stanislavski in Russia and is one of those actors who gets subsumed by his role. This is an intriguing enough conceit, but Steven Katz's script takes this film's conceit a bit further by having "Schreck" turn out to be a real vampire. This explains not only the need to shoot all of his scenes at night but also why he keeps attacking crew members, biting their necks and drinking their blood. The producer (Udo Kier), the writer (Aden Gillett), the new cameraman (Cary Elwes) and the film's star (Eddie Izzard) are getting increasingly nervous about people dying while making this film, but Murnau is totally consumed with getting his vision immortalized on celluloid. Since he would be willing to make a deal with the Devil to do so, coming to an arrangement with a vampire with regards to the life's blood of his leading lady (Catherine McCormack) is a relatively trivial matter.

"Shadow of the Vampire" has an obvious affection for the way in which silent movies were made, and key sequences of the film emulate the style of the time (shot in black & white, iris in & iris out, etc.). Both Schreck and Murnau are interested in immortality, albeit of different sorts, and it is not surprising that by the end of the film there is the question of which character is the real monster is quite debatable. Dafoe's performance as the title character was certainly worthy of an Oscar nomination, one of those grand disappearances beneath the make-up reminiscent of John Hurt in "The Elephant Man." Malkovich is at the stage in his career where it is difficult to notice how good he is because of how good he is (he improvised a lot of the dialogue during the final scene). Producer Nicholas Cage certainly deserves credit for getting E. Elias Merhige to direct another film. It had been almost a decade since Merhige wrote and directed "Begotten," and he was threatening to become the J. D. Salinger of contemporary American cinema. "Shadow of the Vampire" is destined to become a beloved little horror film, if not a cult classic.

Given the subject matter, the DVD extras are pretty sparse this time around. Merhige does the audio commentary alone and there are brief interviews with him, Dafoe and Cage. However, the featurette is standard Hollywood fare when what I was really expecting was a documentary-style look at the original "Nosferatu" with film historians or horror writers holding forth on its greatness. While having seen the original "Nosferatu" is not necessary to understanding "Shadow of the Vampire," it certainly would enhance your enjoyment of this film, and since "Shadow" is only 93 minutes long, you can easily do a double feature on a Friday night when the moon is full. Finally, please remember this is a film that requires the willing suspension of disbelief and do not get sidetracked by how a vampire who casts no reflection in a mirror can be captured on film. Just enjoy the ride.

Hmmm. Interesting film. Like many pieces of art that thinks about art, it gets a bit idea-ridden. But the thoughts are interesting, and Dafoe's performance as Schreck / Count Orloch is something divinely weird. Here is a movie with a genius makeup artist, who manages to re-create the vampire of Nosferatu (no creepier vampire has ever been shown on screen, I think) with exactitude . . . and Dafoe gives him PERSONALITY! It's not just the pity-the-monster pathos, though that's beautifully touched on when, alone in a cave, he begins reading from Tennyson's 'Tithonus' . . . "The woods decay, the woods decay and fall / the vapors weep their burthen to the ground / Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath / and after many a summer dies the swam.../ Me only cruel immortality consumes. . . " but the absurdity of his situation. He has read Dracula, he says, and finds it sad, because the poor count has no servants, and has to be seen by his guest serving the table, making up a meal he cannot partake. He feeds like an old man pees, he says, all at once or in drips. He ghoulishly stuffs down a passing bat like a Circus geek. He snorts and sniffs like one so long alone has has forgotten to have normal manners. After rudely smacking his lips feeding greedily on the desired maiden (no maiden indeed!) he snores in piggy satiation. He is awful and repellant, and very, very funny at the same time. Malkovich's Murnau is a little less of a delight. The whole idea of his character--one so obsessed with creating immortal (or should we say undying?) art that he is willing to expose his cast and crew to the depradations of the real vampire thing, is a sort of mad scientist joke that has all the manifest and hard-to-believe stupidity it usually does in the old horror flicks. He keeps cranking away at the camera while Orloch snaps necks and sucks noisily on the heroine's throat. He has striven so hard for verisimilitude that he is willing to have a rogue creature on the set, but then he complains peevishly when the count dares to commit a murder in such a way as to spoil the composition in the frame. Still, what he says about art and film is telling, and memorable. The director is meant to show us another sort of monster, I guess--the kind who gets so in the grip of an idea about imitating reality that he wittingly or unwittingly shoots a snuff film. This is a level of irresponsibility it's a bit hard to accept. But then, of course, it's a level of irresponsibility in our minds because we rapidly come to believe that Orloch either believes he is the real thing or IS the real thing . . . and how real is THAT???? Meanwhile the cast and crew continue to accept his unpleasant presence as that of a method actor who takes his art very seriously. It's a clever hall of mirrors in which not all the characters have reflections. The incorporation of footage from Nosferatu is done extremely well and seamlessly. And yes, there is irony in recalling that one of the first things done in film, was to put on deathless celluloid the moving life & murderous acts of the undead.

I wasn't sure what to make of "Shadow of the Vampire" after my first viewing. I bought it on a whim on Halloween night, to scare my girlfriend with a "Nosferatu" double-feature. When the World Series game ran long, we ended up watching neither. I finally got to "Shadow" two weeks later and came away unsettled. This is more a movie about scary notions -- about shadows -- than a scary movie itself. Why did the film begin and end with 5-minute-long title sequences? Why was the ending so suddenly downbeat?

However, I was still fascinated, so came back to watch a second time and was quite impressed. Now I wasn't expecting Technicolor gore (most of the deaths are alluded to, not shown), and got to enjoy more fully the electric dialogue between stars Malkovich and Dafoe. I wanted to cheer when Cary Elwes swashbuckled onto the screen late in the picture. I enjoyed Eddie Izzard's portrayal of Z-grade silent film star Von Wangenheim -- Izzard's manic gesticulations reminded me of Jay Leno in his more bizarre character bits. But it all comes down to John Malkovich in the mad-scientist goggles and Willem Dafoe munching on a bat. These are expert actors and we should all clearly be more like them in our daily lives. I want those goggles.

The DVD extras are worth your time. The video interviews with Merhige, star Willem Dafoe, and producer Nicolas Cage (who's very *freaky*, bug-eyed and fidgety) are short, and do more than just mimic the director commentary. Izzard has a great line on the making-of featurette. Watch for two hidden trailers in the "Recommendations" section.

Merhige's commentary track is mostly a winner. It's weighty stuff, be warned; Merhige is in full-on film school professor mode, discussing abstract notions, technical details, and Goethe. The commentary for "The Last Temptation of Toxie" this isn't. He does occasionally go overboard, talking his way through the endless opening titles, going orgasmic while comparing his "Nosferatu" recreations to the original, and rambling a sort of Oscar acceptance speech at the end. On the whole it's a good commentary track and if you choose to watch the movie more than once, this is a good use of 85 minutes.

In 1922, German film director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, directed an unlicensed screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's classical horror novel, DRACULA. The film was NOSFERATU. It featured actor Max Shreck (and with such a name what else can you star in besides horror films?) as the eerie Count Orlock (a.k.a. Vlad Tepes Dracula), Greta Schröder as Ellen Hutter (a.k.a. Wilhelmina Murray) and Alexander Granach as Makler Knock (a.k.a. Jonathan Harker). The shooting of the film is apparently shrouded in much mystery, with people disappearing from the set, and this sets up the premise for SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, a fictional film about the making of - fans will argue - the best film version of the well known story of Dracula.

John Malkovich stars as the eccentric film director F. W. Murnau, who in his quest for absolute realism in his work has gone to the length of hiring a real life vampire, Max Shreck, as the role of Count Orlock, who has been promised the lovely Greta Schröder as a "fee" for starring in the film. It may all sound ridiculous, but it works out great. Willem Dafoe stars as Max Shreck, and boy... what a performance! He *is* Max Shreck. It's a complete transformation. You basically can't tell the original Shreck from the Dafoe variety. Some of the scenes from the original has been reconstructed down to the tiniest detail, and it's an amazing result. And we're not just talking about external resemblance here. With just a fixed gaze, Willem Dafoe manages to bring back the eerie feel that the original Max Shreck gave the Count Orlock character.

So is it a must to have seen the original NOSFERATU in order to fully enjoy this film? Well, of course, I can only speculate on this question, for I know not what it is like to see SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE without having seen the original Murnau film, but I would assume that some of the thrill is lost if you have no knowledge of NOSFERATU. Because it must be said that SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE is a rather peculiar film which seems tough to label. You can't really call it a horror film for it's not especially scary. It may be perceived as a black comedy, but also this label seems a bit off. So part of the fun of watching the film, besides getting great performances from Malkovich and Dafoe (the other cast members, for instance Cary Elwes and Udo Kier, also deserves credit), was comparing the film with NOSFERATU. But if you have seen Murnau's "symphony of horror" (and enjoyed it) and have a taste for films that don't follow the standard Hollywood formulae, then I would probably label this film with the only label that seems fit, "a must see".