Shadow of the Vampire

2000, UK/US, Directed by E Elias Merhige
Colour, Running Time: 89 minutes
Review Source: DVD, R2, Metrodome; Video: Anamorphic 1.78:1, Audio: DD 5.1

Somewhere in Europe in the early 1920s, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau is attempting to direct a film sneakily based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel with names, film title, etc., switched around in the hope of avoiding the legal attentions of Stoker’s obstinate estate. Faced with mounting concerns from the production’s financiers, Murnau relentlessly pursues his unusual vision of the ancient vampire’s story of love and everlasting death. The film’s titular portrayer however is not revealed to the rest of the crew until later on, when he apparently refuses to appear to them in any sense except as his onscreen character, along with full ‘make-up‘. It becomes apparent that Murnau has made some sort of pact with the mysterious Max Scheck that keeps the strange man participating in something that may be at odds with his personal interests. But then Schreck begins making his own demands on the production, and before long people are being hurt by forces they’re unable to describe.

Steven Katz’s story takes the novel approach of using a true life event (i.e. the filming of the silent classic Nosferatu) and injecting it with elements that are (probably…) fictitious, in this case the suggestion that the person playing the monster was in reality a vampire himself, this essentially capitalising on the fact that there’s not a great deal known about the real-life Max Schreck. Bringing unprecedented character to Schreck is Willem Dafoe, in what justifiably proved to be an Oscar-nominated performance - by all accounts uncanny, repulsive, and downright odd, he’s almost unrecognisable due to both extensive make-up and characteristic portrayal of the strange being. In fact he heads up an adept cast all round: John Malkovich is typically manic and emotive as the director, Eddie Izzard is a frightened Gustav (playing Hutter from Nosferatu - essentially the Jonathon Harker semi-hero renamed), the lovely appearance of Udo Kier as the perpetually oblivious producer, his natural accent fitting in well with the forced dialects of the rest of the cast, and finally Catherine McCormack as Hutter and Orlok’s stuck-up love-interest. The overall cinematographic approach is one of murkiness and gloom; quite suitable given this rather dark excursion, while punctuating the story are genuine snippets of Nosteratu alongside close recreations of shots with the actors of this film as ‘Murnau‘ shoots his masterwork - the genuine clips prove to underpin the potency ingeniously injected into the 1922 chiller by the contextual suppositions made by Katz. Indeed, after watching this I think the natural urge is to seek out the real Murnau film on one of its many DVD incarnations.

But not only is there a bit of terror and drama in Shadow…, we’re also treated to sly portions of black humour that induce the occasional smile. I guess a film such as this was always going to have difficulty finding a target audience among the masses due to a refusal to fixate itself on any particular genre conventions - even the vampire elements are masked by ambiguity as Schreck’s bloodsucking tendencies may possibly be those of a madman or something altogether unprecedented. Instead this is a thoroughly original treatment that seems to have paid the price that steers many producers into safer territory nowadays (hence the apparent stagnation of the film industry that we appear to be suffering).