So last week we talked about Nosferatu on a very long video, but I’m not quite done with the vampire as I’ve had an obsession with the undead for quite some time as well as my cohort. And today I am bringing you a review of Shadow of the Vampire, a 2000 film starring John Malkovich and William Dafoe, and directed by E. Elias Merhige. The film is a retelling of the making of the vampire classic silent film Nosferatu. It is not biographical in the normal sense of the word as it takes fantasy as reality. Let me unpack what that means.
The director of Nosferatu was a man named F. W. Murnau (John Malkovich), a talented German director obsessed with making high art films. He lived in Germany in the aftermath of World War I, during the age of the Weimar Republic, the period of decadence in Germany’s history before the rise of Nazi-ism. This was an era of intellectual diversity, creativity, and sexual freedom; it is in these fertile times that Murnau found himself in and his ambitious new film would involve a diseased, undead creature that reflected the paranoia of the recent Spanish flu a couple years prior. Unbeknownst to the cast, the temperamental director has hired a mysterious actor who isn’t from the Reinhardt company. His name is Max Schreck (William Dafoe) and he is as enigmatic as his origins. Apparently, he’s going to show up with makeup and some very long fingernails, resembling the perfect image of a walking corpse. The film goes to great lengths to show that this actor is in fact a real vampire acting in a vampire film. I like this theme of blurring fantasy and reality and this film does it quite well.
The real-life Max Schreck was less enigmatic than the persona created on this film. He died of a heart attack late in life so it seems that he was not a real vampire. However, the actor took his role seriously and if you watch the 1922 classic, he is eerily realistic in his unholy activities and lonely, dead appearance. This film takes the serious work ethic of Max Schreck and turns him into the very thing he portrayed in our world; I hope you don’t mind if I sound a little meta in this review. To me this is the theme of the film and there is a short scene where one of the crew asks the vampire Max Schreck as he lies in a coffin, if he’s ever read Plato’s Republic and mentions the philosopher’s famous allegory of the cave. Max Schrek replies dismissively “Read him? I knew him.” This small scene illustrates the thin line of distinction between the artifice of film and the real world. William Dafoe’s performance as Max Schreck is convincing as ever and he imitates the creature perfectly. John Malkovich as Murnau, is hotheaded and obsessed with his vision, and this culminates in a dramatic climax which I won’t spoil here. Just know that you’re in for quite a treat.
Shadow of the Vampire is a film that I would recommend to vampire buffs who have not seen it, I would also recommend it for people who are fans of the 1922 silent film as well. It captures the Gothic loneliness in a way that is different from its inspiration. I think this is because William Dafoe plays his vampiric Max Schreck as deeply as Max Schreck played Count Orlock in 1922. While this film does skimp on some history and I would’ve like to know more about the production of the classic Nosferatu, this isn’t the point of the movie. The point of the movie is how much would we sacrifice for the sake of an artistic vision.
Cinehorde Review 