January 25–February 1, 2001
movie shorts
recommended
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In the years since Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau unleashed his 1922 version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula on an unsuspecting world, vampires have become one of the most consistent symbols of cinematic horror. Through innumerable versions of the Dracula story itself, through Nadja, Blade, The Addiction, Wes Craven Presents Dracula 2000, Interview with the Vampire, even Buffy (and those are just the recent ones), filmmakers have turned to vampires to represent every kind of modern evil and obsession, from banal bogeymen to undead creatures whose fangs siphon out not just your blood but your soul. But Shadow of the Vampire may be a first in the annals of vampire lore: It’s the first vampire film where the vampire is only the second most terrifying character in the film.
Set during the making of Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror, Shadow of the Vampire proceeds from a devilishly simple premise. Shadow’s Murnau (John Malkovich) is a tyrannical genius obsessed with realism, insisting on location shooting (all but unheard-of at the time) and acting as close to naturalism as he can get it. To that end, he employs one Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) to play the role of the titular vampire, a centuries-old Romanian count whose unending loneliness is as intense as his lust for blood. But unbeknownst to the cast and crew, the actor whom Murnau introduces as Schreck (which, incidentally, means "shriek" in German) is not an actor at all. He is, in fact, a centuries-old vampire, whom Murnau has convinced to pose as an actor playing the part of himself.
As an undead creature whose desires are beyond his control, Schreck is as pitiable as he is fearsome. Dafoe’s multi-layered performance not only encompasses an accomplished imitation of Schreck’s unearthly performance in Murnau’s 1922 original (with more than a dash of Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake), but both parodies and enlivens the genre’s clichés. His skin a pallid white, his eight-inch nails like filthy knives, Dafoe’s Schreck is a monster, no doubt, eagerly snacking on rats and crusty vials of blood (all provided by Murnau, of course) while trying to keep his hunger for humans in check — not because he has moral qualms about feasting on humans, but because doing so would louse up his final payday. In lieu of cash, Murnau has promised Schreck he will be able to consume the film’s lead actress (Catherine McCormack) at the conclusion of the shoot. But no picture, no dinner.
Murnau is, of course, driven by his own compulsion: the hunger to create. But his creative lusts aren’t as obligatory as Schreck’s dietary ones: Murnau, we can only assume, has a choice, and chooses to ransom others’ lives for the sake of his art. The idea of an artist who would kill to realize his vision (and fictionally, at least, it’s always men) is an old, even tired one, and director E. Elias Merhige and screenwriter Steven Katz don’t do much to enliven it, apart from coating the movie with a thick veneer of film-buff humor and pitch-black comedy. Murnau’s high point comes when he castigates Schreck for sucking the blood of his cameraman — not because he’s horrified at the affront to human life, but because Murnau can’t finish his picture without him. Couldn’t Schreck find someone with a less-important position to nosh on?
Shadow is filled with such film-biz in-joke humor, as when a ravenous Schreck tells Murnau midway through the production, "I don’t think we need the writer any more." Such jokes are accessible to anyone who’s ever picked up a copy of Entertainment Weekly, so it’s not as if Shadow is for insiders only. Quite the opposite. And that’s part of the problem. The film’s humor and characterizations are so broad as to be generic, from the nervous, cost-conscious producer (Udo Kier) to the foppish, untalented leading actor (Eddie Izzard, who still manages to sneak in a brilliant parody of bad silent film acting). Part of the reason why Dafoe’s vampire is the film’s only vaguely sympathetic character is that we’ve seen everyone else before. You could, I suppose, make the case that the characters’ thinness is another self-referential in-joke, that they’re types the way silent film characters are types. (When Cary Elwes’ replacement cameraman arrives, he steps off a biplane and flashes a roguish Errol Flynn grin.) But for a movie that feels padded even at its relatively brief length, the under-characterization is a serious lack. For one thing, it makes it nearly impossible to care about who Schreck might sink his fangs into next.
On the other hand, it may be just that stock-footage quality to the characters which allows Malkovich and Dafoe to take their performances as far into the ether as they do. Dafoe has the obviously show-stopping role, and stop the show he does. Technically, it’s a supporting role (he filmed his part in three weeks), but it’s practically all you remember. While the character he’s playing is defined by sadness, the performance is defined by joy: the sheer joy of acting. At one point, Schreck snatches a bat out of the air and promptly crams its head into his mouth. Dafoe’s eyes roll up into his head and his tongue shoots out like an eager snake, caressing his prize with orgasmic delight. But as much as you’re seeing Schreck’s ecstasy, you’re seeing Dafoe’s as well. As grotesque an image as it is, you can’t help but laugh.
Malkovich, on the other hand, brings very little in the way of humor. His Teutonic taskmaster has no time for levity; when he slips on a white coat and polarized glasses to film, he’s every bit the mad scientist. (Indeed, Shadow’s story bears far greater relation to Frankenstein than the typical vampire tale.) Chilly calculation is not an emotion Malkovich has any trouble playing, and here he’s like an ice-blooded creature from beyond the grave, less inwardly human than the vampire himself.
The idea that Murnau (by which the film seems generically to mean artists, since it includes only the barest of details about its real-life characters) is the true monster is what animates Shadow of the Vampire, but it’s also what limits it. It might have been more interesting to see Murnau, for the sake of art, tapping into forces he can neither understand nor control. But Shadow’s conclusion reinforces the idea that directors are all-powerful, at least on the set. In any good movie, the art is more powerful than the artist. Shadow’s clinical, choreographed style leaves little to chance, and ably pays homage to Nosferatu and other films. But there’s little left alive in the end. You’ve been sucked dry.
