I love movies about movies.  There’s something about the meta-nature of telling stories set in the world of the film industry that I latch on to violently.  In 2000, a particularly fascinating movie was released courtesy of BBC Films that told a fictional re-imagining of how an actual film was made.  It was bold and adventurous, especially since its subject matter was roughly 80 years old at the time.

Yes, I’m talking about Nosferatu again, but this time through the lenses of the modern Shadow of the Vampire.

Directed by the relatively unknown E. Elias Merhige, Shadow of the Vampire asks a fairly simple question – What if Max Schreck, the legendary actor famous for portraying Count Orlok the Vampire in Nosferatu, was, you know, actually a vampire?  The notion is silly, but takes many conceptions of the original Nosferatu and turns them upside-down.  Watching the cast and crew film their movie, all while suspicious of their fellow actor that can only shoot scenes at night, adds a funny yet unnerving tension to even the original classic.

This is all supported by an absolutely stellar cast.  There are two big stand-outs, for obvious reasons – The great John Malkovich stars as F.W. Murnau, the director of Nosferatu, perfectly capturing the nuances and quirks of an obsessed artist seeking to create his masterpiece through any means necessary.  And one of my absolute favorites, Willem Dafoe, embodies the villainous Max Schreck with such panache that his performance is both hilarious and terrifying at the same time.  The rest of the supporting cast is great too (despite some flat German accents), such as Cary Elwes, Eddie Izzard, Catherine McCormack, and the under-appreciated Udo Kier.

 

Shadow of the Vampire is a great supplement to Nosferatu, but it lacks some of the attention to detail necessary for a film like this.  For example, it’s relatively well-known that during the actual filming of Nosferatu, the entire movie was shot on only one camera as that was all they could afford, creating only one negative of the original film.  In Merhige’s retelling, Murnau has quite the budget for his production, utilizing not only multiple cameras but flying actors and crew back and forth on airplanes for filming.  Also, many of the original movie’s important scenes are glossed over entirely here, creating a jarring transition in narrative from act to act.

If you want the best experience, I would recommend watching Shadow of the Vampire first before seeing Nosferatu.  It would create an interesting portrayal of what happened during the creation of that classic film, and then seeing the “finished” result.  But, despite its shortcomings, Shadow is still a fun, dark comedy with a fresh idea, which is something Hollywood could use more of, frankly.