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It is incredible to belive that this film is sponsored by Tango.
But boasting the likes of John
Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Eddie Izzard & Cary Elwes and produced by Nicolas Cage
this is definitely not pop trash.
Shadow of the Vampire is a noble little film, a strange blend of fact and fiction surrounding the
making of the most enduring and probably greatest (still unsurpassed) horror film ever made,
Nosferatu.
Made by German film maker G.W. Murnau in 1922, the film is a basic reworking of the Dracula myth -
Murnau was denied the rights to the
original book and set about, unperturbed, making his own version altering the legendary Count's
name to Orlock.
The story centres around Malkovich's vampire, a dubiously (un)lifelike and one begins to suspect
all too real incarnation of his literary counterpart. The film
blurs the boundary of the absurd as 'Max Shreck' begins picking off the production team and his
nocturnal meetings with the director leave the spectator questioning if this is art at its most
extreme or the real deal and to give the film it's credit we never find out until the final scene and
even then are left wondering...
It's modern counterpart is a fascinating window on the primitive methods of filmmaking in cinema's
infancy and centres particularly on the volatile world of the filmmaker. Shadow of the Vampire's
warped take on the deranged length's some directors
will go to to fulfill their celluloid visions and the necessary indulgence of madness that
all great genius demands is both intriguing and entertaining. What begins with Malkovich's
psychological manipulation of cast and crew (and hints at his own pharmaceutical exploration)
transforms into a bloody sacrifice of
anything and everyone that will profit the egomaniac's vision. Notorious productions
like Easy Rider, Natural Born Killers and the image of Francis Ford Coppola holding
a gun to his head on the set of Apocalypse Now spring to mind. And when one
considers that
Coppola hasn't made anything vaguely compelling or worthwhile since you begin to understand the
madness that begets magic. There are probably only a handful of modern filmmakers who take their art this
seriously anymore within the stringent boundaries of modern Hollywood (we salute you Oliver Stone and
a handful of lesser known European's and the odd dead bloke (Kubrick). As the state of modern mainstream cinema
reveals: it is a great pity.
However this emphasis on the psychotic does not cloud the upbeat and often comedic asepct of the film,
instead it reinfirces it, bolstered still by the performances of it's main cast: especially Dafoe's
exceedingly serious, yet in retrospect camp, portrayal of the vampire opposite Malkovich's fanatical artist
and hilarious motivation monologues. Even Eddie Izzard is perfectly cast as the OTT male lead of Gustav.
Dafoe is practically unrecognisable while Malkovich (like all great actors - think De Niro, Cary Grant,
Harvey Keitel, George Clooney(?) plays himself in a thin veil of character - which is all you can wish for and
excuses the odd slip of his German accent. Dafoe, usually falling into the latter category, is inspirational
as Max Shreck and with the aid of some nifty
prosthetics and interspersed sequences from the original masterpiece leave you wandering (a la JFK)
what is authentic and what is revised - which proves to be the essence of the film.
Shadow is obviously a loving homage to Nosferatu and a nice take on the gothic fable which
will only consolidate it's legendary status and rolling in at just over an hour and a half it is succinctly
harmless but worth it weight in gold...or should that be silver.
RATING: (c)Limer 2001
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Shadow of the Vampire (Cinema: March 2001)
