E. Elias Mehrige’s Shadow of the Vampire
In Shadow of the Vampire, E. Elias Mehrige attempts to put a Twilight Zone-like spin on F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu by pre-supposing that instead of hiring an actor to portray Count Orlock, Murnau, obsessed with “realism” in his films, instead found an actual vampire.
After a credit sequence which juxtaposes images of what appear to be medieval knights and demons (and perhaps a representation of the fall of Lucifer) with the canned lighting popular in theatres during the early era of cinema (see King Kong’s opening credits, for example), Mehrige makes a hard cut to an extreme close up of an eye, followed by the lens of the camera, while Murnau (John Malkovich) gives direction to Greta Schroder (Catherine McCormack), in the first of many in camera recreations of actual scenes from Nosferatu. (Mehrige is careful in these recreations not to replicate exact camera angles for a reason we will see shortly)
The title cards necessary in most silent films are also replicated here, but instead of narrating dialogue, Mehrige and writer Steven Katz utilize them as a means to get historical exposition out of the way, much of which is factual, in opposition to much of what he dramatizes on the screen. Murnau’s obsession with delivering the realistic in the fantastical takes his crew out of the Berlin film studios and to Czechoslovakia, via a train named Charon (of note because in Greek mythology, Charon is the boatman responsible for ushering the dead across the river Styx to the afterlife.)
Murnau’s producer, Albin Grau (Udo Kier), has no idea why the trek is of such necessity, nor does he comprehend the secrecy shrouding Max Schrek (Willem Dafoe), an “actor” alleged to have studied with Stanislavsky and be very devoted to Method acting, but Grau trusts Murnau’s vision, and has only minor questions surrounding the conditions of making Nosferatu, their unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
We are also introduced to Gustav von Wangenheim (Eddie Izzard), the actor playing Hutter in Nosferatu, the screenwriter Henrik Galeen (Aden Gillet), and Wolfgang “Wolf” Muller (Ronan Vibert), who takes a curious turn for the worse during the first night spent in Czechoslovakia, mirroring plot points from Nosferatu.
Katz takes care to mirror certain elements from Nosferatu in Shadow of the Vampire, giving an imagined sense of plot points we are not seeing being filmed, but existing to drive the story forward in a different way as we, like Hutter, prepare to meet Count Orlock. Much like Shadow of the Vampire itself, characters in the film struggle with exactly what kind of film they’re making. The self-reflexive nature of the script pushes the audience itself to question the kind of film they’re watching. Is this a horror movie? A historical recreation? Perhaps a film designed to replicate the early era of film, not unlike The Bad and the Beautiful?
However, as the film moves towards the “twist”, so to speak, certain alterations come into full effect. In the original film, day for night is clearly employed as a practical means to convey the Count’s introduction. But in Shadow of the Vampire, the scenes are portrayed as actually being filmed at night; a necessity in maintaining the premise of the film, but from this point on we’re clearly working in an alternate reality. Key scenes begin to deviate from the original film as a means to remind us that we’re not watching the making of Nosferatu, but rather the imagined version of the filming.
Shadow of the Vampire also changes our fundamental perspective of Ellen Hutter, by portraying Greta Schroder as less innocent and pure as her character in Nosferatu is suggested to be. In fact, Schroder is an open morphine user, and behaves not unlike the “vamp” of the twenties social scene. Speaking of which, it is apropos to note the presence of Udo Kier, who himself played Dracula in Blood for Dracula (also known as Andy Warhol’s Dracula), and a vampire elder in Blade. A standby in horror cinema, Kier’s involvement in this film is another element of self-reflexiveness, as is Cary Elwes’s, who plays Wolf’s replacement photographer. Elwes appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Dracula only seven years prior to Shadow of the Vampire.
Of course, Murnau himself is not simply a misunderstood genius devoted to accuracy (at the protestations of his crew over casting local villagers, he reminds them “They do not need to act. They need to be.”), but as a man driven beyond his capabilities to create film history, to the point that he too succumbs to morphine and fear of his star.
Speaking of which, let us take a moment to discuss “Max Schrek”, or Count Orlock himself. Willem Dafoe takes the images from Nosferatu and amplifies the animalistic appearance to distinguish him from the humans that surround him. Orlock literally sniffs his prey out, hissing and clicking his nails together to create unease. At the same time, Orlock has existed so long as a vampire he no longer has any memory of what humanity was like, and accordingly alternates between an unnerving beast and an almost child-like innocence, uncertain of how to “act” on camera, or how to deal with the object of his desire (Greta). Because of thise, Orlock is frequently the cause of Vampire’s biggest laughs, again, changing the film into something of an extremely black comedy, an element rarely noted when discussing the film.
Orlock’s most potent moment comes when he explains his interpretation of Stoker’s Dracula, from a perspective only one vampire could note of another; his loneliness. The strain of immortality is too much for Orlock, who at one point quotes Tennyson’s 'Tithonus', based on the Greek myth of a man who is immortal but continues to age. Orlock’s interests become baser as time drags on. Note how Shadow of the Vampire augments the sexual tension in the scene where he drains Greta, as Orlock openly gropes her breast while feeding. The film also suggests that Orlock’s power over Greta in its final scene is not a construction of the film, but the shadow grasping her heart is a literal demonstration of his power over her.
As filming continues, Orlock’s disinterest in the film, coupled with his sporadic desire to feed on crew members strains his tenuous relationship with Murnau, who cannot risk losing his star. He caves in to Orlock’s demand that the boat scene will not take place on water, and that Murnau will fly him to the island for their final location. As their tension escalates, Murnau becomes less and less reasonable; eventually lapsing into drug induced stupor, although whether the strains of the film or Orlock are the cause, it is unclear. Shadow of the Vampire also uses Orlock as a means to comment on film, both jokingly (“I don’t think we need the writer anymore.”) and poetically (Orlock watches the sun rise for the first time in centuries with the aid of a film projector.)
Of course, as Murnau and Orlock become more of a threat to the production, Albin and Wagner (Elwes) must reign in the mounting disaster, ultimately discovering Schrek’s true nature and deciding without the aid of Murnau that the vampire must die. The hiring of an actual vampire is a shock to them, but the promise of their leading lady to Orlock is too far for Murnau to go. The final scenes must go as planned, but the death of Orlock will not be that of movie trickery.
The greatest alterations to actual footage from Nosferatu come in the final scenes. Prior to this, Mehrige alternates between original footage and slightly different angles on recognizable scenes, but he makes two key changes to the “death” scene of Count Orlock. The first and most important alteration is the removal of Orlock’s reflection in the mirror as he approaches Greta. In Nosferatu, Orlock’s reflection is clearly visible in the mirror, perhaps a sign of Murnau’s disinterest in vampire lore or in overloading this scene with trickery (interestingly, given the lavish effects in his production of Faust, this line of thought is strange and out of character for him). In Shadow of the Vampire, in order to prevent the alternate universe most fully, Orlock casts no reflection, and alerts Greta to his true nature and possible intentions. In order to maintain her state of pre-feeding hypnotic trance, Murnau gives her morphine, but is he also considering the effect it will have on her blood when Orlock feeds? Is Murnau aware of the plan to kill Orlock, or has he planned it all along?
Therein lays the second change between the original and this supposed history: the means by which Orlock comes to die. Again, in Nosferatu, it is implied the sunlight comes through the window, and in a double exposed frame, Orlock is “wiped” out of existence. However, since we know Max Schrek is in fact a real person, and not a vampire, the technical nature of the effect makes sense. In order to kill Orlock in Murnau and Katz’s version, we are to believe Wagner and Albin designed the pulley system to open as Orlock awoke from his post-feeding (and possibly post-morphine induced) slumber, but they are the fools. Orlock is on to their plan, and prevents the door from opening mechanically, subsequently killing them both. Curiously, Murnau films the entire assault with cold detachment, asking the dying Albin to return a prop to its key location before he dies. Orlock, outraged at this ruse, turns his attentions to Murnau, who remains aloof, giving direction as though Orlock’s advances were nothing more than an actor unsure of his place onscreen. Then, as he did so early in the film, Mehrige cuts to Murnau’s eye, and to the camera lens, as the final trick is pulled on Orlock. Villagers outside open the door, and as the sunlight pours in, Murnau gives Orlock his final direction.
The final juxtaposition between art and film lies in Murnau’s final monologue, an echo of his earlier speech about the power of film to elevate art to a higher level on a permanent basis. As the paintings dissolved against canned lighting, so does Orlock against the sun, an image captured as the literal dissolving of an overexposed frame of film, finishing Nosferatu on film and in mortality. As is appropriate for this imagined version of film history, Shadow of the Vampire ends with Murnau’s pronouncement, “I think we have it.”
So what kind of film is it? Is Shadow of the Vampire a horror movie? Is it, as suggested, a black comedy? It’s certainly about a period of time in film history, but in an alternate reality where vampires are very much real and not the product of literature or art or film, so it can’t strictly be considered a historical piece. What is Shadow of the Vampire, and what does it say about reinterpreting film history in the vein of fiction? Is it so curious to consider that the largely unknown German actor who played Nosferatu could be recast as the literal figure of horror? And what does it say about our knowledge of the early years of cinema that this could be considered a viable alternate universe. This is why Shadow of the Vampire exists viably as more than a footnote in the history of Nosferatu, and what makes it so difficult to classify is also what makes it relevant.
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