starring John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe
written by Steven Katz
directed by E. Elias Merhige
95 minutes
F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) sets out in 1921 to make a vampire film, Nosferau. Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) plays Count Orlock, the vampire. Murnau is very much focused on the movie and on keeping his star happy. His two goals come into conflict on more than one occasion. Finally at the end of the movie, Murnau gets the performance he wants out of Schreck.
This is a fictional tale about the making of Nosferatu (1922). Some of the characters in it were real people, like Murnai and Schreck. I don't know enough about Nosferatu to know how much of the movie was depictions of actual events but at least a few moments must have been fictionalized events.
This was my second time watching this film but it has been close to a quarter century (Dec 2001) since I last saw it. I recalled enjoying it but I didn't remember much about it other than the fact that line seems to get blurred between Schreck being an actor and a vampire.
Two things made this film worth watching for me. First, both leads deliver not notch performances. Dafoe was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for this film. Second, the last scene turns the whole movie on it's head in a way that really worked for me.
Notes
I've seen John Malkovich is about a dozen movies. I've seen him in the past couple years in The Portrait of a Lady (1996) and Con Air (1997). I've seen Willem Dafoe in at least a dozen-and-a-half movies. Just Yesterday I watched Inside Man (2006) in which he played a major supporting character. There were a few other familiar faces in this movie including Udo Kier and Cary Elwes. This is the only movie that Steven Katz has written or that E. Elias Merhige has directed that I have seen.
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