Shadow of the Vampire

Cards on the table -- I do not care for FW Murnau's Nosferatu. I recognize its importance to the horror genre and vampire movies specifically, I acknowledge it has excellent atmosphere, and that Max Schreck's make-up is amazing. But I did not connect with the movie at all. I found it dull, the acting of Harker to be amateurish and OTT even for the silent movie era, and it never kept my interest for very long. So, you might say I was coming into this movie with a handicap, but the idea was intriguing; making a movie about the making of Nosferatu, but the twist being that Max Schreck IS a vampire, and Murnau has made a secret deal with him to participate in exchange for Schreck to consume the lead actress. It's a tale of obsession, of the director to shoot his movie at any cost, and Nosferatu, whose lust for lead actress Greta seems to be about more than just hunger. Unfortunately, Shadow did not connect with me either, albeit for entirely different reasons. I'll give it this, the movie has a wonderful atmosphere, both in the scenes where you see the behind-the-scenes stuff, and when there's more focus on the monster and the relationships. Willem Dafoe's turn as Schreck is weird and creepy, a bizarre, delicate, but still sinister man who is racked with loneliness and hunger. I love the use of silent movie trappings, like the transition from what we see to what the camera is filming by way of the iris narrowing to simulate the partially closed iris of the time, or the intertitle cards filling in elided story beats. But the story itself, I just didn't care about. I never found the tone of the movie to make sense; despite having a literal vampire on set killing crew members, there's a weird lightness to the movie, as if this should be a comedy, but there's no humor to be found. Schreck is sad and hungry but also a malevolent murderer, so there's no sympathy there, and Murnau is literally sacrificing his lead actress so he can have a real vampire play a vampire, so he's a piece of crap too. And Greta, the lead, isn't likeable to begin with, so there's really nobody to root for here. That brings me to my biggest flaw: the theme of obsession, specifically Murnau's Dude is obsessed with making the best picture he can. He is committing murder by proxy to do it. Not once, not ONCE, does the movie address WHY. What drives this motivation? What made him believe an actor in make-up wasn't good enough, that he needed a real member of the undead? Why would he be willing to do such a thing as offer up someone else as tribute? These are not only never answered, but they're never asked. And for as amazing an actor as John Malkovich usually his, you won't find hints in his performance here, which is one-note all the way through. He attempts a German accent as much as Costner attempts a British one in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. I'm sure some see this as a satire of movie-making, and some love the unexplained obsessions of the two leads, or any number of other factors in this movie. I wish I did, because the concept is intriguing. The end result, however, left me apathetic. I wouldn't call it bad. Just boring.