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Today, 08 January 2009

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Hi all, welcome back.

Just a thought: if animals don’t know what they look like (no mirrors presumably), how do they know which other animals to mate with?

Still, that has nothing to do with the second part of this month’s series on madmen (click here to read last week's) — so onto a diversion of a different sort.

A safe definition for a true movie madman is how convincing the performance is. How many times have you heard people say things like "Dennis Hopper must be a complete lunatic?"

Andrew's obsession with cult films began at midnight at the age of ten, and involved a bowl of popcorn, an old television set and John Carpenter's Halloween. Little has changed since then, besides age, the popcorn and the fact that he can now climb dark stairwells after a horror movie by himself. Andrew is a published writer of horror fiction, a screenwriter and a freelance journalist. His time is spent largely in pursuit of a truly original horror film. Failing that he has threatened to make his own.

Whether it’s true or not, the fact remains that certain actors don’t simply blur the line between fact and fiction — they erase any trace of it. Take Jack Nicholson in ‘The Witches of Eastwick’. You wouldn’t be wrong in assuming that Satan really is just a horny devil after watching his performance as Darryl van Horn.

And so to Maximilian Schreck, star of the silent classic 'Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie Des Grauens' ('Nosferatu; A Symphony Of Horror'), directed by F.W Murnau.

Idle debate has raged (well as much as anything idle can rage; perhaps it’s just farted along) for years on whether Schreck was in fact a real vampire; so convincing is his performance.

Of course such speculation led to the surprisingly impressive ‘Shadow of the Vampire’ starring Willem Defoe and the irrepressible John Malkovich. The premise of the movie assumes that Schreck was in fact a vampire and the film details the making of the original film under the assumption.

I would wager that ‘Shadow of the Vampire’ will in its own time become something of a cult favourite due to its relative failure at the box office and the fact that it so sincerely pays tribute to Murnau’s creation.

For anyone who has seen the film the assumption is not that far-fetched. For all intents and purposes Max Scheck was indeed Count Orlock.

Arguments for the case?

CULT DE S’ACADEMY AWARDS Please click here to have a look at the categories for the Cult de S’Academy Awards. I’ll add a few each week and then in three months I’ll announce the winners. The nominees and categories will come from past columns until I’ve caught up. Simply, have a look at the nominees, and email me with your favourites. If there are any you would like to add just send those as well. You have until the next column to vote. If any new nominees are added I’ll throw it out there again. Just click here.

First a background on the film itself. ‘Nosferatu’ lends (or steals, as some would have it) from Bram Stoker’s seminal blueprint ‘Dracula’. In fact despite the language and a change of character names the story is almost the same. This was a fact that didn’t escape the attention of Stoker’s widow Florence who had every negative of the film destroyed in one of the first copyright battles. (And you thought George Michael had it rough!)

Fortunately copies of the film began to pop up like driftwood after the passing of a storm. It has since garnered a seriously loyal following (if you don’t believe me just follow some of the links below) as well as critical praise.

But what about Schreck?

There isn’t a great deal known about the man as he was a stage actor mostly and achieved posthumous fame as Orlock in the film. Schreck was born on June 11 1879 in Berlin. He worked in the famous Max Reinhardt acting company. Due to the fact that he was 6'3" (no I’m not over the height thing yet) Schreck specialised in strange and unusual characters. In fact because of his character roles in many horror productions he is considered the Gary Oldman of his time.

Unjustly Schreck performed in numerous films and stage plays, but as is usually the way he will always be best remembered for his role as the unnerving Count Orlock in ‘Nosferatu’.

After watching ‘Nosferatu’ take a look at Bela Lugosi in ‘Dracula’. The true magnitude of Schreck’s performance leaps out at you like… well, something that leaps out at you from a movie screen.

Seen in this context you can immediately see why so many people in 1922 were convinced that Schreck was a real vampire. Lugosi’s ‘Dracula’ is in keeping with the smooth, clean lines of a Universal horror film of the time. Lugosi is charming, attractive and well spoken. Orlock simply looks unearthly. In short you believe the character on the screen is really a vampire.

Let’s face it, a vampire sleeping in a coffin packed with damp earth and living off the blood of the local populus doesn’t exactly lend itself to the idea of a suave Dunhill model. The breath alone would be enough to dispel the chocolate box looks that took over the vampire legend on screen.

Klaus Kinski’s performance in the 1979 remake of the film is a faithful kick-back to Schreck and resonates the same sense of realism and terror; something Gary Oldman managed to achieve in Coppola’s version of the tale. However the 1979 version, while faithful to the original, tends to get lost in itself, and the expressionism of Murnau’s film is natural compared to the almost forced pretension of Herzog’s attempt.

‘Nosferatu’ was the first attempt to bring vampirism to the screen and despite noteworthy attempts in the field (‘Near Dark’, ‘The Hunger’) most versions carry the weight of the glamour bestowed on the theme by Universal.

This isn’t to say that Universal horror is bad — it’s really the difference between the believable in Schreck and the theatrical in Lugosi.

With his rodent features (pertinent, given that Murnau explores the plague idea in the film) Schreck’s shadow will always extend beyond the wall in Nina’s room. It’s a shadow that some films peek out of every now and again, but they will never completely escape it.

Next Week: Film critics — who needs ‘em? Or, "Andrew’s 21st existential crisis that day".

‘Nosferatu’ (1922 and 1979) is available from THE VIDEO SHOP - 13 North Park Centre, 7th Avenue, Parktown North - Tel: 011 788 8613. Email: tebaldi@mweb.co.za. With a vast range of titles, especially rare and classic films and knowledgeable staff, THE VIDEO SHOP has just what you’re looking for and is Cult de Sac’s video shop of choice.

The Cult de Sac Parting Shot

“The children of the night; what music they make” - Dracula

Last Week's Cult de Sac Meaningless Trivia Question:

In 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2', Hopper assists a damsel in distress clad in denim shorts. What is the name of this character and how does she wind up on the cannibals’ prospective menu?

ANSWER: Lefty helps a woman called Stretch, a late night DJ on a local Texas radio station. She attracts the attention and attacks of the meat loving family when she plays a recorded call made by two teenagers requesting a song. Problem is the recording also captures the kids’ death on tape, chainsaws and all. It leads Leatherface and Co directly to the station.

This Week’s Meaningless Trivia Question:

Which rock band famously used scenes from Murnau’s ‘Nosferatu’ in a music video?

Answer next week.

Feel free to disagree with all of the above and contact me with ideas, suggestions and abuse. I’m open to all three, although I do prefer qualified abuse.