Steven Katz took on a daunting task for his first screenplay. In "Shadow of the Vampire," he writes about director F.W. Murnau and actor Max Schreck, the two mysterious men who turned 1922's "Nosferatu" into the most realistic vampire film ever made.
Katz, who has already written scripts for two acclaimed television series, Showtime's "Fallen Angels" and HBO's "From the Earth to the Moon," now has an excellent film script to add to his growing resume. He was kind enough to talk with us about writing, movies, vampires and more.
OnMilwaukee.com: How hard was it finding information about F. W. Murnau?
Steven Katz: There's a fair amount of information available about Murnau. There is a very important biography/critical study by the great German art historian Lada Eisner and some documentaries have been made about him. And there's also a multi-volume historical set by a Spanish scholar, so there is quite a bit on him.
OMC: Was it easy for you to create his character then?
SK: It was easy for me to draw upon the facts of his life to create a character. That's more or less what I did.
OMC: What about Max Schreck? How difficult was it to find information about him?
SK: It was but I wasn't really concerned with the details of Schreck's life. I was only concerned with creating a fictional vampire the way that I wanted to. Obviously it's not really Max Schreck (in the movie) and I didn't borrow any details from his biography other than the fact that he was in "Nosferatu" and his name. When I would complain to the film's producers about sticking anachronistic things into "Shadow of the Vampire" they would look at me and remind me that Max Schreck wasn't a vampire to keep me honest.
OMC: When you started writing the movie were you envisioning a horror movie or something else altogether?
SK: I was envisioning a really good horror movie. I told the director that what I wanted to write was "The Godfather" of vampire movies; a movie that exploded and at the same time embraced and recreated all the clichés of the horror movie and the vampire movie. And although I am pleased with the results, it is a little different than I intended. It's more experimental and the humor is actually embraced more than it was in the original script. Some of the actor's show a bigger talent for humor than I thought they would. So what started out as a horror movie has now become kind of a complicated amalgam of horror and comedy.
OMC: What made you want to write a horror movie?
SK: I have always loved horror movies and this was my first script. I love the genre and I love to be scared. You can explore complicated themes and imagery in horror films and create great characters. I like genre movies where the audience comes in with preconceptions that you can either draw upon to confirm or completely explode. It makes for a very exciting type of writing.
OMC: What are some of your favorite horror movies?
SK: My favorite horror film is "Alien." I also love the old Universal horror movies like "Dracula," "The Mummy" and "Bride of Frankenstein" and classic Jacques Tourneur movies like "Cat People" and "I Walked with a Zombie."
OMC: Did any of those movies influence the script for "Shadow of the Vampire?"
SK: I think the biggest influence was 80 years of vampire movies more than anything else. I have all sorts of complicated theories about horror movies and I wanted to simultaneously explode and embrace the horror clichés and especially of vampire movies.
OMC: You wrote an early draft of "Interview with the Vampire." Did that experience have anything to do with you writing another vampire movie?
SK: I actually wrote that after I first wrote "Shadow of the Vampire." The writing of it was a good experience but the fact that they didn't use my script was a bad experience. Now I'm getting offered more vampire movies which is an unfortunate case of Hollywood tunnel vision. But I do have a couple of ideas for completely different vampire movies in me.
OMC: How do you explain the general public's fascination with vampires as well as your own?
SK: Vampires are so evocative because they are a symbol of practically anything you want them to be. Throughout history they have struck a cord in different times and places. From a point of view of films, vampires are very mythic. "Nosferatu" was the first vampire movie and all the other vampire movies that came after it commented on, elaborated and clarified the myth much more so than any oral legends or books about vampires with the exception of Bram Stoker's book and the Anne Rice novels. As for my own interest, I find them sexy and as a writer they represent an endless wealth of possibilities.
OMC: Did you collaborate with the director on the look of the film? Was there a certain way you wanted it to look?
SK: I specified in the script directions what I wanted the film to look like. I wanted it to look like the original film ("Nosferatu"). The look of the film is entirely due to the director but it is also an homage to the original film.
OMC: Would the movie be the same if it had been made at a big studio instead of the independent Lion's Gate?
SK: It wouldn't have turned out to be the same movie. It probably would have been closer to the way I originally enviosioned it. There's not a lot of independent companies turning out vampire movies or movies in the horror genre. It's mostly the major ones. But the fact that it is a company like Lion's Gate allowed the director and the actors to do something a little stranger with the material.
OMC: Who is your favorite writer?
SK: I'm an enormous fan of Steven Zaillian, who wrote "Schindler's List" and the upcoming "Hannibal." I don't think there's another writer working today who can touch him on structure or the amazing economy of language he has in telling a story. It's something I'm enormously envious of.
OMC: When and why did you initially start writing?
SK: I started writing plays right when I got out of college. I had always wanted to work in film but I got a little bit sidetracked. Now fate has brought me back to my original love.
OMC: What do you like about screenwriting?
SK: I like the imaginative possibilities, especially now with contemporary technology. There are no limits to your imagination or what you can envision. What I don't like is how expensive and political it is. It is difficult to actually get a movie made, which is a symptom of how much they cost to get made.
OMC: Was Max Schreck really a vampire?
SK: If you watch "Nosferatu," there is one weird thing that I've never been able to explain. Schreck has these really strange cat eyes. I'm almost certain that in 1921 Germany there weren't contact lenses, so how did he have these strange eyes? Maybe I wasn't wrong.
OMC: Do you want to leave the audience wondering about whether or not he really was a vampire?
SK: I like making myths. I never set out to do it with this movie, but it's been a side product of this project, and that's been pretty exciting.
"Shadow of the Vampire" is now showing at the Oriental Theater. Read OnMilwaukee.com's review.
