Nosferatu the Vampyre | Werner Herzog | 1979

[ReviewAZON asin="6305307261" display="inlinepost"]Werner Herzog’s unusual decision to direct a reworking of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant (1992) starring Nicolas Cage has caused considerable interest amongst film fans. This controversy though is nothing compared to the hassle Herzog received thirty years ago for remaking Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors (F.W. Murnau 1922). As well as being a horror classic, Murnau’s masterpiece is remarkable for its use of lighting and expressionistic set design. For a German filmmaker to even attempt a remake of a German classic caused considerable consternation amongst high-minded critics at the time.

However, in its own way Herzog’s Nosferatu is just as fascinating as Murnau’s original. Although Symphony of Horrors is the first screen version of Bram Stoker’s novel ‘Dracula,’ Murnau adapted the story without first acquiring the rights. Changing the Count’s name to Orlock didn’t help and Stoker’s widow sued, although mercifully the court rejected her plea to have the film destroyed. Herzog is free to call his vampire Dracula and keeps the main story from Stoker’s novel intact. Jonathon Harker (Bruno Ganz) travels to Transylvania to negotiate a property deal with the Count. Dracula traps Harker within his castle and leaves him there while he heads for England with the intention of getting to know his wife.

There are minor changes from the novel; the Harkers live in the coastal German town of Wismar. Mina, the leading lady

in Stoker’s novel is demoted to a supporting role, while Lucy (Isabelle Adjani), takes on her characteristics of purity and innocence and also becomes Jonathon’s wife. Dr Van Helsing is no world authority on vampyres, but an ageing ineffectual small town Doctor with no real knowledge of what he is fighting against.

Instead of replicating the expressionist techniques used by Murnau, Herzog filmed on location in Germany and Romania and makes wonderful use of natural light. The opening credits play over shots taken of mummified corpses twisted in agony as Popol Vuh’s haunting somnambulistic music sends a shiver down your spine. In one astonishing wordless sequence Harker (Bruno Ganz) leaves the village on foot, walking past the side of a cavernous river, climbing past a waterfall towards the peak of a mountain. As Harker rests and takes in his surroundings Herzog cuts between shots of him and the mist-covered mountains until Dracula’s Castle reveals itself as a ruin on the horizon.

Herzog regular Klaus Kinski has roughly the same look as Symphony’s Dracula Max Schreck. Kinski retains the black coat, pointy ears, bald head and fang-like teeth, but his face appears more human than Schreck’s misshapen monster. Kinski’s vamp is remarkable, as pitiful as he is unsettling. There is nobody else in the world like him and he is completely alone. There are no vampire babes hiding in his castle waiting on his every command, as if they were vampiric versions of Hugh Hefner and The Girls of the Playboy Mansion. Unlike Christopher Lee’s tall, suave aristocrat, who takes women at will, Kinski’s vamp literally begs Lucy to let him drink her blood and like a lot of bald men on the pull he is turned down flat. There is none of the eroticism often present in a vampire movie here. This Dracula feeds like a parasite, not a lover. All he brings is death, not so much by his own hand, but by the pestilence that follows him, the rats streaming into the town and infecting it with the plague.

Bruno Ganz and Isabelle Adjani do well as the young lovers destroyed by Dracula. Often these roles are a thankless task for actors as the Harkers are essentially ciphers for moral innocence, but both Ganz and Adjani have the ability to flesh them out and give them depth. Herzog is able to convey intimacy through a long-shot of them walking on the beach. Most directors would use a close-up and have them express their love through words, but Herzog keeps his distance as if getting in close would be an intrusion. Adjani becomes a spirited heroine as Lucy understands what she must do to stop Dracula.

Herzog provides some spectacular images, such as the town square filling up with the townspeople carrying coffins, or of a last supper as a group of people infected with the plague hold a farewell dinner party for themselves. Nosferatu the Vampyre is one of Herzog’s best films and a contender for one of the greatest vampire movies ever made. Hopefully Herzog can deliver something as inspired for the forthcoming Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

Kevin Sturton