Film: Nosferatu: The Vampyre
Release date: 23rd October 2006
Certificate: 15
Running time: 107 mins
Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz, Roland Topor, Walter Ladengast
Genre: Horror/Fantasy
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD
Country: West Germany/France
The Vampire is one of literature’s greatest monsters. Born out of legend and fear of the dark, they have entered our collective subconscious and transcended their beginnings as horrific villains to become the tragic heroes of modern fiction. Cinema’s lust for all things vampiric began 88 years ago with FW Murnau’s 1922 classic Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens. Werner Herzog reckons it’s the greatest film to ever come out of his native Germany. So in 1979 he remade it.
Estate agent Jonathan Harker journeys from Wismar, Germany to Transylvania to close a deal with the eccentric and elusive Count Dracula. En route, he is advised by local gypsies not to go. He goes anyway, and is eventually held captive. The Count agrees to purchase a property in Wismar and travels to take Harker’s wife, Lucy for his own. Upon his arrival, Wismar is gripped by the Plague, and the residents are picked off one by one.
Meanwhile, Harker escapes from Castle Dracula and attempts to make his way home. But is he too late?
Murnau’s seminal shocker was famously meant as an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 masterpiece. The Stoker estate, however, wouldn’t sell the rights. A few tweaks later and Nosferatu became the story of Count Orlock, and went on to become arguably the most important vampire flick in cinema history.
Skip to 1979, and Stoker’s copyright had long since entered the public domain. Not to mention that a plethora of other adaptations had been produced in the interim.
Herzog’s remake manages to keep the icy eeriness of the original in tact, while adding more to the story and characterisations. Count Dracula (the name reverting back from Orlock – do keep up) is portrayed with pathos by Klaus Kinski (who seems to require little makeup to transform into a monster), his world-weary eyes saying so much more than his minimal dialogue. Kinski’s portrayal isn’t like your modern Anne Rice/Stephanie Meyer emo vamp, though. Kinski doesn’t, at any point, seem to regret what he is or what he’s done; he just doesn’t necessarily want to do it anymore. It’s a complex performance that gains sympathy without ever asking for it.
If anything lets this interpretation down it’s the tale’s over-familiarity. After all, it is essentially just another retelling of Dracula. Admittedly, Herzog’s quasi-documentary style adds a grim realism that stands in opposition to other adaptations’ lavishness’s. This is largely down to the location-shot, semi improvisational nature that he is renowned for (see Aguirre, The Wrath Of God and Fitzcarraldo).
Herzog and Kinski are one of the more renowned director/star tag teams in history, their partnership on a par with that of Scorsese and De Niro or Kurasawa and Mifune. This was their second collaboration, and it could very well be their most accessible as well, what with an English language version shot concurrently to avoid an obvious looking dub (the actors would do a take in German followed by another in English). Critics often assert that the German language version is the more successful, as it showcases better performances from the actors, as opposed to the awkwardness that comes from them not knowing what they’re saying in the English version.
What is most impressive about Nosferatu is the unending darkness that permeates its every aspect, from the cinematography and production design to the performances and music. At no point is the audience given a moment of joy or a feeling of ease. The only times characters smile is either when they have resigned themselves to death (the “last supper” in plague-ravaged Wismar) or when they are completely insane (French artist Roland Topor’s giddy Renfield). The darkness continues all the way through to the climax, and not a single character gets a happy ending. Harker’s enigmatic final words hinting that the story is far from over. And judging by our current fascination with vampires, he might just be right.
Germany’s own bona fide enfant terrible effectively remakes one of the eeriest and greatest incarnations of Stoker’s opus to ever grace the big screen. It’s grim, it’s dark and it’s not easy on the eye; much like the eponymous antihero himself. SEAN
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