an adaptation with fangs werner herzog's nosferatu

8/10/2019 An Adaptation With Fangs Werner Herzog's Nosferatu

1/11

Werner Herzog'sNosferatu: Phantomder Nacht(Nosferatu theVampyre, 1979)

Vol 2Issue 2016 Dec2002

KINOEYEhome

this issueabout us

contributing

vacanciescontact us

E-MAILUPDATES

enter e-mail subscribe

more info

ARCHIVESsearch

english titleoriginal title

directorarticle list

journal listadd a link

COUNTRYARCHIVES

country

SEARCH

go

HORRORAn adaptation with fangsWerner Herzog's

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht

(Nosferatu the Vampyre, 1979)

Detailing the cultural background,production history, and critical receptionof Herzog'sNosferaturemake, GarrettChaffin-Quirayexplains the film'scomplex relationship to the horror genrewhile providing insight into the

filmmaker's "purposefully austereaspiration to beauty."

Strangeness has always been Herzog's major theme. A

friend of mine once told me that she heard Herzog

claim he wanted the world to appear in his films as it

would to a Martian who just arrived on Earth. His

method for achieving this is incongruity. [1]

A view from today

On 26 October 2002 I visited Manhattan's Cathedral Church ofSaint John the Divine for the "Halloween Extravaganza &Procession of Ghouls." An annual production, the conclusion of thenight's program was a puppet parade. Directly preceding thisexhibition, though, was a screening of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's1922 classicNosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens(Nosferatu, ASymphony of Horrors) with a live organ accompaniment.

Having previously seen Murnau's film, I anticipated a creaking relicof histrionic acting and anachronistic special effects. Indeed, Iwatched the film while listening to alternating snickers ofdisappointment and simultaneous thrills of wonder in a crowd

several hundred strong. As a result, I was reminded of theimportance of context concerningNosferatuwith some eighty yearshaving passed between now and its original release.

Subsequently I binged on all things of unholy origin. I read reviews,fingered library books and compared images handed down througha lifetime spent consuming vampire movies. In so doing, Icompleted theNosferatutrifecta.

After attending the Cathedral Church screening, but only after

HORROR INKINOEYE

Films

Claire Denis'Trouble Every

Day(2001)

Jrg Buttgereit'sNekromantik

(1987) &Nekromantik 2(1991)

OliverHirschbiegel's

Das Experiment

(2001)

Carl-TheodorDreyer's

Vampyr(1931)

and LucioFulci'sE tuvivrai nel

terrore

L'aldil

(1981)

WernerHerzog's

Nosferatu:

Phantom der

Nacht(1979)

AgustnVillaronga's

Tras el cristal

(1986)

IngmarBergman's

Persona(1966)

Ulli Lommel's

eye| German film: Werner Herzog's Nosferatu http://www.kinoeye.org/02/20/chaffinquir

11 11-Mar-11


2/11

reading Bram Stoker's 1897 novelDracula, I watched WernerHerzog's 1979 adaptation,Nosferatu: Phantom der Nachtandfinished off with E Elias Merhige's insider-peek-cum-alternative-history, Shadow of the Vampire(2000). What follows, then, is theresult of my dive into the subject at hand.

Frames of reference

What we recognise as das neue Kino, or the New German Cinema,was a movement born from generational conflict. FollowingGermany's defeat in World War II, the coherence of its nationalidentity was split among occupying allied powers, just as thecountry was riven with foreign cultural products, sold piecemeal toexternal combines and dwarfed by memories of its former statusunder Adolph Hitler.

Along with the rapid Americanisation of West Germany confrontingSoviet-styled East Germany, there was a coincident malaise aboutthe unassimilated Nazi past, the "unbewltige Vergangenheit."Turning the war generation against its offspring, another baby

boom, Germany's future was a portrait of contradiction, not leastbecause the Holocaust prosecuted during the war led directly to thepost-war Economic Miracle.

German cinema, itself a reflection of national sensibilities, exhibitedthese tensions on-screen. Decimated by an exhausting war effort,filmmakers in the 1940s largely produced works of narrow interest.Continental development and the popularity of television expandedthe canvas just as a backlash against Hollywood's control over localmovies was unleashed.

At the Oberhausen Film Festival of 1962, "an acute sense ofalienation and anomie"[2] bubbled to the surface. Alexander Klugeand Norbert Kckelmann, both filmmakers and spokesmen for theunrest, shaped the moment and lambasted the conventional system.One result was the Oberhausen Manifesto aimed at disruptingthen-current cinematic practice.

Finding American dollars easy to secure for distribution andexhibition channels, though not for investment in local movie

production, the Oberhausen group envisioned a way out from undertheir cultural colonisation. Lobbying the Budestag, or West German

parliament, they successfully set up the Koratorium JungerDeutscher Film (Young German Film Board), to support fundingand distribution of members' work along with establishing filmschools in Munich and Berlin and an archive in Berlin. From1965-1968, the Koratorium supported the debut of several dozennew filmmakers. Yet the fundamentally inconsistent source of filmfinance continued to haunt das neue Kino.

One method to solve the problem was the Film Frderungsanstalt(FFA), which gave money to film producers according to fairly

Zrtlichkeit der

Wlfe(1973)

Victor Trivas'sDer Nackte und

der Satan

(1959)

Lars von Trier'sForbrydelsens

Element(1984)

MauriceTourneur'sLa

Main du diable

(1942)

RomanPolanski'sLeLocataire

(1976)

RumleHammerich'sSvart Lucia

(1992)

Ji Svoboda'sProklet domu

Hajn(1988)

Guillaume

Radot'sLe Loupdes Malveneur

(1942)

StefanRuzowitzky'sAnatomie

(2001)

Themes

Theinternationalreception ofHannibal

Janvankmajer's"agit-scare"

tactics


11 11-Mar-11


3/11


4/11

Werner Herzog'sNosferatu: Phantom derNacht (Nosferatu theVampyre, 1979)

major problem for the filmmakers of das neue Kinowasdistribution. While the Film Subsidies Board generously supportedindependent production of all sorts, the films of the New GermanCinema grew too elaborate and too numerous for the exhibitionoutlets available to them." [5] To fill the void and continue makingmovies, many enterprising, even exploitive, filmmakers like Herzogcultivated international co-financing deals coupled with certain

artistic concessions, especially yoked to Hollywood. As TimothyCorrigan writes,

The connection with the Hollywood circuit and theaudience it controls throughout the world is...a crucialdimension not only of Herzog's work but of the entire

New German Cinema. As much as its filmmakers werenurtured by their strained relation with their pre-warforefathers like Lang and Murnau, the historical andeconomic roots of contemporary German film were,formed during the postwar 1950s when Americanoccupation of West Germany fostered a peculiarly

displaced relation between the two cultures. [6]

EnterNosferatu, a recognised titlein the cinematic pantheon, aEuropean co-production betweenWerner Herzog Filmproduktion,Gaumont and ZDF, and with a fullyenabled distribution channel

provided by Twentieth CenturyFox.

The boon was a production budget

of DEM 2.5 million (USD 1.4million), the biggest in Herzog'scareer to that time, [7] along withan international release to existingsyndicates and a cast and crewready to risk the remake. Thesufferance, however, was a

dual-language production shot simultaneously in English andGerman, maintenance of the irascible Klaus Kinski as star and anongoing struggle to live up to Murnau's original upon whichHerzog's picture could be pilloried.

Child of the night

Unable to shoot in Bremen, as Murnau did in 1922, Herzogcontracted the Dutch town of Delft. Embittered over memories of

Nazi occupation, though, the Delft citizenry were less thanenthusiastic about hosting a German production crew. WhenHerzog finally announced plans to release 11,000 rats for a

particularly important scene, Delft's city fathers refused him afterciting their extensive efforts to rid the city of vermin.

Franju'sLesYeux sans

visage

Three fromMario Bava

Three on Tesis

Archive

VisitKinoeye'sHorrorArchive


11 11-Mar-11


5/11

WernerHerzog's

Nosferatu:Phantom der

Nacht(Nosferatu theVampyre, 1979)

Werner Herzog'sNosferatu: Phantom

Inconvenienced, Herzog moved his production, along with itsHungarian-bred white lab rats painted gray for the sake of realism,to the more accommodating Dutch city of Schiedam.

At the same time, Kinski was enduring several hours of dailymake-up to enliven his part as Count Dracula, although he was alsoweathering a personal hell. Estranged from his third wife, he

laboured under the knowledge she was about to divorce him, takingwith her their son. Everywhere mythologised as being wildly manicin his habits, Herzog managed to help channel his star's private paininto a form of helplessness more conducive to the part.

The resulting film is not a clear copy of its source, though it doesoffer an occasional shot-for-shot echo. "It is an homage to the 1922Murnau classic of the same name, from which it is freely adapted,and is thereby a tribute to the purity of vision of the silent cinemaand also a lament of the loss of innocence represented by BramStoker's original 1897 novel, 'Dracula.'"[8] Developing the idea oflost innocence, Herzog's version makes a careful nod to female

empowerment, offers a dystopian finale suggesting total failure andemploys the relative richness of colour film stock and a recordedsoundtrack.

Opening in Wismar, we meet JonathanHarker (Bruno Ganz), a property clerk newlywed to Lucy (Isabelle Adjani), for whom hewishes to provide a comfortable home. Whena large commission is offered to him fortransacting with the far-off Count Dracula(Kinski), Jonathan eagerly accepts the job.

After an arduous month traveling through theCarpathian Mountains, he stops at a roadsideinn for refreshment before meeting theCount. Mentioning his client by name, theestablishment falls silent before Jonathan listens to rumors of

Nosferatu. He discounts such talk as peasantry run amuck and soonmeets the Count, a lonely and unloved "man." Very quickly,Dracula becomes fascinated by a photograph of Lucy and acceptsJonathan's offered property, which makes them neighbours. Longnights ensue and the Count begins feasting on his clerk beforesailing for Wismar, bringing with him death and the plague in anarmy of rats.

Jonathan belatedly realises Dracula's threat but loses his memorywhile returning home because he is gradually stricken withvampirism. Arriving after the plague has already been loosed,

bodies pile up in the city square and Jonathan is delivered intoLucy's care, vegetative and absent of any love for his bride.

Faced with the destruction of herworld, Lucy contacts Dr Van Helsing(Walter Ladengast) requesting help,


11 11-Mar-11


6/11

Werner Herzog'sNosferatu: Phantomder Nacht (Nosferatu

but is ultimately forced to act alone.She researches Dracula's whereaboutsand uncovers his weaknesses, killinghim through self-sacrifice as a sensualmeal under the cast of morning

sunlight. Unfortunately, Jonathan is already made the Count'ssuccessor and is last seen riding into the stretch of tomorrow,

unmarked by his past life or the original ambition that drove him tothe Count in the first place.

Then versus now

Enjoying a debut in Paris on 10 January 1979,Nosferatuwas amixed viewing experience. Though it received the BerlinInternational Film Festival's Silver Bear for Outstanding SingleAchievement in production design for Henning von Gierke and anomination for the Golden Bear for Herzog, and though Kinskireceived a German Film Award for Outstanding Individual

Achievement in acting, critics and viewers alike were troubled bythe picture.

Perhaps best summarising the issue, William Wolf wrote,"Unquestionably Herzog's version is a stylistic triumph. But do weneed yet another encounter with the count?" [9] Vincent Canbyechoed the sentiment and wrote, "Mr Herzog has done what he setout to do, but when you come right down to it, one wonders if it'sworth the trouble. Dracula, after all, is not Hamlet or Othello orMacbeth. He's not some profoundly complex character who speaksto us in more voices than most of us care to hear. Dracula is SantaClaus turned mean. He's a fairy-tale character. Though he

represents something vestigially scary, he's not endlesslyinteresting." [10]

Given these indirectly complimentary remarks responding to alate-1970s spate of vampire motion pictures (including JohnBadham'sDracula[1979] and Stan Dagoti'sLove at First Bite[1979]), and a certain reverence towards Murnau's original, thecritical reaction divided among those preferring 1922's version tothat of 1979. Pondering the adaptation, Ernest Leogrande asked,"What was its special fascination for Herzog?" [11] before serving

judgement: "Murnau's version still stands above Herzog's. The 1922movie is a tidy little package that causes viewers to marvel at the

sophistication of its technique even when they're laughing at thebroad-stroke silent movie acting, acting that incidentally adds to hemovie's charm." [12]

His pleasure at outmoded acting styles notwithstanding, DonaldBarthelme roughly agreed, writing, "The problem here is thatHerzog was unable to bring new life to his much-handled material."[13] "But comparisons are unnecessary in sizing up this newDracula tale as a major disappointment, often pictorially striking butsingularly unengrossing," [14] continued a Varietyreviewer who


11 11-Mar-11


7/11

Werner Herzog'sNosferatu: Phantomder Nacht (Nosferatuthe Vampyre, 1979)

equally placed the film in a wider social context. "The renewedvogue for Dracula vehicles will give Herzog's film a certaincommercial success, though there will undoubtedly be manydisappointed spectators. Herzog is being true only to himself, whichwill continue to delight his followers and further alienate hisdetractors." [15]

Yet while detractors clung to artistic primacy in Murnau, or else toa general dislike of Herzog due to an avoidance of horror filmtropes conventionalised in the 1970s-including gore, jarringsoundtracks and fast editing for kinesis-fans like David Denby

perceptively gathered how "the young German director has madenot a conventional horror film (there are no shocks) but ananguished poem of death." [16] Herzog's undead monster is athreatening force from the deep well of Nature, even as he is anobviously self-centred killer of men. But he is also a deeplysympathetic monster spurned by a blood lust of unusual proportionand buoyed by the desire to die while lacking any method foraccomplishing that end.

For Jack Kroll, "When the Dracula figure lurches ashore in FWMurnau's classic 1922 'Nosferatu,' carrying his coffin filled withnative earth, it was a chilling premonition of Hitler's imperialism ofdeath, the desire to necropolize the world. Following Murnau,Herzog's 'Nosferatu' mixes such resonances with a surprisinglysuccessful attempt to humanize Dracula." [17] It follows thatHerzog's film "can...be appreciated as a contemplative work of artrather than as a horror thriller, which it is not," [18] because "thefamiliar becomes arrestingly odd; ineffable mystery is presented asthe basic of condition of human life." [19]

Associative editing practices display thismystery in connecting Lucy withDracula, her nightmares of flying bats tohis hunger suggested in the shadow playof his fingertips. Beauty thus inscribesthe beast who, for all his cruelty anddeathly intentions, wishes only toingratiate himself to the ethereal woman(Adjani) and receive her honestaffection. "Where the nightmareexaggerations of Murnau, preditary [sic]wolves, Venus flytraps, the rat-likevampire and his kingdom of vermin areeasily recuperated into a scheme ofsymbols for a repressed but vital Nature, Herzog's expressionism is

pure spirit, a sulfuric image of hell." [20] Though readable as acontinuous symptom of the unassimilated Nazi past, the always-already present capacity of evil, symbolised by Dracula, is acondition defining the goodness of humanity, as attributed to Lucy.

What detractors and supporters both remark on is the powerful use


11 11-Mar-11


8/11


of images in the film. Arguments about the superiority or inferiorityof Herzog's production are interesting conversation pieces.Typically burdened by tautological assumptions, however, little can

be gleaned from such comparison since the real value of panning orpraising it comes from noting what it succeeds at over and abovewhat was possible in Murnau's moment.

Reflecting on the Count

Critic John Azzopardi has claimed that Herzog'sNosferatuis, "oneof the greatest horror films ever made." [21] Though clearly a

judgement call, his remark has merit, especially when one considersthe picture itself and in particular the cinematography of JrgSchmidt-Reitwein. Rich in the distinctions of dull colours bleeding

between light brown, yellow, white and occasional splashes of blue,Herzog's picture moves through Wismar into Transylvania with anaccompanying change in palate. Colours grow darker, red appears,the Count dominates the screen and time slows to long takes of

shadow and inexplicable shapes in the night.Also, none of what appears in the film is precisely horrific. At leastnot in the way of nightmares or much of what audiences and criticsexpected of any self-titled horror movie in 1979. Still, Kinski's

performance, surely one of the richest of his career, is both nuancedand other. Dracula is obviously pained by his very existence, butlike any animal capable of surviving the gaps between discomfortand salvation, he consumes his way through the lack of love and isfinally ground up in the sacrifice of an innocent equal to his evilincarnate.

While a symptomatic reading yields the vampire as analogous to dasneue Kino's relationship with Hollywood, one of endlesscolonisation and co-optation of changing local circumstances to itsown end, I think such a reading is off the deep end. So too is theimplicit lesson of how primal human nature can be perpetuallytamed by virgin sacrifice. Even notions about how unbewltigeVergangenheitappears within the text, informing characterisation,is far-fetched since the film responds more to the socio-culturalconditions of the 1970s than it does to World War II, or even to the

post-World War I moment that offered Murnau his inspiration.

Instead, what I find most rewarding is the visual, and to a lesser

extent aural, wash that isNosferatu's overall affect. Because art forits own sake is often a dead end, Herzog's purposefully austereaspiration to beauty still trades on generic expectation to offerfamiliar, though slightly unconventional thrills.

Remembering his attitude about thecinema being meant for illiteratespectators, the motive for aslow-moving spectacle seemsobvious. Images appear and linger,


11 11-Mar-11


9/11


eliciting a visceral reaction withouthaving to support cause and effect.Throughout the film, visualstorytelling takes centre stage awayfrom a more literary approach

because the script is deliberatelyslim. By capitalising on a

well-known narrative, the plot isthus everywhere revealed through action, movement and theconstantly changing colouring, lighting and emotional pattern of thecinematic canvas.

In short, the effort to transport an audience into the space ofreflection and wonder is what makes Herzog's adaptation of Stoker'smonster via Murnau's camera into something of value. Nowhere isthis more obvious than in the dominant image of the film, indeed ofthe entire Stoker-derived vampire franchise. When Kinski's torturedmonster first appears, but even more impressively when he huntsLucy in her bedroom, he becomes one of the master icons of the

cinema. His extended fingertips and open mouth outline hismonstrosity turned into familiar desire and materialise our repressedfantasies, neither spoken nor dictated in everyday life. As a result,

Nosferatu is part of us and Herzog's film reflects on this conditionwith impressive vigour.

Garrett Chaffin-Quiray

Also of interest

Kinoeyearticles on the legacy of Europe's Nazi past as ahorror motif:

Germany's secret history:Stefan Ruzowitzky'sAnatomie(Anatomy, 2000)A closet full of brutalityVolker Schlndorff'sDer Junge Trless(Young Torless,1966)Dr Franju's "House of Pain" and the political cuttingedge of horrorGeorges Franju'sLes Yeux sans visage(Eyes without a

Face, 1959)Conspicuous consumption:Ulli Lommel'sZrtlichkeit der Wlfe(Tenderness of theWolves, 1973)Power, paedophilia, perdition: Agustn Villaronga'sTras el cristal(In a Glass Cage, 1986)

See also:


11 11-Mar-11


10/11

Horror film inKinoeyeand on the web

About the author

Garrett Chaffin-Quiray was educated at the University ofSouthern California School of Cinema-Television. Havingsponsored a film festival, taught courses on TV and cinemahistory and published variously, his research interests include

pornography, American cinema and the 1970s. He is also anovelist and former information technologist.

return to theKinoeyehome pagereturn to the main page for this issue

Footnotes

1.Nol Carroll, "Creatures of the Night." The Echo Weekly News(11 October 1979): 35.

2.David A Cook,A History of Narrative Film(3rd ed) (New York& London: WW Norton & Company, 1996), 661.

3.David Robinson, The History of World Cinema(revised andupdated ed) (New York: Stein and Day, 1981), 375.

4. Alan Greenberg, Herbert Achternbush and Werner Herzog,Heart of Glass(Munich: Skellig, 1976), 174.

5. Cook, 681.

6. The Films of Werner Herzog: Between Mirage and History , edTimothy Corrigan (New York and London: Methuen, 1986), 7.

7.Ibid, 217.

8. Kevin Thomas, "New 'Nosferatu' a Tribute to Murnau."Los

Angeles Times(29 October 1979): D35.9.William Wolf, "Nosferatu, the Vampyre." Cue New York(26October 1979): 19.

10. Vincent Canby, "Screen: 'Nosferatu,' Herzog's Dracula."NewYork Times(1 October 1979): C15.

11. Ernest Leogrande, "The chills are hollow."New York DailyNews(4 October 1979): 87.


11 11-Mar-11


11/11

12.Ibid.

13. Donald Barthelme, "Nosferatu." The New Yorker(15 October1979): 182-84 (184).

14.Variety, "'Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht' ('Nosferatu, TheVampire')" (24 January 1979): 23.

15.Ibid.

16.David Denby, "Nosferatu."New York(22 October 1979): 89.

17.Jack Kroll, "Thinking Man's Count Dracula."Newsweek(15October 1979): 133.

18. Andrew Sarris, "The Real McCoy." The Village Voice(8October 1979): 40.

19.Carroll, 35.

20. John Azzopardi,"Herzog: Last Breath Of GermanExpressionism." Chelsea News(18 October 1979): 11. The writer'schoice of spelling is quoted intact.

21.Ibid.

Copyright Kinoeye 2001-2011


an adaptation with fangs werner herzog's nosferatu

Documents