Nosferatu: The Vampyre/Phantom Der Nacht
by Werner Herzog
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Actor: Bruno Ganz, Isabelle Adjani, Klaus Kinski, Roland Topor, Werner HerzogDirector: Werner Herzog
Producer: Werner Herzog
Writer: Werner Herzog
Cinematographer: J?rg Schmidt-Reitwein
Producer: Daniel Toscan du Plantier
Producer: Michael Gruskoff
Producer: Walter Saxer
Writer: Bram Stoker
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: German (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-07-09
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
DVD Reviews of Nosferatu: The Vampyre/Phantom Der Nacht
DVD Review: magnificently dark and believable
Summary: 5 Stars
As one would expect from Herzog, this is a version of the Dracula story that is turned upside down: the hero is Lucy (the sister who is turned into a vampire in other versions), who understands what the count really is and seeks to destroy him all alone. Van Helsing in this version must be dragged along to see the truth, as he is a doddering old man at the end of his career and capacities to think. Indeed, he is a useless scientist. The time is also earlier, pre-industrial and with echos of the Middle Ages, even though it must be the 17C.
Kinsky is absolutely brilliant as Dracula, in one of his best performances. Rather than the sexual magnetism that Lugosi or Oldham exuded with such charisma, he is pathetically aware that he can only prey on love and humanity, from a distance. But he is compelled by blood lust. Kinski really doesn't look at all human, but a true creature of the night. Adjani was never more beautiful and depressed.
Dracula's arrival in Germany brings a far greater evil than just himself, again portrayed as the breakdown of all order and decency. Adjani walks through the town center, deserted except for those accepting death as a celebration, in a stunning reflection of medieval images of plague. They grab her, want her to dance with them, but she pursues her higher purpose.
The most shocking part is the end, totally unexpected and ominous, yet without overt horror. Again, perfectly done: not hollywood slick, but projecting the horror and its power into the unknown future. Only Herzog can do this so effectively.
Recommended warmly. It is poetry of horror.
DVD Review: Brilliant remake of Cinema's definitive Vampire Classic.
Summary: 5 Stars
Herzog's remake of the F.W.Murnau masterpiece of 1922, is one of the most beautifully realized films on the vampire ever made. Alot of the film appears shot for shot, but Herzog adds his own touch to the proceedings that makes the images indelible. Herzog's film lacks the creepiness of the Murnau film and certainly Kinski can not frighten the same way that Max Schreck could in the silent original. This version brings more of a sense of pathos to the vampire and Kinski brings one of his most nuanced performances, so subtle and so menacing. The cast aids him well, especially Isabella Adjani who is gorgeous as Mina, the woman Nosferatu pines for and Bruno Ganz, whose transformation from meek Clerk to Vampire is downright chilling. The film is also aided immeasurably by a lush, classical film score that brings a sense of doom and epic quality to the gorgeous on location photography, several of which are similar to what Murnau had in his film.
There are two different versions of the film, one shot in German,the other in English. Many prefer the German, but I tend to enjoy them both for what they offer. Special Features include some SERIOUSLY creepy theatrical trailers and a behind the scenes feature with Herzog. There's also a commentary track on the German version provided by Herzog that is both informative and enlightening.
This is one splendid DVD set and highly reccomended for the Horror and Foreign film fan seeking out a more artistic fright film to review. A cinema essential along with it's illustrious original.
DVD Review: The Vampire According to Herzog
Summary: 4 Stars
As a youngster, I remember seeing a clip of the original Nosferatu on television - some sort of movie monster documentary, I assume - and I still remember that image of Max Schrek, hunched over and roaming the deck of the ship that brings him to Germany, with his grasping, outstretched claws, and the unreal shade of the sky behind him. In all the years following, I've never tracked down a copy of the whole film - I'm afraid the impression I have from that singular memory of thirty or more years ago would be dulled by the affects of age on both myself and on the film.
Instead, I have Werner Herzog's vision as a substitute, allowing me to preserve the terrible image I remember, and, I had hoped, to enhance it with a more modern experience. Unfortunately, when competing against a memory from childhood, the present will almost always fail, and for me, Herzog's 'Nosferatu' suffered in comparison with the tiny scrap of the original I remember.
That doesn't mean that Herzog turned in a substandard effort, or that Kinski's Dracula (Count Orlock in the original) isn't amazing. But I thought the emphasis Herzog was looking for was not so much horror, but the pathetic inhumanity of the creature, and his even more pathetic longing for love and his own destruction.
What makes both editions of 'Nosferatu' different from the raft of other vampire movies is the portrayal of the creature. Kinski and Schrek offered us a picture of a demon, a diseased vermin feeding on humans. Late in the movie, when Kinski bites Lucy Harker's neck, the image is grotesque and disturbing - as it should be. In more mainstream films, the vampire's more unappealing traits are either subdued, or transformed into innocuous necessities, and the vampiric powers are portrayed in a enviable light (Torch light, I suppose). Want to live forever? Be young and beautiful forever? Join an exciting group of other young and beautiful people forever? Take this one step further and add an erotic element and you have an very iconic if false image. No need to worry about that with Kinski. There can only be a very small, if not nonexistant, group to fetishize his demon.
I was surprised to see how closely Herzog followed Bram Stoker's storyline, as I was under the impression that the original was a quite different story. Regardless, once again Johnathan Harker is dispatched by his superior Renfield to Transylvania, to Castle Dracula to conclude a business arrangement with the Count. He arrives and is offered a meal by Dracula, and Kinski is so over the top in his makeup while he looms over Harker (Bruno Ganz), staring at him with such longing that I laughed out loud. From there, Dracula learns of Harker's wife Lucy, and his obsession begins. He quickly leaves for Germany, leaving the hapless Harker to follow as best he can while suffering from the Vampire's bite.
In 'Nosferatu', when Dracula arrives, the townsfolk are convinced the plague has descended upon them, and Herzog uses some fantastic imagery of rats and coffins and a town gone mad. But there also seems to be a remoteness to the film, something that at all times kept me from suspending belief and engaging with the film. Mostly this is because there are no characters to throw your support behind. Dracula is too repulsive and Harker is too weak (and foolish). Lucy is the only heroic character, but her screen time is too short, and Van Helsing plays an ineffectual and disbelieving doctor. We are left with the true hero of most of Herzog's films, which is the captured image on the screen itself.
Horror fans are likely to be disappointed with the film, but I would consider it a must see for Klaus Kinski admirers. If you have enjoyed other Herzog movies, then I would also recommend 'Nosferatu' for its departure into genre territory. And though I enjoyed it, it still pales in comparison to the tiny scrap of memory I have of Count Orlock, stalking toward the camera, looking for his next victim.
DVD Review: The OG Vampire
Summary: 5 Stars
Nosferatu should absolutely be respected for it's contribution to, and advancement of, the film industry and particularly horror movies. The film offers special effects that were cutting edge at the time and still maintain some of their power in creating terror and tension. I had reservations about watching Nosferatu. Since I love movies that make good use of sound, the idea of silent film didn't interest me. I had similar prejudices toward the special effects, cinematography, acting, etc. I figured Nosferatu was a classic for purely nostalgic reasons. I mean, how could anybody actually enjoy a movie that could have been shot by a seventeen-year-old with a crappy camera? How naive I was...
Nosferatu is an exercise in brilliant film-making. Murnau's heavy investment on the look of the film pays off. The film is fun to watch. The acting is over the top, which is necessary to avoid constant cuts to dialog cards. The music is great, too. Chilling and expressive without being overbearing.
DVD Review: Nosferatu/Herzog
Summary: 5 Stars
Quick service. Quality item. 5 stars. Not Murnau or Browning or Shrek or Lugosi, but it comes together beautifully.
Description of Nosferatu: The Vampyre/Phantom Der Nacht
Werner Herzog's remake of F.W. Murnau's original vampire classic is at once a generous tribute to the great German director and a distinctly unique vision by one of cinema's most idiosyncratic filmmakers. Though Murnau's Nosferatu was actually an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Herzog based his film largely on Murnau's conceptions--at times directly quoting Murnau's images--but manages to slip in a few references to Tod Browning's famous version (at one point the vampire comments on the howling wolves: "Listen, the children of the night make their music."). Longtime Herzog star Klaus Kinski is both hideous and melancholy as Nosferatu (renamed Count Dracula in the English language version). As in Murnau's film, he's a veritable gargoyle with his bald pate and sunken eyes, and his talon-like fingernails and two snaggly fangs give him a distinctly feral quality. But Kinski's haunting eyes also communicate a gloomy loneliness--the curse of his undead immortality--and his yearning for Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) becomes a melancholy desire for love. Bruno Ganz's sincere but foolish Jonathan is doomed to the vampire's will and his wife, Lucy, a holy innocent whose deathly pallor and nocturnal visions link her with the ghoulish Nosferatu, becomes the only hope against the monster's plague-like curse. Herzog's dreamy, delicate images and languid pacing create a stunningly beautiful film of otherworldly mood, a faithful reinterpretation that by the conclusion has been shaped into a quintessentially Herzog vision. --Sean AxmakerGeneral DVDs
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