Werner Herzog’s 1979 NOSFERATU Is A Meditation On Life, Death, & Immortality

With all the attention being paid to Robert Eggers new version of NOSFERATU, the time seems right to revisit Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake of the classic 1922 German silent version which Herzog called NOSFERATU: PHANTOM OF THE NIGHT. It is more of an homage as opposed to a rethinking of the material which, for those who may not know, is a reworking of Btam Stoker’s DRACULA. While it is essentially a sound remake of F.W. Murnau’s movie, it’is full of several Werner Herzog touches that turn it into  a mesmerizing film experience. 

First up is the movie’s title sequence of real mummified corpses from the 19th and early 20th centuries which was shot in Guanajuato, Mexico. The standing bodies are on full display and these startling images are accompanied by Florian Fricke / Popol Vuh’s otherworldly vocal score. These images reinforce Herzog’s take on the material which  is about a creature of the dead who spreads the plague wherever he goes. His vampire is world weary and asks us to imagine an unnaturally prolonged existence where one can never die and how unbearably lonely that must be.

After this memorable opening the film starts out in the city of Wisbar (actually Delft, Holland where it was shot) and we are introduced to the young couple Jonathan and Lucy Harker (Bruno Ganz & Isabelle Adjani). Harker is sent by his employer Renfield (Roland Topor) to Transylvania to conduct a real estate transaction with Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski). His journey by horse and on foot was shot on location and Herzog used real Romani extras to play the gypsies. Once at Dracula’s castle, he is attacked and left for dead while the Count and a load of coffins set out for his hometown.

The voyage aboard the ill fated ship is beautifully shot and hypnotically scored. The staging of it is taken directly from the Murnau original even to the dead ship gliding into the frame from right to left as it enters the town harbor. Once boarded, local officials discover an abandoned vessel except for the dead captain and loads of plague carrying rats. Harker’s wife Lucy is psychically linked to the vampire but can do nothing to stop the spread of plague throughout the city. Once he unloads his coffins, Nosferatu, aware of the link, seeks her out.

Meanwhile her husband Jonathan has escaped and after a slight delay,hurries back to do what he can. His employer Renfield has been confined to an asylum and Lucy’s friends seek the aid and advice of Dr. Van Helsing who refuses to believe her. All of these plot developments converge in  a remarkable scene in the town square where soon-to- be plague victims are holding a continuous banquet, feasting and drinking while surrounded by rats. After Jonathan returns, infected by Nosferatu, Lucy discovers that only a woman pure of heart, lying with the vampire until sunrise, can vanquish him. 

The movie ends as Jonathan, now fully a vampire, rides off along the beach to continue the spread of vampirism and the plague. This bleak ending, not in the original, is Herzog’s addition reminding us that, despite our best efforts, evil will always be with us. The movie was co-financed by 20th Century Fox who insisted that Herzog also shoot an English language version. It is shorter, awkward, and should be avoided at all costs. I know that Robert Eggers was very familiar with the original German version but his take on the story, geared for 21st century sensibilities, seems closer to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA.

NOTE: Right as the movie was about to get underway, the Bram Stoker estate copyright which had forced Murnau to change the name of the characters (Orlok for Dracula, Hutter for the Harkers, Knock for Renfield) expired. Director Herzog then decided to restore the names as Stoker had written them which is how they appear in the film.