Nosferatu, The Vampyre (Herzog)
1979 Blu Ray 4k Utra HD BFI
For me there are only four vampire films that can be called great. They are Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922), Nosferatu, The Vampyre (Herzog, 1979), Dracula (Badham, 1979) and Dracula (Fisher, 1958) that are both faithful and part loose adaptations of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. All are successful for different reasons. All reveal aspects of the count’s character that are similar but also unique to their particular interpretation. If I had to choose the best Dracula vampire incarnation it would be Murnau’s silent masterpiece (named by Herzog as the greatest German film ever made) which for me is as strange and mysterious as Carl Dreyer’s extraordinary Vampyr (1932) based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s story Carmilla.
But Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu, The Vampyre runs a close second to Murnau. It’s not a re-make of the Murnau but a lyrical homage. Unusually it’s a genre film from a non-genre director. Here Nosferatu (Klaus Kinski) becomes another disturbed Herzog outsider to be placed alongside of Aguiree, Kasper Hauser, Woyzcek, Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde, where the conventions of a Dracula text are embedded but not mechanically reiterated.
Take the moment when Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) resting at an inn, asks the innkeeper for transport to the Count’s abode. It’s often a cliché to portray the owner and his customers as melodramatically aghast at the thought of anyone wanting to travel deep into the wild Carpathian terrain. Initially they all freeze at the idea, and you sense a Hammer film risibility.
However, at a gypsy campfire the locals tell Harker, with an honest realism, overriding their superstitious beliefs, that he faces great physical danger. Harker ignores them but whilst making his way on foot is approached by a locally supplied driver and coach (minus a predictable horror film slow motion) and taken to Nosferatu’s castle.
Realism, tempered by reflection, is the word that I would stress in Herzog’s film and equally the adjective sad. For isn’t Nosferatu not only an anguised “phanthom of the night” (The better German translated secondary title for the film) but a potential pathetic victim of that tensely held back day when he can be destroyed and set free? Throughout the film Nosferatu states that there are things much more horrible than death. That enduring centuries of days presenting the same futile things are so wearisome.
“I wish I could partake of the love between you and Jonathan” is what Nosferatu admits to Lucy, Harker’s wife (Isabelle Adjani). In the remarkable scene of her seduction, as he sucks the blood from her neck, a touching bond is established between them: both tenderly claw the air and then each other with their desperate needs – such a beautifully acted and directed moment. Lucy (“a woman of pure heart”) ‘surrenders’ in order to let the vampire linger on after dawn, face the daylight, to release / destroy him and save (which she fails to do so) Jonathan Harker from Nosferatu’s influence (For the seed of vampirism is now irremovable from Harker’s mind and body).
Visually this is one of Herzog’s finest films, being indebted to the fine photography of Jorg Schmidt-Retwein – there are so many beautifully lit scenes that emphasise Nosferatu’s loneliness which are further enhanced by the make-up artistry of Dominique Colladant and Reiko Kruk. Like Max Shreck in Murnau’s Nosferatu we have a bald headed, reptilian face but now this monster, with much more human and expressively sad eyes, evokes our pity as well as dread.
Herzog’s off-centre staging and composition is unerringly right, neither theatrical nor florid, but classically simple. He knows where to position his camera and how to employ it. The dinner table scene where Harker accidentally cuts his finger with a knife and Kinski advances, like a thirsty vampire, with a child’s concern for the injury; alongside of the outdoor dinner party scene of a plague infested family celebrating their lives, the bourgeoisie have caved in, along with the authorities, to an alien force. Herzog brings a density to his imagery that’s thoughtful and moving. He also has an instinctive use of effective music. Like Aguiree we have the West German group Popol Vul, but also Wagner’s prelude to Das Rheingold, Gounod’s “Sanctus” from Messe solennelle a Saint Cecile and a Georgian folk song.
Bruno Ganz and Isabelle Adjani are correctly impassive then suitably horrified in the face of the vampire. They underplay their roles. Klaus Kinski always commands attention without him overacting. The mood and atmosphere of Nosferatu, The Vampyre is understated, eschewing melodrama for a tragic poetic realism.
Herzog’s wonderful homage to Murnau is, as he cryptically says in the documentary extra, a continuation of film history for a fatherless generation. A very Germanic late seventies remark and one of the numerous readings that this most haunting of vampire films invites.
Alan Price©2025
Nosferatu, The Vampyre (Herzog)
1979 Blu Ray 4k Utra HD BFI
For me there are only four vampire films that can be called great. They are Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922), Nosferatu, The Vampyre (Herzog, 1979), Dracula (Badham, 1979) and Dracula (Fisher, 1958) that are both faithful and part loose adaptations of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. All are successful for different reasons. All reveal aspects of the count’s character that are similar but also unique to their particular interpretation. If I had to choose the best Dracula vampire incarnation it would be Murnau’s silent masterpiece (named by Herzog as the greatest German film ever made) which for me is as strange and mysterious as Carl Dreyer’s extraordinary Vampyr (1932) based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s story Carmilla.
But Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu, The Vampyre runs a close second to Murnau. It’s not a re-make of the Murnau but a lyrical homage. Unusually it’s a genre film from a non-genre director. Here Nosferatu (Klaus Kinski) becomes another disturbed Herzog outsider to be placed alongside of Aguiree, Kasper Hauser, Woyzcek, Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde, where the conventions of a Dracula text are embedded but not mechanically reiterated.
Take the moment when Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) resting at an inn, asks the innkeeper for transport to the Count’s abode. It’s often a cliché to portray the owner and his customers as melodramatically aghast at the thought of anyone wanting to travel deep into the wild Carpathian terrain. Initially they all freeze at the idea, and you sense a Hammer film risibility.
However, at a gypsy campfire the locals tell Harker, with an honest realism, overriding their superstitious beliefs, that he faces great physical danger. Harker ignores them but whilst making his way on foot is approached by a locally supplied driver and coach (minus a predictable horror film slow motion) and taken to Nosferatu’s castle.
Realism, tempered by reflection, is the word that I would stress in Herzog’s film and equally the adjective sad. For isn’t Nosferatu not only an anguised “phanthom of the night” (The better German translated secondary title for the film) but a potential pathetic victim of that tensely held back day when he can be destroyed and set free? Throughout the film Nosferatu states that there are things much more horrible than death. That enduring centuries of days presenting the same futile things are so wearisome.
“I wish I could partake of the love between you and Jonathan” is what Nosferatu admits to Lucy, Harker’s wife (Isabelle Adjani). In the remarkable scene of her seduction, as he sucks the blood from her neck, a touching bond is established between them: both tenderly claw the air and then each other with their desperate needs – such a beautifully acted and directed moment. Lucy (“a woman of pure heart”) ‘surrenders’ in order to let the vampire linger on after dawn, face the daylight, to release / destroy him and save (which she fails to do so) Jonathan Harker from Nosferatu’s influence (For the seed of vampirism is now irremovable from Harker’s mind and body).
Visually this is one of Herzog’s finest films, being indebted to the fine photography of Jorg Schmidt-Retwein – there are so many beautifully lit scenes that emphasise Nosferatu’s loneliness which are further enhanced by the make-up artistry of Dominique Colladant and Reiko Kruk. Like Max Shreck in Murnau’s Nosferatu we have a bald headed, reptilian face but now this monster, with much more human and expressively sad eyes, evokes our pity as well as dread.
Herzog’s off-centre staging and composition is unerringly right, neither theatrical nor florid, but classically simple. He knows where to position his camera and how to employ it. The dinner table scene where Harker accidentally cuts his finger with a knife and Kinski advances, like a thirsty vampire, with a child’s concern for the injury; alongside of the outdoor dinner party scene of a plague infested family celebrating their lives, the bourgeoisie have caved in, along with the authorities, to an alien force. Herzog brings a density to his imagery that’s thoughtful and moving. He also has an instinctive use of effective music. Like Aguiree we have the West German group Popol Vul, but also Wagner’s prelude to Das Rheingold, Gounod’s “Sanctus” from Messe solennelle a Saint Cecile and a Georgian folk song.
Bruno Ganz and Isabelle Adjani are correctly impassive then suitably horrified in the face of the vampire. They underplay their roles. Klaus Kinski always commands attention without him overacting. The mood and atmosphere of Nosferatu, The Vampyre is understated, eschewing melodrama for a tragic poetic realism.
Herzog’s wonderful homage to Murnau is, as he cryptically says in the documentary extra, a continuation of film history for a fatherless generation. A very Germanic late seventies remark and one of the numerous readings that this most haunting of vampire films invites.
Alan Price©2025
By Alan Price • film, year 2025 • Tags: Alan Price, film