by Brendan Foley
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
It takes a special sort of someone to remake what is considered to be perhaps the most influential and important films in horror cinema (if not cinema in general). Fortunately for the genre fans across the world, Werner Herzog was never one to shrink away from a challenge.
Whether he was hauling opera houses over mountains or siccing an army of monkeys after his actors, Herzog is a filmmaker who seems most comfortable tapdancing on the line between artistic drive and fullblown madness. Hell, if you need to hold an actor at gunpoint to get them to act, you take out that pistol and get that performance.
Herzog’s muse/tormentor for much of his career was great thespian and greater piece of shit Klaus Kinski. The pair’s relationship reached legendary status even before Herzog immortalized it with his documentary My Best Fiend, pushing each other to higher and higher heights of artistic achievement and destructive mania.
All this to say, Herzog’s Nosferatu had its lunatic bonafides well in hand even before a frame of footage rolled. F.W. Murnau (himself no stranger to wanton disregard for human comfort/life in pursuit of art) famously did not bother to obtain the rights to Bram Stoker’s legendary Dracula before filming it, changing only the main characters names in a (failed) attempt to avoid copyright complaints (Stoker’s widow successfully sued to have the original Nosferatu confiscated and all the prints destroyed, though thankfully some survived).
By 1979, Count Dracula was safely in the public domain and Herzog, a longtime admirer of Murnau and his film, jumped at the chance to make his own version of Murnau’s version of Stoker’s story.
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht remains one of the most critically acclaimed horror films of the last half century, so for our Halloween tour through horrors past and present, it seemed only fitting to spend an evening by the Count’s tomb and see what we might see.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
– Brendan
Next Week’s Pick:
The conclusion of Trick Or Treat 2016 is nigh!
Two years ago, we featured Tobe Hooper’s classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in our first annual Trick Or treat lineup. Last year, we followed it up with the insane horror-comedy of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Well, we’re keeping the tradition alive for this year at least: Our final 2016 selection is Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III! This is one of the least known films of the series, but one worth checking out for several reasons including an iconic chainsaw design, a corpse-filled swamp, and an early look at future star Viggo Mortensen.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
– Austin
Our Guests
Trey Lawson:
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (I watched the German version. I recommend you do too. It is slightly better) is, superficially, a remake of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens. It makes some of the same changes from the original Dracula novel, particularly relocating the film from London to the German town of Wismar and portraying the vampire as a grotesque figure with rat-like claws and fangs. However, Herzog was able to use Bram Stoker’s character names rather than the substitutions from Murnau’s unofficial version.
The cast overall is fantastic. Bruno Ganz (famously Hitler from all those Downfall memes several years ago) is a nondescript Jonathan Harker — until suddenly and wonderfully he is not. Isabelle Adrain blends strength and vulnerability in her performance as Lucy, and Walter Ladengast is a frustratingly ineffectual Van Helsing. Roland Topor especially stands out as the unhinged Renfield. But the real star of the film is Klaus Kinski, whose Count Dracula is more pitiable than threatening. Kinski’s Dracula bemoans the curse of immortality and the stagnation it brings. Rather than lashing out at victims, he laments the cruelty of being unable to die. The evil of the film is not embodied in Dracula personally — rather, it is both viral and ideological. Even after his (surprisingly agonizing) death, the evil continues to spread.
Nosferatu‘s status as a horror film is debatable, at least in the most visceral, conventional sense. It does not engage in the sort of scares or special effects one might expect from a vampire film. The film’s tone is somber and deliberate, with a hint of dark humor. For that reason this film is a distinct change of pace from most Halloween favorites. But with its nihilistic approach to the story and Kinski’s fantastic performance, Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht remains one of my all-time favorite cinematic Draculas. Verdict: Treat (@T_Lawson)
Kieran Fisher:
Herzog’s Nosferatu is a beautiful film to look at. In fact, it’s so visually arresting that you could forgive it for any gaping flaws — if it had any that is. It’s beautifully composed and the cinematography is lush in a dreary sort of way. Furthermore, the film is dripping with chilling atmosphere and unsettling mood throughout. In those areas, it’s an almost Gothic horror film — but it’s so much more than your average scare flick.
What I’ve always loved most about Nosferatu is its portrayal of loneliness, and just as the mood throughout is meant to induce shivers, I also feel it encapsulates a sense of tragedy and isolation. Nosferatu is a cruel character, but he’s laden with the weariness of immortality and for that reason, I find it to be a brilliant character study.
In terms of remakes, I think this is how you do one right; take the core elements of the original and remould them to fit a new artistic vision. Herzog is an auteur, and while I prefer the 1922 original as the horror elements are intensified, I really feel he made it his own with remarkable results. Verdict: Treat (@HairEverywhere)
The Team
Justin Harlan:
Take 1: Streaming on Fandor in its original German…
I made it roughly 10 minutes in before nodding off. I wasn’t even tired before hitting play. Oh well, I’m going to go watch The Relic with my wife. I’ll try again tomorrow.
Take 2: Streaming on Shudder, English version…
I didn’t have to read this time, so my eyes should last through the film, right? Wrong. At least 20–30 minutes, right? Wrong. More than last time at least? Barely… 15 minutes in and I’m reminded at how rarely I watch period pieces and why. Time for an indie horror screener I haven’t finished yet, Egomaniac. Far more interesting.
Take 3: Still Shudder, still English…
Oh fuck this! I picked up where I left, I can barely make it another 10 minutes. This is so achingly dull. Here’s where Austin or Brendan editorializes about how lame I am and how I don’t have any refined tastes or some shit. Blah blah blah…
Take 4: I’m watching a good vampire movie now, GDT’s Blade 2. Snipes, Perlman, Reedus, Kris motherfucking Kristofferson… Herzog ain’t got nothin’ on this, though Kinski would be a welcome addition… maybe as one of the elder vamps. Now, keep it down, this is my favorite scene! Verdict: Trick (@thepaintedman)
Austin Vashaw:
With all Dracula adaptations, I have to use two scales to judge them: adherence to the book (my favorite novel), and taken on its own terms. Herzog’s Nosferatu is interesting in that it introduces a third scale: that of a remake.
As an adaptation of the novel, it has many of the same deviations as the rest: a sympathetic Dracula, a German setting, combining and eliminating characters, leaving others out altogether, and my biggest pet peeve — switching up names for no damn reason. As a remake, it clearly draws visual inspiration from Murnau’s film. Not only in the visuals such as the locations and the appearance of the Count, but in style and tone as well. With very little dialogue, it relies mostly on visuals to carry the story, similar to a silent film.
Herzog expands upon the tale as well — whereas a plague is described in the original Nosferatu’s title cards, his remake shows this in detail: an infestation of Translyvanian rats, coffins in the town square, and eventually the complete dissolution of municipal government and public works. And Nosferatu himself, the Count is really quite a different sort of character than we’ve seen before, a sad and lonely ghoul who has withered but not died. But perhaps the most unique aspect of Herzog’s take is that the male heroes are deemphasized and it is Mina (renamed Lucy, ugh) who must conquer the Count.
While a bit slow, I didn’t find the film at all boring. In fact, it was more linear and comprehensible than I had anticipated, based on its reputation as an art film.
As an aside, after watching the film, I restarted it with Werner Herzog’s commentary track and presently drifted off to sleep. Herzog’s commentary continued to shape my thoughts, and I dreamed of him giving me a tour of the making of the film, albeit a completely different version than the one I just saw. For example, he discussed the difficulty of shooting the mirror scene, but I dreamed of it as a long corridor of mirrors. Trippy. Verdict: Treat (@VforVashaw)
Frank Calvillo:
I had never heard of a remake of the classic Nosferatu by the great Werner Herzog, but oh how so glad I am that I now have! What a fun and inspired re-imagining of the classic tale! Watching the dubbed version as I did, I was struck by a number of factors, namely how the dubbing gave the film a loving cheese factor. The result is an unnerving classic vampire tale interspersed with some unexpected and accidental humor such as the scene with the Transylvanian townspeople.
But the real joy of Herzog’s Nosferatu lies in the visuals. Every inch and second of this film is beyond gorgeous to look at. There isn’t a single frame of the film that doesn’t exemplify the beauty of the director and of the best of vintage European art cinema. The fact that the story at hand is one of classic horror only adds to the mesmerizing look of the film, making it even easier to get lost in the wonder of it all. Herzog balances this well by avoiding traditional jump scares for more unsettling sequences, such as Dracula’s entrance which is both subtle, yet horrifically effective. Verdict: Treat (@frankfilmgeek)
Brendan Foley:
As much as it actually, physically pains me to concede a point to Justin Harlan, this is my second time with Herzog’s Nosferatu and I just cannot get on the film’s wavelength. There is plenty to like: Numerous images are pulled whole from nightmare (most evocative is a parade of coffins through the streets), Herzog’s emphasis on the Count as disease made manifest gets closer to the spirit of Stoker’s work than most proper adaptations, and Kinski is a hoot as the vermin-faced Dracula, bringing haunted loneliness to the timeless monster make-up originally immortalized by Max Schreck.
But I don’t know, man, this one just doesn’t do it for me. Maybe it has to do with Herzog directing everyone to be disaffected and slightly off long before Kinski shows up, there is nowhere for the film to go once we’ve plunged fully into the world of the vampire and his plague. Or maybe it’s that the imagery itself works so beautifully that having people open their mouths shatters the mood. Whatever the reason, I continue to find Nosferatu frustrating, and to be frustrated by my frustration. Verdict: Trick (@TheTrueBrendanF)
The Verdict
Trick: 2 | Treat: 4
Verdict: Treat
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!
Further reading: This isn’t the first time Cinapse has covered Herzog’s Nosferatu. Check out Jacob Knight’s Blu-ray Review and Liam O’Donell’s Journal Of Fear entry!
Get it at Amazon:
Nosferatu (1979) [Blu-ray] | [DVD] | [Instant]