Does it seem to you that Horror Movies as a genre produce the best remakes? Now admittedly there are schlocky outings such as House on Haunted Hill and The Haunting, but the hit compared to miss quotient does seem to be a little higher here than with other genres. For studio execs the purpose of these films is to make more money without having to come up with a new story. However, artistically, the whole point of a remake is to present an update of a classic story to a new audience. Horror films, more than any other genre, have an Achilles Heel of quickly growing antiquated. Seemingly with every moment, the ability for a film to scare its audience grows less and less. While there are exceptions to this line of thinking, many classic films simply don’t have what it takes to scare a modern day audience.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been shown on the big screen as many times as any other story. It seems every decade has its own retelling on the iconic tale, from 1922’s classic Nosferatu Directed by F.W. Murnau to Todd Browning’s 1932 benchmark picture Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, to yes, even Dracula 2000. Though there is no doubt this last film would go into the bad remake column, Bram Stoker’s original villain has had many highlights throughout the years.
Nosferatu: The Vampyre Starring Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani. Directed by Werner Herzog
While many actors have portrayed the vampire with iconic performances, from Gary Oldman to Bela Lugosi, the best performance may be one that very few people have actually seen. In 1979, Director Werner Herzog presented a film that was officially a remake of the F.W. Murnau’s classic horror film, but was closer in tone than any other version to Bram Stoker’s original classic novel. Despite adding his own elements and changing certain story arcs, Herzog wanted to make a film that would buck Hollywood’s Dracula tradition, while still giving homage to Stoker and Murnau.
As Roger Ebert puts it in his review of Murnau’s original, “Here is the story of Dracula before it was buried alive in clichés, jokes, TV skits, cartoons and more than 30 other films. The film is in awe of its material. It seems to really believe in vampires.” Herzog believes Murnau’s film to be the greatest German film of all time. It came at a time when German expressionist film making may have been the greatest film making in the world. Unfortunately with the rise of the Nazi’s, most of Germany’s great film makers fled to the U.S. Henceforth, Germany had lost much of its identity when it came this art form. With this film Herzog would try to bridge the gap with his fatherland’s past triumphs.
Herzog’s Dracula is not the suave lady-killer that Lugosi made him or the tortured soul that Gary Oldman’s Dracula turned out to be. Herzog’s creation would be a synthesis of Dracula from the novel and Murnau’s Count Orlok, played by Max Schreck. Casting his usual leading man, Klaus Kinski, who also starred in Herzog’s critically acclaimed Aguirre, The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo. Dracula under Herzog’s watch would not be the animal of the original Nosferatu, and not purely be the love struck immortal from Coppola’s remake. Kinski and Herzog envisioned a Dracula with real menace, but who still longed to be human.
Kinski is an actor of legend, but unfortunately not for his onscreen performances. Even though he is listed on IMDB.com as having 132 roles in his lifetime, the off-screen Kinski towers above his big screen persona. According to Herzog, Kinski even claimed to have fabricated passages in his autobiography, just to further his legend and sell more books. One article in Total Movie magazine told a story about Kinski having a huge boil in the back of his throat. The boil had grown to the point where breathing had become extremely difficult. Germany’s health system gave the actor $5,000 to pay a doctor to treat the problem. The article claimed that Kinski merely took a knife, and took care of the problem himself. The actor was suddenly $5,000 richer.
While he may not compare to his antics when the camera was off, Kinski was an amazing actor. Observe an early scene where Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) travels to Dracula’s castle to discuss the Count’s offer on a large house in Harker’s native city (in the novel the city is of course England, but its name is never mentioned in this film as a small town in Holland stands in for the British capital). With the combination of Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein’s exquisite photography and Kinski’s performance, Dracula has never been as menacing and sympathetic.
Unlike Gary Oldman’s turn as the Count, Kinski’s performance is much more understated. Kinski’s approach is very conservative. The man never raises his voice or makes any exaggerated movement. Many sequences require Kinski to copy the movement of Max Schreck from the original film, but they never seem too embellished. In fact, they are downright creepy. Herzog states that he wanted Kinski to have insect-like movements at times, using his overlong fingernails to full effect. His coaching worked, as Dracula’s hands move in an arachnid like fashion in certain scenes and give him an otherworldly effect.
Apparently, the director took great pains to keep the performance as understated as possible. The actor wanted a much more animate performance, but this was opposed by Herzog. To compensate, the director would get into huge shouting matches with his lead. After hours of screaming, Kinski would be too exhausted to add any more than what the director wanted to his performance. The results are fascinating.
Much of Herzog’s aim was to create an atmosphere of an “alternate reality” within the film. While not out an out fantasy, like the 1996 version, this picture does stretch the boundaries of realism. For instance, on Jonathan’s journey to Transylvania many shots are held for much longer than usual. Indeed, the pace of the movie is deliberately slow to try and create a dream-like state, and in these opening scenes this is very evident. In one sequence Jonathan stops to watch a sunset. The sequence, using no trick photography of any kind, is breathtaking.
A more flamboyant sequence takes place after the Count’s arrival to Harker’s home. When the ship from Transylvania arrives, the plague comes with it. Many die in the following weeks and the devastation is shown in a scene where it looks as if hundreds of coffins are being carried through the town’s courtyard. Following this may be the most impressive scene in the entire movie.
Herzog had done extensive research concerning the Black Plague that killed 2/3rd’s of Europe during medieval times. He found that many villages infected with the plague would begin celebrating, living out their last days in ecstasy. In their carefree state, the villagers could accept death as it came to them. Herzog constructs a masterful hallucinatory sequence in which the townspeople celebrate as Jonathan’s wife Lucy looks on in horror. People dance in the streets around corpses and eat feast as they are swarmed with rats, not caring that their lives will end soon. A beautiful score of Georgian music adds to the amazing backdrop of the scene.
Herzog does make two major changes to the plot. Mina, played by Herzog’s wife, Martje Grohmann is not Dracula’s traditional love interest. Instead, for reasons he has not explained, Herzog made the character Lucy the film’s center. Played by Isabelle Adjani, the character is the picture of beauty. With her fair skin and dark hair, Adjani is a picture of Victorian splendor. She is a specter, wandering through the story as death and destruction swirl around her. It is when she is on camera that Herzog does his best work. Little things, such as always showing Lucy from behind during emotional scenes, forgoing close-ups, turn out to be powerful sequences instead of perfunctory.
The scenes between Lucy and the Count are each masterful. Kinski is able to accentuate Dracula’s longing for his beloved without seeming too pitiful or saccharine. The first meeting between the two opens with a masterful shot illustrating Dracula’s inability to cast reflection. The duo’s final meeting of inevitable love and damnation is a panorama of unquestionable beauty, sacrifice, and the hint of eroticism. The scene is played with great dignity, and does away with the tendency American films would have to go over the top.
Herzog’s second big change is the fate of Jonathan Harker. To compare Bruno Ganz’s enigmatic performance to Keanu Reeves’ turn in Coppola’s film would be preposterous. Ganz’s seems completely naturalistic within the surroundings of Stoker’s story, even though a large change in the man’s fate occurs. Instead of joining the fight, Harker slowly becomes the agent of the man he is fighting against. The sight of him is ghastly at film’s end and adds an entire new dimension, unheard of in any other version of the tale onscreen.
Herzog faced many obstacles to his filming of this famous story, but weathered each in order to create perhaps the greatest of all vampire films. Whether battling his leading man, Fox Studio executives who were baffled at the artistic choices made in the film’s production, or even the Romanian government not wanting to trample on the name of their national hero the Count, no Dracula picture has ever had the mixture of style and pathos to the degree of this 1979 version. The film is an absolute masterpiece and should rank with any vampire picture ever filmed.
Picture Credits: gothic.gr, MovieGoods.com, dvdtimes.co.uk, ruthlessreviews.com,impawards.com
