Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht

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Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
Image:Nosferatu Phantom der Nacht.jpg
Directed by	Werner Herzog
Written by	Werner Herzog Bram Stoker (original novel)
Starring	Klaus Kinski Isabelle Adjani Bruno Ganz
Music by	Popol Vuh
Cinematography	Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein
Editing by	Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Release date(s)	1979
Running time	107 min
Language	German
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Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht ("Nosferatu, Phantom of (the) Night" in German; English title: Nosferatu the Vampyre) is a 1979 film by the German director Werner Herzog that stars Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani and Bruno Ganz. The French artist and writer Roland Topor appears as an unhinged, giggling Renfield.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Remake of Nosferatu
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Jonathan Harker is sent away to Count Dracula's castle to sell him a house in Virna, where he lives. But Count Dracula is a vampire, an undead ghoule living off men's blood. Inspired by a photograph of Lucy Harker, Jonathan's wife, Dracula moves to Virna, bringing with him death and plague... An unusually contemplative version of Dracula, in which the vampire bears the cross of not being able to get old and die.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Remake of Nosferatu

The film is a remake of F. W. Murnau's 1922 silent film Nosferatu. While Klaus Kinski's Dracula make-up is a faithful recreation of Max Schreck's ratlike appearance, Herzog's film emphasises the vampire's tragic loneliness and pathos as well as the horror of his predatory appetites and the plague he brings in his wake. Herzog's visuals are as lush and lyrical as Murnau's, and there are also some surprising moments of comedy: Dracula's drawing room has a cuckoo clock made from a skull, and far from exulting in his power, the vampire responds to Renfield's doggy fawning by wearily brushing him away.

Filmed on a shoestring budget (as was common for German films during the 1970s), Herzog's Nosferatu was a critical success, considered by many to be a faithful homage to Murnau's original film.

Herzog filmed two versions of the movie simultaneously, one in German and one in English. The actors spoke their lines in English, meaning that their own voices are included in the English version of the film; they are not dubbed over by voice actors. Since by the time of Herzog's film the original Bram Stoker novel had gone into the public domain, Herzog used the character names from the novel, something Murnau could not do.

Herzog could not film in Bremen (where the original Murnau film was shot), so he relocated production to Delft, the Netherlands. Parts of the film were shot in nearby Schiedam, after Delft authorities refused to allow Herzog to release 11,000 rats (white ones painted grey). Translyvania is represented by locations in the Czech Republic.

[edit] Trivia

The mummies at the beginning of the movie are genuine, and can be found at the Guanajuato Mummy Museum in Mexico.

A different recording of "Zinzkaro", the Georgian folk song performed on the film's soundtrack by the Vocal Ensemble Gordela, was used by Kate Bush in the song "Hello Earth" on her 1985 album Hounds of Love.

During the shipment to Delft, the rat population of 11,000 exploded to 30,000. After the rat scene, the mayor of Delft announced to the citizens that any rats brought it would garner the rat-catcher a reward of 5 Gulden (2 Euro). For three weeks, the children of Delft skipped school to hunt down the valuable rats.

[edit] External links

Characters of Dracula
Dracula \| Jonathan Harker \| Mina Harker \| Abraham Van Helsing \| Lucy Westenra \| Renfield
Film Adaptations of Dracula
Nosferatu \| Dracula (1931) \| House of Dracula \| Dracula (1958) \| Count Dracula (1969) \| Dracula (1979) \| Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht \| Love At First Bite \| Bram Stoker's Dracula \| Dracula: Dead and Loving It \| Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary