By Matt Harries
What does the vampire mean to you? Looking back through the annals of cinema we are spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing our favourite manifestation of the bloodsucker. In recent times, long form television has given us vamps who look like models; sexually charged, magnetic and beautiful as in True Blood. In Guillermo Del Toro’s The Strain, The Master has some characteristics in common with the fanged denizens of Bon Temps – seemingly all-powerful and capable of inspiring fear and devotion in equal measure – but in the flesh he is all monster, an ancient horror that spreads the plague of vampirism through worm-like parasites and violent genetic mutation. In the Blade series of films the vampire exhibits elements seen in both True Blood and The Strain, combined with the achingly modern life skills such as mastery of the martial arts and expertise in the most cutting edge technological advances. Vampires come in all shapes and sizes, and often these days their story seems to be tied in with very contemporary concerns. There are surely no other creatures of fantasy out there who have quite managed the transition into modernity with such aplomb, but who yet have their roots deeply embedded in the folklore of pre-cinema.
Cinema’s journey into vampirism began in such very different circumstances of course. F.W Murnau’s 1922 Expressionist classic Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens was an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula – surely the definitive vampire story. It came from a time long before the vampire had become a cliché, a commonplace staple of popular horror culture, and the subject of countless interpretations and adaptations. By the time Werner Herzog chose to make his own version of the classic tale, over half a century had elapsed. The likes of Hammer had offered their own unique rendering, but despite the plethora of vampire films released even in the same year, Herzog’s version comes from a time before all that. In choosing to create a link between the great era of Expressionist cinema and the then new-wave of German cinema, he once again tapped into that ancient wellspring from whence Murnau’s iconic masterpiece itself was derived.
Far removed from the modern tendency toward self-referential irony, Herzog’s Nosferatu paints a picture of a society for whom the light of modern age has yet to cast aside the darkness of superstition. As such the film is full of contrasts between two opposite states; light and darkness; life and death; youth and age. Water is often used as a symbolic mirror, capable in its raging torrents and calm placidity of reflecting the fluid states of human emotion. Early in the film, Jonathan (Bruno Ganz) and fiance Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) visit the beach where they first fell in love. The placid retreating tide beckons him toward the unknown Transylvania and its possibilities, away from home town Wismar, full of “canals which go nowhere”. Jonathan’s desire to explore the lands beyond Wismar, and experience a richer life, highlights another contrast – that of the modern world and the ancient wildness of nature.
Throughout the film we witness the interplay between these differing states of being. Jonathan leaves the calm order of Wismar for Transylvania. Who better to tell him of the dark lands beyond the civilised world than the gypsies who themselves live outside the strictures of modernity? Only they travel across the great chasm that divides the world’s of Jonathan’s past and future. Yet for all this they fear the darkness and are naturally suspicious of its place within the natural order of things. “No such castle exists there except perhaps in the imagination of man”, he is told. And yet, being the modern man, Jonathan quests on, driven by his desire for adventure as much as the need to provide a better future for Lucy.
Herzog’s direction focuses upon creating a powerful ambient atmosphere, utilising the grandeur of the natural world in a manner that will be familiar to those who have followed his work. The tone is set with the arresting imagery that opens the film, namely footage of the mummies of Guanajuato in Mexico. These grim figures were disinterred during an 1833 cholera epidemic. Apparently there were examples where the dying were buried before their deaths. Indeed, the corpse of one woman was found face down in her coffin biting her own arm, her mouth full of blood. Some of the post-mortem facial expressions of these unfortunates also indicate the horror of dying in their own tombs. Although unrelated in time and place to the events of Nosferatu, there is something about these mummies that strikes an horrific chord with the subject matter of the film. Mankind’s own attempt at claiming a slither of immortality; preservation of the dead and dying, their desiccated remains denied the ultimate release of decay. Powerfully redolent of Dracula’s own state of undying.
The slow motion footage of a bat flying is equally haunting, but for all its sinister overtones is imbued with a timeless dark elegance. The night hunter is focussed and seemingly swooping in to land, filmed against a grainy background. As it leans in towards the object of its attention Lucy sits bolt upright in bed, screaming one of cinematic horror’s classic screams. If her nightmares were of the images we have just watched, it is no wonder she feels such a sense of foreboding.
After this ghastly introduction we arrive at Wismar and its calm order. Filmed largely in Delft in the Netherlands, Herzog chose the location for its stylised, dreamlike atmosphere. The gentle flow of water through the town’s canal system contrasts with the white waters that churn through the Transylvanian mountains, that seem to usher Jonathan through the treacherous Borgo pass and beyond to Castle Dracula. Jonathan’s ascension to the castle is quintessentially Herzog; lingering awestruck shots of the forbidding monochromatic peaks. Clouds at once soar above and cling smothering to them. Finally we arrive at the Castle. Jonathan is beckoned in by the pale form of the Count. The heavy black iron door clanks shut like it is itself a part in the mechanism of a great lock, behind which the Jonathan Harker who enters the castle will never emerge again as he once was.
Enter then our Count himself, played by Klaus Kinski. Wearing a rather fetching hat and coat combo he nonetheless appears startlingly vampiric from the get go. There is none of the latter day shape shifting – appearing sometimes older, sometimes younger, some times more or less human altogether. No, here Dracula appears as he remains throughout the film, preternaturally long teeth and nails and all. As he watches Jonathan eat he resembles a strange amalgam of the striking images of the opening sequence. Pallid, deathly flesh toned and almost corpse still, yet at once focussed upon his guest, radiating a hunger that boils just below the surface. Yet he also exudes a sense of age, of weariness. “Ah young man”, he laments, “you are like the villagers who cannot place themselves in the soul of the hunter”. At this point Jonathan seems to lose his appetite. His pensive mood is further unsettled by the bizarre chiming of the Count’s fantastic clock and, not surprisingly I might add, by the Count’s attempt to drink his blood after he cuts his finger. Despite Jonathan’s obvious fear we can see the Count is hardly a rampaging killer. Instead he appears frail and old yet at once utterly compelled by hunger.
Isabelle Adjani’s Lucy is the story’s other principal player. With a pale complexion framed in the dark shadow of her black hair, her youthful beauty places her as Dracula’s opposite and yet eventually also his obsession. For all her innocence and loyalty to Jonathan, there is a kind of intensity to Adjani’s performance that makes her a slightly more convincing object for the undead Count’s obsession than say, Winona Ryder, who for all her prettiness lacks Adjani’s classically gothic good looks. Her wide eyed expression of horror seen during her first real meeting with Dracula himself remains one of the most haunting after images of this film, burned into the mind’s eye like those of Shelley Duvall in The Shining.
Kinski it is though, who steals the show. Out of makeup he was a striking enough presence, well known for his apocalyptic mood swings and hysterical fits that mark his relationship with the equally intense but somewhat more placid Werner Herzog as one of cinema’s great partnerships. Despite his reputation as a diva he was apparently quite taken by the Japanese makeup artist who rigorously applied his prosthetics on a daily basis, being for once the model of patience and composure, and this reflects in his rather measured and contained performance as a whole. His delivery, all far away looks and distant memories, is full of weariness and the longing for mortality. There is none of the power or grandeur of Oldman’s Dracula, nor the stern darkness of Lee’s. When we see Kinski’s Count forced to do his own donkey work, lugging the coffins through Wismar, we do feel a bit sorry for him. The whole move to Wismar has the feel of a desperate last gambit. A strategy that will only bring him true victory through its own failure. Of all the Draculas in cinematic past, it is Kinski’s who most convinces when he utters “to be unable to grow old is terrible.”
I also really enjoyed Bruno Ganz as Jonathan. At first he is optimistic and adventurous; cautious, but ready to press on and do what he considers to be the right thing. His demeanour changes utterly, of course, upon his return to Wismar. He no longer recognises Lucy and has become increasingly reminiscent of his one time employer, Renfield (the entertaining Roland Topor); now finding bizarre amusement in the stories of Nosferatu Lucy reads to him. We may suspect that when Dracula finally perishes – so consumed by his hunger for Lucy’s blood he fails to heed the cock crowing to herald the dawn – this gives him the release he ultimately craves. However the final twist of the film sees Jonathan, now sporting junior versions of Dracula’s teeth and claws, extricate himself from behind Lucy’s folk magic barrier, tear off the crucifix that hangs around his neck and summon his horse, enigmatically stating “I have much to do”. Finally he is seen galloping away by horse back, along bare wind strewn sands. This ending put an interesting spin on the tale. Ostensibly, ‘evil’ wins through, with Jonathan now seemingly lost to vampirism and Lucy dead through her sacrifice. However Dracula, in seeking out Lucy, is at last able himself to find the mortality he craves.
Perhaps I am being hasty (having yet to watch the film), but I have seen the new direction Dracula is taking in cinema and I am not overly enthralled. Dracula Untold (editor’s note – here’s Keri’s review) appears on first glance to be a CGI-fest inspired by Lord Of The Rings and Game Of Thrones. The titular prince is ruggedly handsome and resplendent, a commander of armies with a beautiful wife and son. It seems like another popcorn friendly big budget epic in age of blandly invincible superheroes. Suffice it to say, there is nothing heroic about Kinski’s Dracula, who lingers through a loveless, futile existence, his humanity an old and painful memory. Herzog’s Nosferatu does not try and romanticise the Count. Despite his machinations and his hunger there is a tormented sadness within him. Feared as a great and monstrous evil, there is a yearning there that is entirely human. This is not a film about super powers or the ultimate triumph of love over evil. It is a film about a world that is full of shadows and light, of monsters and maidens, of prey and the preyed upon. About the illuminating light of discovery and the shadows that exist within mankind’s own heart.
Fundamentally, Nosferatu; Phantom der Nacht is the perfect antidote to the modern reading of the vampire story. Richly atmospheric, well acted, full of unaffected natural grandeur and with a fantastic, dreamlike soundtrack by long time Herzog collaborator Florian Fricke, it belongs at the very dark heart of vampire mythology.