Nosferatu the Vampyre (Widescreen)

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht directed by Werner Herzog, is really a color remake of the 1922 film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens directed by F.W. Murnau. There are a couple of name changes: Count Orlok became Count Dracula; Jonathan's fiancée Nina became Jonathan's wife Lucy. The original film was silent and in black and white, where the 1979 version is in color and is in German with English subtitles.

However the plot is close to Bram Stoker's book on Count Dracula which has a very similar plot line and story. F.W. Murnau bought the movie rights to the film; however these rights were owned by Bram's widow Florence and she refused to allow the use of the name and storyline. Even though Murnau had changed the major names of the main characters (Count Dracula, Thomas and his wife Ellen) and location enough similarity remained that Florence took the case to court and in July of 1925 the German court ordered all the copies of the movie destroyed. However a few copies did manage to survive.

While the film starts off slow it shows spectacular scenes of an ocean voyage, and waterfalls experienced during Jonathan (Bruno Ganz) Harker's journey to Count (Klaus Kinski) Dracula's castle. The contrast with his return trip is startling, since he was healthy when he started, but on the return is very sickly and barely alive. The Count's journey is very stark, his companions' death and rats board another ship, which glides into port with no one left alive on board except the rats. As the rats depart the ship one reminded of the story of Ben, where the rats were everywhere and out of control.
An interesting dilemma in this film is the direct confrontation of belief in the existence of the supernatural and sacramental with belief in the rationale of science. Science was believed to able to explain away rationally anything that happened out of the ordinary. Yet here it could not produce an answer for Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) Harker. The way that this was shown was that after consulting with the town physician, Lucy broke and crumbed the Eucharist around Jonathan to keep him locked into a chair in a corner all night, while she became the sacrificed lamb to save him from the Count and death. While she did this out of her love for Jonathan, her sacrifice resulted in the final demise of Count Dracula and her own death. Yet Jonathan in essence lives on to carry the legacy of the living dead, alive yet not fully. The last that is seen of Jonathan is when he is released from his imposed prison, by the removal of the broken host around him, he declares that he has much work to accomplish he mounts a horse and rides off.

Perhaps these scenes sound better in the German version; I don't know.

Also, for such a serious movie it's quite hard to take some of the actors in it seriously; the madman who joins Dracula when he comes to London has a laugh that is so ridiculous by the end of the film that it's just not possible to not crack up laughing at his acting (probably not what Herzog had intended). I was also quite dissappointed with Van Helsing's character in this movie, who during half of his time on the set rambles on about how Science (with a capital S) has DISPROVED everything supernatural (which, apart from being completely at odds with his character in the original book, is also a very stupid statement).
Scenes that were important in the original movie (such as the ship's journey to England) are given short shrift here.
Also, Herzog doesn't seem to mind introducing continuity problems for the sake of atmosphere. For example, when Jonathan is in Dracula's castle there is a young Gypsy boy who stands in the daytime near the castle, alone, and plays (really badly) a strange melody on a fiddle. Why anyone would want to stand beneath Dracula's castle and play on a fiddle is not answered.

There ARE some redeeming factors to the film. For example, the introduction to this film is marvellously creepy and unnerving, showing us statues of dead and decomposing bodies. I also really liked how Herzog handled the plague that came to London (although why one vampire would want to kill hundreds of people each night is beyond me...); there is one extended scene in particular where the camera takes a stroll through the sickened city, where those who pay attention to detail will be able to find all sort of gruesome and disturbing events that happen, perfectly choreographed.

Overall, though, this does not seem to me to be the classic that many here are making it out to be. I've heard that the German version is superior, so perhaps I've judged the film too early.