Spoilers Warning Elaborated: Review contains spoilers for "Nosferatu" (1922), as well as for this film, "Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht."
Werner Herzog's remake of the 1922 silent film "Nosferatu," a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula," is a laborious effort. F.W. Murnau's 1922 film was an interesting adaptation—altering the story considerably (although not enough to avoid a lawsuit from Stoker's widow for copyright infringement). It replaced the subtext of vampirism as venereal disease in Stoker's late-nineteenth-century tale with the plague and reset it to earlier in the century. Herzog does the same thing, but he largely abandons the naturalizing of the supernatural that went with the 1922 version. Instead, he makes Dracula lovesick... which isn't especially compatible with plague rats.
In the 1922 film, the Van Helsing character was a pseudoscientist who explained vampirism as a natural phenomenon, and, in the end, he found himself powerless over it; in this 1979 version, the same character, instead, is a skeptic until he sees the supernatural for himself— after which, he drives a stake through it. Other character changes include Jonathan Harker not beginning as the happy-go-lucky chap he was in Murnau's classic, and the names of Stoker's Lucy and Mina are inexplicably switched around. As in the 1922 version, the main points of these female leads are combined in one character while the other one is just vestigial. Meanwhile, Klaus Kinski plays Max Schreck's part with sad eyes and slack-jawed heavy breathing between the slow movements and slow line delivery characteristic of the entire cast and production. And the makeup job is impressive, but as an obvious makeup job—and it's clownish.
The film's slow pace wouldn't necessarily be a burden if, as in the 1922 version and a few other "Dracula" adaptations, it'd done something more interesting and cohesive with the narrative. Instead, we're left to mostly awe at the drab cinematography, admire the stilted acting, and wonder at the excess of Herzog's insertion of many shots of bats and rats. The 1979 film has a more mobile camera than the 1922 one, but it's at the expense of quicker editing. The average shot lasts ≈20 seconds here, whereas it was ≈8 seconds in Murnau's "Nosferatu" (as per the cinemetrics website). Herzog has done better; perhaps, part of the reason his "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) is truly a masterpiece is due to its average shot length being nearly half that of his "Nosferatu."
The 1979 version also maintains a bit more of Stoker's novel, including borrowing some of the dialogue (such as the "children of the night" line). It also expands on the doppelgänger theme between Dracula and Jonathan, which was only hinted at in the book. Here, there's an allusion to Dracula, after his death, transmigrating into Harker's body. Unfortunately, this, along with the laughable Van Helsing ordeal, also drags the pace out even more; in 1922, the Nosferatu just vanished from exposure to sunlight and that was that.
(Mirror Note: the mirror scene is the best part here, as it combines the shadow of the vampire from the 1922 "Nosferatu" with the absence otherwise of a reflection from Stoker (whereas he did cast a reflection in the 1922 film). Only Dracula's shadow is seen in Lucy's mirror, which announces his arrival in the shot before he stalks up beside her.)
Werner Herzog's remake of the 1922 silent film "Nosferatu," a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula," is a laborious effort. F.W. Murnau's 1922 film was an interesting adaptation—altering the story considerably (although not enough to avoid a lawsuit from Stoker's widow for copyright infringement). It replaced the subtext of vampirism as venereal disease in Stoker's late-nineteenth-century tale with the plague and reset it to earlier in the century. Herzog does the same thing, but he largely abandons the naturalizing of the supernatural that went with the 1922 version. Instead, he makes Dracula lovesick... which isn't especially compatible with plague rats.
In the 1922 film, the Van Helsing character was a pseudoscientist who explained vampirism as a natural phenomenon, and, in the end, he found himself powerless over it; in this 1979 version, the same character, instead, is a skeptic until he sees the supernatural for himself— after which, he drives a stake through it. Other character changes include Jonathan Harker not beginning as the happy-go-lucky chap he was in Murnau's classic, and the names of Stoker's Lucy and Mina are inexplicably switched around. As in the 1922 version, the main points of these female leads are combined in one character while the other one is just vestigial. Meanwhile, Klaus Kinski plays Max Schreck's part with sad eyes and slack-jawed heavy breathing between the slow movements and slow line delivery characteristic of the entire cast and production. And the makeup job is impressive, but as an obvious makeup job—and it's clownish.
The film's slow pace wouldn't necessarily be a burden if, as in the 1922 version and a few other "Dracula" adaptations, it'd done something more interesting and cohesive with the narrative. Instead, we're left to mostly awe at the drab cinematography, admire the stilted acting, and wonder at the excess of Herzog's insertion of many shots of bats and rats. The 1979 film has a more mobile camera than the 1922 one, but it's at the expense of quicker editing. The average shot lasts ≈20 seconds here, whereas it was ≈8 seconds in Murnau's "Nosferatu" (as per the cinemetrics website). Herzog has done better; perhaps, part of the reason his "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) is truly a masterpiece is due to its average shot length being nearly half that of his "Nosferatu."
The 1979 version also maintains a bit more of Stoker's novel, including borrowing some of the dialogue (such as the "children of the night" line). It also expands on the doppelgänger theme between Dracula and Jonathan, which was only hinted at in the book. Here, there's an allusion to Dracula, after his death, transmigrating into Harker's body. Unfortunately, this, along with the laughable Van Helsing ordeal, also drags the pace out even more; in 1922, the Nosferatu just vanished from exposure to sunlight and that was that.
(Mirror Note: the mirror scene is the best part here, as it combines the shadow of the vampire from the 1922 "Nosferatu" with the absence otherwise of a reflection from Stoker (whereas he did cast a reflection in the 1922 film). Only Dracula's shadow is seen in Lucy's mirror, which announces his arrival in the shot before he stalks up beside her.)