Although his filmography is split fairly evenly between documentary and fiction, these days Herzog is known primarily for his distinctive existentialist documentaries, often marveling at the unfeeling horrors of both nature and modern technology. There\u2019s plenty of that existential despair in Nosferatu<\/em>, which sometimes resembles what a Herzog documentary about vampires would be like, if vampires were real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Herzog\u2019s version of the immortal Count Dracula, played by his longtime collaborator and frenemy Klaus Kinski, isn\u2019t seductive or intimidating. He\u2019s desperate and pathetic, a pale, sniveling monster of a man who has the same look as Max Schreck in Murnau\u2019s film, but none of the otherworldly menace. \u201cTime is an abyss, profound as a thousand nights,\u201d he tells solicitor Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz), in a bleak monologue that can easily be imagined as narration in Herzog\u2019s signature gloomy intonation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dracula is far from the only character in Nosferatu<\/em> with a fatalistic outlook on life. \u201cGod is far away when we need him,\u201d says Jonathan\u2019s wife Lucy (Isabelle Adjani), who becomes the only person to fight back against Dracula in Herzog\u2019s pessimistic presentation of human surrender. With Bram Stoker\u2019s 1897 novel Dracula<\/em> having passed into the public domain, Herzog is free to use the original character names instead of Murnau\u2019s alterations, but he\u2019s under no obligation to follow Stoker\u2019s story, and there\u2019s no triumph over evil in the way Herzog envisions it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The broad strokes are similar, as Jonathan is enlisted to travel from the German city of Wismar to Transylvania in order to present Dracula with papers for a large, rundown house he plans to buy. The mad, manic Renfield (Roland Topor) is Harker\u2019s boss in a ramshackle office literally overflowing with documents, and Renfield clearly already has a connection to Dracula, although it\u2019s uncertain how that connection was formed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonathan soon finds himself under Dracula\u2019s spell as well, although it\u2019s less of an enchantment and more of an infectious disease, and it progresses with the same inevitability. He trudges through mountains and rivers like another crazed Herzog\/Kinski protagonist, the title character of 1972\u2019s Aguirre, the Wrath of God<\/em>, to reach Dracula\u2019s remote, dilapidated castle. There he finds a man who appears wan and sickly, who moans not in ecstasy or anticipation, but in what sounds like agony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back home, Lucy has visions of Dracula that seem like portents of an expected seduction, but there\u2019s nothing sexy about her connection to Dracula, no matter how gorgeous Adjani looks. When he finally arrives in Lucy\u2019s bedroom, Dracula whines and begs for her love, easily giving up when she rejects him. It\u2019s only when she\u2019s discovered how to defeat him that Lucy willingly invites him into her bed, as part of a trick that could lead to his demise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dracula\u2019s presence in Wismar is more dangerous because of what he brings along with him than because of any threat he poses himself. Herzog\u2019s Nosferatu<\/em> is as much a movie about the devastation of the plague as it is about vampirism, and the rats that accompany Dracula on his boat from Transylvania cause far more death and destruction than Dracula himself ever could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The characters\u2019 unrelenting despair makes more sense as Herzog shows how quickly and easily the plague destroys the town. When a town official merely reads the word \u201cplague\u201d in the captain\u2019s log from the doomed ship, it sends everyone in the town hall into an immediate panic. Seemingly overnight, the streets are deserted, left over to the rats or to wandering pigs and sheep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although he evokes Murnau with shots of Dracula\u2019s shadow looming large over various buildings, Herzog\u2019s most striking visuals are his representations of the plague. An overhead shot of the town square shows processions of men carrying dozens of coffins. As Lucy wanders the streets, trying to find anyone who will listen to her about Dracula, she passes an overturned carriage, with a horse just lying dead next to it, unattended. A group of people indulge in a fancy outdoor dinner, telling Lucy that they have all contracted the plague and are having one final celebration before death. Herzog underscores the futility by cutting from a shot of the assembled group to a shot of the abandoned table from the same angle, as it\u2019s entirely covered with rats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Herzog emphasizes dirty, cramped spaces with threadbare trappings, showing the past as a time of grubby discomfort. He films in lush color in contrast to Murnau\u2019s black and white, but those colors only further highlight the grime and ugliness of the era. The movie\u2019s entire world is a reflection of Kinski\u2019s Dracula, a repulsive, petty, miserable man, whose supernatural powers are neither a blessing nor a curse, just a burden to carry through the meaningless drudgery of life. No wonder Herzog finds him fascinating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Nosferatu the Vampyre” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video<\/a>, Peacock<\/a>, Kanopy<\/a>, Tubi<\/a>, PlutoTV<\/a>, Shout Factory TV,<\/a> and more<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/nosferatu2-1024x576.jpeg\")
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