Nosferatu the Vampyre (1922) Germany
Nosferatu the Vampyre Image Cover
Additional Images
Director:Werner Herzog
Studio:Anchor Bay
Producer:Daniel Toscan du Plantier, Walter Saxer, Werner Herzog, Michael Gruskoff
Writer:Henrik Galeen
Rating:4.5
Rated:PG
Date Added:2006-03-27
ASIN:6305307261
UPC:0013131067798
Price:$34.98
Awards:1 win & 1 nomination
Genre:Vampires
Release:2001-01-01
IMDb:0013442
Duration:94
Picture Format:Widescreen
Aspect Ratio:1.85:1
Sound:Silent
Languages:Commentary by German silent film connoisseur Lokke Heiss, Unknown
Subtitles:English
Features:Letterboxed
Werner Herzog  ...  (Director)
Henrik Galeen  ...  (Writer)
 
Max Schreck  ...  Graf Orlok
Gustav von Wangenheim  ...  Hutter
Greta Schröder  ...  Ellen Hutter, seine Frau (as Greta Schroeder)
Alexander Granach  ...  Knock, ein Häusermakler
Georg H. Schnell  ...  Westenra, Harkers Freund (as G.H. Schnell)
Ruth Landshoff  ...  Lucy, Westenras Frau
John Gottowt  ...  Professor Bulwer, ein Paracelsianer
Gustav Botz  ...  Professor Sievers, der Stadtartzt
Max Nemetz  ...  Käpitän der Demeter
Wolfgang Heinz  ...  Matrose 1
Albert Venohr  ...  Matrose 2
Eric van Viele  ...  Sailor
Klaus Kinski  ...  
Isabelle Adjani  ...  
Bruno Ganz  ...  
Roland Topor  ...  
Walter Ladengast  ...  
Summary: Werner Herzog's remake of F.W. Murnau's original vampire classic is at once a generous tribute to the great German director and a distinctly unique vision by one of cinema's most idiosyncratic filmmakers. Though Murnau's Nosferatu was actually an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Herzog based his film largely on Murnau's conceptions--at times directly quoting Murnau's images--but manages to slip in a few references to Tod Browning's famous version (at one point the vampire comments on the howling wolves: "Listen, the children of the night make their music."). Longtime Herzog star Klaus Kinski is both hideous and melancholy as Nosferatu (renamed Count Dracula in the English language version). As in Murnau's film, he's a veritable gargoyle with his bald pate and sunken eyes, and his talon-like fingernails and two snaggly fangs give him a distinctly feral quality. But Kinski's haunting eyes also communicate a gloomy loneliness--the curse of his undead immortality--and his yearning for Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) becomes a melancholy desire for love. Bruno Ganz's sincere but foolish Jonathan is doomed to the vampire's will and his wife, Lucy, a holy innocent whose deathly pallor and nocturnal visions link her with the ghoulish Nosferatu, becomes the only hope against the monster's plague-like curse. Herzog's dreamy, delicate images and languid pacing create a stunningly beautiful film of otherworldly mood, a faithful reinterpretation that by the conclusion has been shaped into a quintessentially Herzog vision. --Sean Axmaker