Nosferatu the Vampyre | |
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Directed by | Werner Herzog |
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Screenplay by | Werner Herzog |
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Dracula by Bram Stoker |
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Music by | Popol Vuh |
Cinematography | Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein |
Edited by | Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus |
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Running time
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107 minutes |
Country | West Germany |
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Nosferatu the Vampyre is a 1979 West German art house vampire horror film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Its original German title is Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht ("Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night"). The film is set primarily in 19th-century Wismar, Germany and Transylvania, and was conceived as a stylistic remake of the 1922 German Dracula adaptation Nosferatu. It stars Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani as Lucy Harker, Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker, and French artist-writer Roland Topor as Renfield. There are two different versions of the film, one in which the actors speak English, and one in which they speak German.
Herzog's production of Nosferatu was very well received by critics and enjoyed a comfortable degree of commercial success. The film also marks the second of five collaborations between director Herzog and actor Kinski, immediately followed by 1979's Woyzeck. The film had 1,000,000 admissions in West Germany and grossed ITL 53,870,000 in Italy. The film was also a modest success in Adjani's home country, taking in 933,533 admissions in France.
Jonathan Harker is an estate agent in Wismar, Germany. His boss, Renfield, informs him that a nobleman named Count Dracula wishes to buy a property in Wismar, and assigns Harker to visit the count and complete the lucrative deal. Leaving his young wife Lucy behind in Wismar, Harker travels for four weeks to Transylvania, to the castle of Count Dracula. He carries with him the deeds and documents needed to sell the house to the Count. On his journey, Jonathan stops at a village, where locals plead for him to stay clear of the accursed castle, providing him with details of Dracula's vampirism. Harker ignores the villagers' pleas as superstition, and continues his journey unassisted ascending the Borgo Pass. Harker arrives at Dracula's castle, where he meets the Count, a strange, ancient, almost rodent-like man, with large ears, pale skin, sharp teeth, and long fingernails.