“I never thought I could be friends with a German again. But here I am… Werner is somehow like Murnau brought back to life.” Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht [Nosferatu the Vampyre] (Werner Herzog, 1979)
Oct
22
eternal returns
Adjani, Kinski, and Herzog on set. DP: Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein.
[A favourite] horror remake*
– Lotte Eisner visiting the set of Herzog's Nosferatu (via)
Coming back to Murnau's expressionist masterpiece was Herzog's bridge between the films made by the grandfathers of German cinema and his era. Herzog, born in 1942 Munich, noted this void created by that philistine regime and felt that, by picking up the thread cut a quarter of a century earlier, German culture could see a restoration to its (non-nationalistic) greatness. Thus a menagerie of rats and actors was released in a reluctant, bourgeois Dutch town.
But that's a story for another generation to draw upon.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.