Copy & Paste: The history of film is one of influences, references, and homages between creative minds. Join F.W. Murnau, Werner Herzog, Christian Petzold, Harun Farocki and Matthias Müller & Christoph Girardet in our latest GOETHE FILMS @ TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto March 3 + 5 + 10 as these influential filmmakers remake, remix, reimagine film and films in three screenings of double features.
The L.A. Times reviewed Herzog's newly released NOSFERATU treatment recently and commented on the Murnau-Herzog relationship:
“I should caution you, it’s not a remake.” When Werner Herzog gives a warning, it is advisable to heed it. So do not call his 1979 film “Nosferatu The Vampyre” a remake of the 1922 film "Nosferatu” by F.W. Murnau. Rather consider it an interpretation or tribute. In his review of the initial release of the film, Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas called it “
a film of astonishing beauty and daring… not a horror picture but one of eerie wonderment and bizarre spectacle.”
The story of the film is familiar as a man named Jonathan Harker (
Bruno Ganz) is called on a long journey to the remote castle of
Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski). The count later appears in the city with seeming designs on Harker’s wife Lucy (
Isabelle Adjani).
But Herzog made the saga all his own with a stirring,
spaced-out soundtrack by the band Popol Vuh,
stunning shots of mountain landscapes and deserted beaches, slow-motion footage of a bat in flight cribbed from a nature documentary, some 11,000 live rats and a predictably unpredictable performance by his frequent collaborator Kinski.
Calling the German-language version “the more authentic” of the two, the Munich, Germany-born Herzog noted that it also for him “has a very specific position because it has to do with me finding solid ground within the history of German cinema. Connecting with the generation of the grandfathers, in this case with Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. So for me it was like
bridging a void, a big gap in reconnecting to the great cinema of the 1920s. And that was very important for me,” he added.
“I felt safer after that, I felt connected, as if I had crossed a river and on the other side with my feet I felt solid ground. Since then I’ve been very stable in my vision, very stable in my work, very clear in what I’ve done since then.”
“Let me say one thing about Kinski,” Herzog added, “no matter what we have seen about vampires so far, no matter what’s going to come at us in the next half-century, there won’t be another vampire of the caliber of Kinski again. When you see him you know he’s the best, you’ll never see anyone like him again.”
The same might be said of Werner Herzog, mad adventurer of cinema, forever pushing on to territories unknown.
Abridged from: Re-release of Werner Herzog's 'Nosferatu': 'It's not a remake' by Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2014
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times, republished with permission.
Email me until March 1 and tell me how you heard about our Copy & Paste series for your chance to win 2 tickets to our NOSFERATU double bill. Even better, come & watch all films over 3 nights in our series, March 3 + 5 + 10 for your chance to win the new BluRay of Murnau's restored NOSFERATU.
Mar 3, 6.30pm: “Nosferatu” (1922) by F.W. Murnau & “Nosferatu the Vampyre” (1979) by Werner Herzog
A classic of Weimar cinema, Murnau’s "Nosferatu" is considered one of the first films of the horror genre and was highly influential in its visual design for German Expressionism. "Nosferatu the Vampyre” is director Werner Herzog’s homage to Murnau’s oeuvre. Based on the Dracula story, his West German vampire art house film features a star cast with Klaus Kinski ("Fitzcarraldo"), Isabelle Adjani ("La Reine Margot"), and Bruno Ganz ("Wings of Desire", "Downfall").
GOETHE FILMS screen at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St W, Toronto
with English subtitles
Tickets $10, day-of sales only at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, open at 10am
Open to audiences 18+.
