Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball
Klaus Kinski in Nosferatu the Vampyre (1978, dir. Werner Herzog) “Kinski loved the work and for pretty much the whole time on set he was happy, even though he would throw a tantrum maybe every other day. He was at ease with himself and the world at the time and loved to sit with his Japanese make-up artist Reiko Kruk for hours and hours. He would listen to Japanese music as she sculpted him every morning, putting his ears and fingernails on. We had to do the teeth and ears and shave his head every morning and just seeing him with this enormous patience was a fine sight. I would walk in and sit with him for fifteen minutes. We did not talk, we just looked at each other in the mirror and nodded at each other. He was good with the project, and he was good with himself. Though the film is close to two hours and Klaus is on screen for maybe seventeen minutes, his vampire dominates absolutely every single scene. That is the finest compliment I can give him for his performance. Everything in the film works towards these seventeen minutes. His character is constantly present because of the story and the images which intensify this sense of doom and terror and anxiety. It took fifty years to find a vampire to rival the one [F.W.] Murnau created, and I say that no one in the next fifty years will be able to play Nosferatu like Kinski has done. This is not a prophecy, rather an absolute certitude. I could give you fifty years and a million dollars to find someone better than Kinski and you would fail.” -Werner Herzog, quoted in Herzog on Herzog

Klaus Kinski in Nosferatu the Vampyre (1978, dir. Werner Herzog)

“Kinski loved the work and for pretty much the whole time on set he was happy, even though he would throw a tantrum maybe every other day. He was at ease with himself and the world at the time and loved to sit with his Japanese make-up artist Reiko Kruk for hours and hours. He would listen to Japanese music as she sculpted him every morning, putting his ears and fingernails on. We had to do the teeth and ears and shave his head every morning and just seeing him with this enormous patience was a fine sight. I would walk in and sit with him for fifteen minutes. We did not talk, we just looked at each other in the mirror and nodded at each other. He was good with the project, and he was good with himself.

Though the film is close to two hours and Klaus is on screen for maybe seventeen minutes, his vampire dominates absolutely every single scene. That is the finest compliment I can give him for his performance. Everything in the film works towards these seventeen minutes. His character is constantly present because of the story and the images which intensify this sense of doom and terror and anxiety. It took fifty years to find a vampire to rival the one [F.W.] Murnau created, and I say that no one in the next fifty years will be able to play Nosferatu like Kinski has done. This is not a prophecy, rather an absolute certitude. I could give you fifty years and a million dollars to find someone better than Kinski and you would fail.”

-Werner Herzog, quoted in Herzog on Herzog

Klaus Kinski & Isabelle Adjani in Nosferatu the Vampyre (1978, dir. Werner Herzog) (via) “I never thought of my film Nosferatu as being a remake. It stands on its own feet as an entirely new version..It is a very clear declaration of my connection to the very best of German cinema, and though I have never truly functioned in terms of genres, I did appreciate that making a film like Nosferatu meant understanding the basic principles about the vampire genre, and then asking, ‘How am I going to modify and develop this genre further?’ The images found in vampire films have a quality beyond our usual experiences in the cinema. For me genre means an intensive, almost dreamlike, stylization on screen, and I feel the vampire genre is one of the richest and most fertile cinema has to offer. There is fantasy, hallucination, dreams and nightmares, visions, fear and, of course, mythology. What I really sought to do was connect my Nosferatu with our true German cultural heritage, the silent films of the Weimar era, and [F.W.] Murnau’s work in particular.”  -Werner Herzog, quoted in Herzog on Herzog

Klaus Kinski & Isabelle Adjani in Nosferatu the Vampyre (1978, dir. Werner Herzog) (via)

“I never thought of my film Nosferatu as being a remake. It stands on its own feet as an entirely new version..It is a very clear declaration of my connection to the very best of German cinema, and though I have never truly functioned in terms of genres, I did appreciate that making a film like Nosferatu meant understanding the basic principles about the vampire genre, and then asking, ‘How am I going to modify and develop this genre further?’

The images found in vampire films have a quality beyond our usual experiences in the cinema. For me genre means an intensive, almost dreamlike, stylization on screen, and I feel the vampire genre is one of the richest and most fertile cinema has to offer. There is fantasy, hallucination, dreams and nightmares, visions, fear and, of course, mythology. What I really sought to do was connect my Nosferatu with our true German cultural heritage, the silent films of the Weimar era, and [F.W.] Murnau’s work in particular.” 

-Werner Herzog, quoted in Herzog on Herzog