The
novelisation of the 1979 movie Nosferatu the
Vampyre directed by Werner Herzog was written by Paul Monette, based on
Herzog’s screenplay, which paid homage to the original movie, Nosferatu (1922) directed by F.W. Murnau
and starring Max Schreck as the evil count. The 1979 film stars Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani and Bruno Ganz.
It
is interesting to learn that the original movie was an unauthorised adaptation
of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with names
and other details altered – instead of ‘vampire’ they used ‘nosferatu’ and
Count Dracula became Count Orlok. Stoker’s heirs sued and the court ruling
required all copies of the film to be destroyed – though a few prints did
survive, proving even that long ago that once an artwork has been widely
distributed it is almost impossible to stifle it entirely.
In
the 1922 film it’s 1838 and Jonathan Harker became Thomas Hutter, living in the
German town of Wisborg. Hutter is sent to Transylvania by his employer, Knock,
where he meets a new client, Count Orlok. Hutter left his wife Ellen in the
care of his friend Harding’s sister Annie.
By
1979, Dracula (1897) was no longer in
copyright. The novelisation opens in the town of Wismar in 1850 and Jonathan
Harker has recently married the love of his life, Lucy. Harker’s employer Renfield
asked him to visit a client in Transylvania, so he reluctantly leaves. Lucy has
the company of her brother and his wife Mina. A family friend was Doctor van
Helsing.
Monette
is a poet as well as a writer. Several phrases suggest his poetic roots, which
is especially necessary since the screenplay does not have a great deal of
dialogue, it seems, but relies on imagery, mood and atmosphere. For example I
liked his sentence: ‘The night was in his heart’. Another phrase: ‘He grasped
at fear like a falling man at the empty air.’
Harker
arrives at the client’s castle. ‘From the darkness beyond, a figure began to
approach, so rigid it seemed to have come through a region of ice to reach him.
He was wrapped in a tight-fitting black cape as final as a shroud. His
shoulders were hunched and his hands were cramped together at his chest, one on
top of the other, as if he didn’t dare to let them swing free at his sides.
Jonathan… stared at the terrible hands. Long and bloodless, limp and slightly
quivering by turns, they tapered into nails as horned and yellow as claws…’ The
description goes on, detailing the visage of Count Dracula.
At
one point, when Harker has escaped the castle, and while Dracula is on his way
to despoil Wismar and Lucy, Harker recovers from injuries and faces a local
convent’s Mother Superior: ‘We pray against the darkness, Mr Harker. The
darkness is all about us, of course, but we try not to inquire too deeply into
it. We find that we do more good when we turn our faces to the light…’
Unlike
Dracula, in Nosferatu Dr van Helsing is no expert in vampirism, and indeed
scoffs at the idea; to the detriment of the town of Wismar. The passages
concerning the rat-infested ship’s arrival at Wismar, the madness and plague
that ensued are hauntingly portrayed. Only Lucy, it seems, is capable of ending
it by destroying the count. Much of the denouement is retained from the
original film, though the ending is less conclusive, but no less poignant.
I
found it fascinating how Herzog has used the names, but altered the roles of
some of the Dracula characters, and imbued the tale with his own concept of
menace, a creeping darkness that enfolds the great and the good.
Monette
died in 1995, aged 49. He also wrote novelisations of Scarface (1983), Predator
(1987) and Midnight Run (1988).
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