Remaking Horror to Avoid Repeating History: Werner Herzog and ‘Nosferatu’

Abstract

To address cultural and political issues facing Germany in the late 1970s filmmaker Werner Herzog decided to remake F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, one of the most famous German films from the early 1920s. In doing so Herzog was able to connect the country’s past issues with those of his present day, challenging his audience to recognize contemporary shortcomings not as new problems but instead as problems which, like Count Dracula himself, continually resurrect themselves. Herzog’s ability to connect his film with both the German artistic past and the historical past makes his version of Nosferatu an important artifact within New German Cinema.