KENTCASPER Denver University of Colorado,

SUSAN LINVILLE
University of Colorado, Boulder

Romantic Inversions in Herzog's Nosferatu

his suddenlybecomes uncanny; the "monster" disclaimers, Despite Werner Herzog's critics persist in using the designation andconfronted, "ro- mustbe acknowledged which mantic" to characterize the emphasisin his oftenrequires use of magicorformsofpreterfilms on the individual figure, natural rebel/quester powerthatare denigrated by the sciof dangerand adventure, his fetishizing his entific establishment- these motifs are all for bizarre and prefigured predilection fringecharacters by both cinematic expressionism his searchforthe au- and Germanliteraryromanticism, as is the mysterious landscapes, ratically image,andhisencouragement attempt to represent psychic distortions unique of a mystifyingauteur-worship technical-formal means. (Peucker; through filmis thus locatedwithin an hisHorak).The genealogyof NosfeRentschler; Herzog's of andanhomage to Murnau's toricaltradition that is densely intertextual. ratu,a remake 1922 film of the same name, pointsbeyond He draws(through Murnau) uponmotifsand these more generalized notionsto a specific a narrative structure derived fromthe romanGerman romantic legacy. Lotte Eisner's tic tale, while simultaneously alluincluding view(inTheHaunted codes of the seventeenth Screen) sions to painterly widelyaccepted that earlyGerman cinema(and andnineteenth Dutchcenturies,to theFlying expressionist Murnau in particular) representsa reformula- man myth, to horrorfilm topoi, and to eletionof German films.Herzog manromanticism, literary plusher mentsof his ownprevious of as the most narrative code in ways championing Herzog conspicu- ipulatesthe romantic ous modern heirto expressionism, lendscre- thatcollapse thedualistic framework ofromandence to sucha lineage.Though her analysis ticismandforeground ironicreversalsof the of expressionistfilm is outdatedand often patterns he invokes; intertextual markers are Eisner is accurate often disappointingly superficial, extradiegetic punctuations serving to in pointingtowardthe work of writers like make explicitHerzog'srepresentational deand Hoffmann as thematic vices within a filmic text that in Tieck,Eichendorff, ultimately, models for expressionism's obsession with AlanSinger'swords,constitutesa "complex what she calls the "demoniac": realm"(Singer Doppelgin- refusalof the supersensible of dream/fantasy/illusion gers, the interfusion 193). with reality,and the psychicprecariousness These considerations seemto ignore might of bourgeois confronted context that identity by the super- the more obviousintertextual natural. wouldincludeBramStoker's Draculaand/or In turn, the genre of the horrorfilm in myriad othervampire texts andfilms- as in fromGer- the analyses andWaller. generalhas devolved substantially Yet, byTodd,Mayne, manexpressionist The constant as Gregory Waller revifigurations. pointsout, the filmic motifs of the horror film-normality is sioningsof the vampire and mythby Murnau threatenedby the monster; the nocturnal Herzogconstitutea separateand"vastly difworldintervenesin the diurnal; the familiar ferent"kindof adaptation (177).
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At first glance, that differenceconsists lematizedin that the schemaof idealistphiem- losophyis subvertedby an emphasison the mainlyof a shift in story and character that of a psychological the devastation andpitfalls of imagphasis highlights ambiguities town and his of nature beDracula ination. The (and desire) bourgeois by plagueobjects and in a rats that come demonic (Nina Janus-faced, bringing presentsLucy revealing aspect Murnau's sac- thatcanleadthe herointothe abyssofillusion film)as a figureof redemptive, lovewhoalonevanquishes rificial the vampire. and madness, into a phantomreality that Herzogfollowsthe Murnau story line witha thwartsandmocksthe quester'smovement. few significant changes,the most obviousof Erotic fantasy is especiallydangerous.In of narrative which is the transformation of Jonathan these tales, the trajectory desire intothe "new" attheconclu- tends toward an ironiccircle,eithertrapping Harker Nosferatu or "saving" sion of the film. Both filmmakers recast the the heroin solipsistic self-imaging bourto readersof him throughrestorationof traditional story withinpatternsfamiliar values. It is this romantic Germanromantic tales. In varyingdegrees geois-Christian in many workssuchas Tieck's Eichen- mode of representation, DerRunenberg, paralleling DerTolle respectsthe patterns of English Gothic DasMarmorbild, andArnim's dorff's tales, Invalide sug- that so fascinatedcinematicexpressionism auf demFortRatonneau provide a narrative gestive models.It maybe usefulat thispoint andthatcanbe seen as constituting to sketchout some of the relevant aspectsof modelforNosferatu. is particularly the German romantic and the corTieck'sTheRuneMountain "project" mode of the ro- illuminating. HisheroChristian becomesrestresponding representational flatland mantictale beforecontinuing the discussion less in the realmof the all-too-familiar film. withits domesticity androutine, its enclosure of Herzog's to an roman- of familyand community. The centralideasof earlyGerman Responding in of is alien and evolved the nexus Fichteinner call that which ticism, familiar, yet urgently around Friedrich 1797-1800, he leaves for the lonelinessof the mountain Schlegel-Novalis in the regulative were concentrated idealof forest.InTieck's schemeChristian forbinary of for as the of "world" sakes the role that of "huntself-Bildung "gardner" autoproduction the imaginative work,driven bySehn- er";in this contextthe "garden" through represents sucht toward an ever-elusivetranscendent simultaneously the cultivated connectedness 47-51). of bourgeoisorder as well as desire concompletion(Lacoue-Labarthe/Nancy In narrativeform (the paradigmatic model strainedwithinwhat Tieck calls the "circles von Ofterdingen), it of repetitive habituation." The "forest" constiHeinrich being Novalis's is presented as quest-romance, the dialectical tutesa site of confrontation withtheimagesof movementof the hero'sstrivingimagination the isolated self'slonging. The transition from in a series of conscious- one state to the other is marked toward individuation by naturemomentsthat ap- imagesof rupture andimminent chaos:dizzyness-expanding epiphanic and "spiritualize" nature.The ob- ing precipices,rushing mountain streamsacpropriate a companying anascentintodisorienting wilderjects of natureare hieroglyphs signifying numinous value ness. This partof the journeyculminates in spherethatcarriesnormative andimpliestheodicy, un- a meetingwiththe "stranger," whohenceforth thoughthis is finally attainable.The narrativerepresentation of figuresas a shape-shifting avatar of the hero's this process of desire remainsnecessarilya desire. The encounteris characterized by a in but can be of idealform is in erotic that illicit the fragment figured, Novalis's fantasy istic and optimistic in as the endless the case of Christian narrative, bourgeoisflatlands; of consciousness it is the fascination with the (Kuzniar "upward" spiral (voyeuristic)
seductive black-hairedAmazon who resides 72-80). In the Kunstmirchen of romantics like in the imaginaryrune castle. Like the castle Tieck and Hoffmannthe quest becomes prob- itself, which alternates in Christian'smodes

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tablet.Christian of seeing betweenruinand resplendent pal- her giftto himof a bejeweled woman canappear (later)in drifts againinto forest and madness,finally ace, the Amazon forgood andflatland "flatland" Christian's community only as a leaving family imagination in a delusionary searchfor the fiery sparkle hideoushag. Thisdeviceofinversion, as dialec- of gold in commonstones that he collects deployed of (again the binary inversion tical movementbetween representations discussed implying the the and gardenitreality fantasythroughout narrative, above).Meanwhile, bourgeois is central to German romanticism withstand the cursethatChristian andis repro- self cannot ducedwith greatfrequency disinteby expressionist bringsbackwith him;the household broken filmmakers fascinated withthe cinema's and death, fire, magic grates, apartby geninthisregard. InEichendorff's The eral decline. capabilities Marble Statuethe hero Florian is repeatedly The superior forceof feminine love, often lured away from the daytimecontext of a alignedwith courageous religiousfaith, can and civilizedfestivities act as a counterforce to the male quester's Christian community nocturnal at aniso- demonic andcanrestorethe ruptured intosolitary auto-imaging fantasy latedforest site where the ancientruinof a communal/domestic order.InArnim's MadInwife Rosalie who, untempleof Venus,togetherwith its statueof valid,it is Francoeur's the love goddess, "comesalive." The seduc- like the caricatured, impotentpriest, exortive illusionconstitutesa powerfulresidue cises her husband's "possession by the devil" froman "alien" se- throughher unflinching ascent into the forpaganculture,awakening cret desirethatcanbe exorcisedonlyby the tress of his delirium.One of the popular of communal reassertion faith andthe promise romantic variants of thismotifthatfindsresoof marriage to a "real" maiden. nancewiththe Murnau/Herzog films bourgeois vampire of Herethe characteristic the inveris the of the made quality legend FlyingDutchman, sionshould inbothtales, the famousin the versionsof HeineandWagner: be underscored: objectof desireas wellas the site of fantasy the curseof immortality restinguponthe capcastle alternate of the or tain (the production temple) phantom shipcanbe liftedonlyby betweenthe lifeless(or decrepit),subjectto a woman's love. pure andthe (erotically) ThatMurnau andHerzogreproduce vivified,figtemporality, many ured as inhabiting an archetypal, of these atemporal patternsin theirfilms seems clear realm.The alluring imagethenrevealsitself, enough. In the first part of both films the as a figureof death-in-life, of steril- narrative Harker's ironically, presentsJonathan passage ity,of artifice posingas life- butcanbe seen from flatlandcommunityand comfortable as such onlyby a returnto those "circles of domesticity intothe mountain realmof Trana journeythat is simultaneously an that, becauseof their sylvania, repetitivehabituation" constraints upon desire, drive the hero re- entranceinto a psychicrealmof dangerous backintothe forestfantasy. Inmany phantoms andof illusions. Murnau this peatedly signals romantictales- particularly the use of cinematic devices:inserHoffmann's- through the infection fromthe fantasy realmis incura- tion of negativefootageto makethe forest the hero in a dream," to use seem white and ghostly;a stop-motion seble, "stranding Bruce Kawin's on Nosferatu quence that renders the movementof the apt formulation in The Rune phantomcoach unnaturally (45). This is true of Christian rapidand jerky. Mountain: he attemptsto eschew the mad- Herzogavoids suchdevices,choosing instead ness of "Waldeinsamkeit" a return to to Harker's with ominthe through accompany passage the gardencommunity andits domesticizing oustwo-chord chant thatfunctions throughout
structures. But the "stranger"reappears as a guest in the household, carrying with him a bag of gold coins whose sparkle is an incessant reminderto Christianof the Amazonand the film as a leitmotif of the living dead. He does, however, "quote" Murnau'sfinal shot of a hilltopcastle ruin, an echo of early romantic inversion. In both portrayals Jonathan

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as a formof modem initialmeetingwith CountDracula canitselfbe interpreted Harker's is followed and insofar as it tends to limn byimprisonment victimization, "romantic irony" in the the exigenciesof narrative as an ever-becomwith strong homoeroticimplications in to make scene room. and HerJonathan's explicitrepresentablood-sucking ing process the gardner/hunter dichoto- tion as construct and as auto-production zog recapitulates reflection that (Lacoue-Labarthe/Nancy 39-58). myinthe vampire's melancholy In Herzog'sfilm there is no demarcation will understand the soul dwellers never "city of the hunter." and supernatural. Jonathan's escape between natural Herzog's subsequent to Bremen/Wismar is too naturescenes are mysterious,but they are andheadlong return drawn to the city by the pros- so in their sheer physicalityand are not late; Dracula, of delicate whiteneck, has emblematic.For example,in the sequence pect Nina/Lucy's the Tothedegree showing ascent to the summitof Jonathan's ravaged community. already that Dracula can be interpreted as a Doppel- the Borgopass thereareno markers suggestone couldsaythat inga "demonic" nature,no phantoms, ghostly ginger figureforJonathan, himselfhas loosed the curse of the forest, or wolves. To be sure, there are the Jonathan vampire uponwifeandtown.Inbothfilmsthe rushingstreamsand steep cliffs that in the deathinvolves a romantic inversion: early romantictale marked the quester's vampire's of a figureof supernatural transition, the transformation but thereis no enchantment. The intonothingness sequencealludes to the romantic force anderoticmagnetism context,and orintoa grotesquely contorted shell it does so in specificintertextual (Murnau) ways, such about of a C. D. Friedrich (Herzog), brought bythepowerofNina/ as the evocation painting, a shot that silhouttesJonathan love. at dusk, his Lucy'sself-sacrificing filmsoundsmanynotes back to the camera,lookingout uponwhat ThoughHerzog's vista. tale, his we assume to be a sublimemountain along the register of the romantic discourse in fact accomplishessomething Butthe medium shotdoesnotallow low-angle rather different. The olderromantic taleoper- us to see whatJonathan sees. Similarly, when ates on the philosophical basis of idealistic the cameratracksupslopeto the accompanidualism andan implied and shows the theodicy;even when ment of Wagner's Rheingold the dualismis blurredand the theodicyis ruinsof a castle, we recognizethe quotation transcendent realm of Murnau's finalshot, but Herzoggives us thwarted,the longed-for carriesnormative value as a "postulated or no reaction shot. Harker movespassively, as intuitedidealunity," and the strivingtoward ifbenumbed, this of beauty through landscape its realization is itself made into a virtue and alwaysimminent illusion;indeed, from For there is no otherthe of film the he is presentedas (Brown46). Herzog beginning and no dualism that would one who is "blind." wordly reality point Despitethe ominous portoward a numinoussphere; there is con- tents of the "chantof the dead" and the sequently no dialectic of narrativedesire majestyof the Rheingold, Herzogresolutely withinthe diegesisof the film.The narrative seals off Jonathan fromany interaction with is flattened made and its or of awareness an environment filled with out, static, spiral mostaptsymbolis the wellknown romantic Thus the Herzogian suggestiveness. "passage" circleof futility. is ironic;the quester'sidentityis deflated. Furthermore, discourse,despite The scene that conveys this perhapsmost Herzog's the recurring illusion of immediacy andspon- acutelyis the one in which,afterJonathan's revealsthe problematics fallfromthe castlewindow, a littlegypsyboy taneity,consistently refrain on his fiddle of portrayal the foregrounding of his scratchesout a repetitive through
representational devices and thereby produces spectator awareness of even his most mysterious nature scenes as "artifactual" (Singer 194). To a degree this problematizing over the unconscious Jonathan-a "musical" mockery that, when taken as ironic counterpoint to the preceding "sublime"music, has an effect similarto the shot of castle ruins.

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The entireJonathan narrative canbe seen tine. The "canalsthat circle back on themto escapefrom selves"typifythisenclosed,conventionalized offutileattempts as repetitions thatare, in actual- world:it is "stilllife"--or, to use the even diverseformsof enclosure morte."In un- more apt Frenchterm, "nature of self-enclosure. Jonathan ity, variations in the other words, Wismaris alreadythe virtual dertakesthe journeyto Transylvania of Dracula foroncefromthese canals landof the livingdead;the arrival desireto "getaway thispotential. that circlebackon themselves," a stagnation andhisratsconcretize Jonathan of Wismar and that mirrorshis own solipsism;his meeting movesbetweenthe stagnation of the Castle both the withDracula andhissubsequent site Dracula; vampirization stagnation are revealedto be andimprisonment constitute a mergerof simi- andfigureof the vampire andhis"escape" from the not the aliendemonic otherbutratherforms larsterileidentities, castlebackto Wismar reverseshisear- of doubled sameness. merely fromthe townonfoot, onhorselier"escape" Judith Maynemisses this pointwhen she The apparent linearmove- asserts that "Herzogshows us the journey back,by carriage. ment-and the corresponding of boundaries. In spectatorial as a definitive crossing-over of kind of some one leaves the 'self' behind teleology-in Herzog's journey, expectation as circu- to embrace these transitional scenes is revealed anidentity founded on'otherness' larfutility. AndwhileHerzog's ending appears . . . this is a world where the lines between to suggesta reading ofJonathan as a demonic dream and waking, between passion and man of action, this, too, is illusory.At the reason,betweenmysticism andmaterialism, film's onceagain this are absolutely drawn" end,Jonathan (123). "escapes," time fromLucy'scrumbled sacrament wafer. WhatMayneattributes to Herzogis pre"Ihavemuchto do now," he says as he rides ciselywhathe does not do. Rather, he shows off on his horse acrossan apocalyptic tundra us "narratives of circularity" and"time as degSanc- radation" thecircu(Elsaesser156).He allows accompanied bythe strainsof Gounod's tus. This is a highly ironicmise en scine, no lartrapof the symbolic world (inthe Lacanian less so thanthe megalomaniac circled sense) to subsumethe quester'smovement Aguirre onhis monkey-laden raft.Jona- so that the hero is alwaysreturnedto the by the camera thanhasnowtaken ontheburden ofparasitical absurdity of routine.Thus Herzog's"quest" in deathlessnesslamented Count Dracula to be the exactopposite ofthe romanby appears theirearlierconversation. "Can tic is accurate: youimagine," quest, if Bloom'sdefinition KlausKinski's enervated Dracula "The of all Romantic weary, says goal quest is the overto his visitor,"enduring centuriesand each comingof Selfhood[Blake'scategory], the the same futilities?" There turningaway from falsely raised gods and dayexperiencing is no evidencethatthe "new" willbe numinous Dracula of powersand the transcendence different fromthe old. alienation and love" through imagination (Kipbetween permann workanymoments 116).InHerzog's Herzogcollapsesthe dichotomy andmoun- of sublation are eithermissingor illusory. His city dwellerandhunter,flatlands tains. It is notJonathan alonewho seems to narrativesensibilitycomes closer to what be leading a programmed, sterilelife;the en- W. P. Day describesas the "circlesof fear tire town of Wismar appearsalwayson the and desire"of the EnglishGothic,in which staticandimmobile is "themanifes(Waller anysense of the supernatural vergeof becoming butof chaos 200). Herzoghas saidthathe chose the town tation,notof transcendent order, of Delft as his majorlocationbecauseof its anddisruption," mirror of our i.e., a distorted and orderliness.In own temporal bourgeoisrespectability form, reality.Gothicnarrative
the first part of the film, shot selection in the town tends towardthe light, white, andmonochromatic, but at the same time it conveys a sense of stagnation, of life sacrificed to rouDay argues, subverts the notion that "action may result in progress or even bring about change . . . Actioncan never be progressive, only circular"(44).

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then- as the singleperHer- threatof the undead, as futility, Evenif the questis negated son who "knows the source of allthisevil"still a form offers Murnauzog--following the vampire. and of the of romantic acknowledging confronting through figure redemption in instructions the book of She follows the Dracula to Wismar. Lucy.She drawsCount at side until and Dracula her the the As in Murnau's film, vampires keeps vampiresigns in a the sea dawn. Here Herzog emulatesMurnau andundertakes realestate agreement that resonates with has after he seen lockJonathan's simultaneously gesture journey only of female andwith motifs a pictureof his wife. Forboth romantic et containing redemption horror movieclosures:the "monster" Murnau andHerzogthereis aneroticconnec- familiar scientific tion between the vampireand Nina/Lucy. is defeatednot by official mentality or believerin "superin Herzog's filmit is notjust Lucy's but by the lone initiate However, desire. stition."In psychoanalytic terms, the specbodyandbloodthatarousethe Count's in a Evenmore,it is herlove,portrayed byHerzog tator of the horrormovie participates the monster as a strongvitalizing processin whichkilling energy,an emotionof cathartic the demoncanmeanvicariously force andfearlessness.It is this vitalitythat or exorcizing wish or fear an unacknowleged Dracula wishes to share and that he has al- confronting on while in the act of symbolically bythe nightmare represented ready felt telepathically bloodin his castle. Thus the screen (Kawin,1984 [13]). Whatdoes suckingJonathan's Heractdoesindeed between Draculaand Lucy Lucyactually the relationship accomplish? a release- butnotofherhusband and Lucyas well) is bring about (andbetweenJonathan and from the curse, not of the town from the thatbetweenlackandabundance, sterility the psy- plague, and not of the spectatorfrom the vitality.Herzog'sfilm deconstructs from Rather,it releases Dracula choanalyticnotion of phallic priority and nightmare. is with Dracula's the curse of him which associated and immortality propels into plenitude, of femalesin othervampire a painfully human eroticdomination face death,withthe Count's texts. the contortions of some of the mummirroring Withthe arrival of Dracula andthe return mies seen in the beginning of the film. ofJonathan to Wismar, becomes the axis sacrificial death is not the instruLucy Lucy's which She is actor of a round turns. the ment unlike that of hercountereverything theodicy; and the mover,the knowingone who con- part,Murnau's Nina,her act does notrestore founds boththe vampire andDr.Van Helsing's the communal bourgeoisorder,nor does it forthe spectator sciencewithher "be- function as a cathartic resolu"enlightened" pedantic lief."Whatconstitutesthis belief?It is not a tion. Still, Herzog'sLucy offers a modelof belief "in"anything at all, certainlynot in a sheer stubborn the kindthatHerzog vitality, "far when so often celebrates.Her emotional god,whomshe sees as always away integrity we need him." It has littleto do withreligion andher capacity inher imagiforpersevering andeven very littleto do withJonathan. It is, native beliefinthemidstofdeath andchaosare in Lucy's words(taken almost ver- neverdiminished. Toward the endof the film, paradoxical batimfromStoker)"the amazing humanca- as Lucy is walkingthroughplague-stricken surrounded pacitythat makes it possiblefor us to see Wismar by the dyinganddrunken The state- citizens, she comes upona groupof people thingsthat we knoware untrue." ment constitutes a kindof modern credo quia dressedin elegantfineryseatedat a tablelaid absurdum. The earlierromantics wouldhave outwitha sumptuous to banquet. Impervious calledit the capacity forcreative of rats milling abouttheirfeet, fantasynec- the hundreds "We essary for the redemptionof the prosaic they ask Lucyto jointhem, explaining,
world. WithinHerzog'sdiscourse Lucy's"see- all have the plague. Now, for the first time, ing" what is "untrue"("untrue,"that is, ac- we rejoice in every day that remains for us." cording to rationalistideology) involves first This existential celebration of life, nourishdreaming the collective nightmare of the ment, and temporalityin the face of fullaware-

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whenit suddenly strikes ness of imminent death,withits overtonesof is atits mostappalling It is thisexistentialmemento mori and carpediem, is an arch- the lifethatis yet unlived. of the in the chorale ist motifthatis sounded Herzogian gesture. The banquetscene in the town squareis deadandthat linkscatacomb mummies,the Thehorof Wismar, andDracula. set in contrastto an earliershot in Dracula's townspeople afterhis arrival, castle:on the morning Jona- rorandpainexpressedin the mummified figof the film is that of thanawakes to anemptyandlocked-up castle; ures at the beginning without he finds, in place of the Countwho is now peoplecaught unawares, preparation, in a sudden in or a table seducas a natural in his native earth, catastrophesnoozing of the plague.Dracula's owndeathis tively laid out with variousfoods and fresh outbreak versionof the same phenomefruits. Whilethe camerapans slowlyacross an intensified someonewhohas another of Herzog's it, we recognize "painter- non,violently transforming imitation ly" compositions,a replicaof seventeenth- just engagedin a sterile,repetitious of love-making into a grotesqueshell. From centurystill-life painting. Herzogcrownsthe table with an upright this perspective one could interpret the imitation "chantof the dead" as a kind of musical stuffedrooster,a perfecttaxidermic famouspainting"The of life thatis itself an intertextual echo from analogueto Munch's within theidiosyncratic oeuvre:the Scream"--a leitmotiffor what Lucy calls Herzogian chicken noire.Ina 1976interview with "nameless, fear"(or,inthe famous as bUte deadening Kraft Wetzel, Herzog explains, "Chickens lines from CasparHauser,"thatscreaming me. I was the firstto showthatchick- that people call silence").This, for Herzog, frighten ens are cannibalistic and horrible.Whatis is the "curseof Nosferatu thatlies uponmanmostfrightening aboutthemis whenyoulook kind";it is his version of the state of the What horror J. P.Telottesaysabout directlyinto their eyes: what looks back at "undead." you is dullness,death and dullness. It's so moviesis particularly fittinghere: the horror becauseit'ssucha totally unfathom- we feel toward the monstrous world terrifying depicted I don'tbelievein the devil, I is, afterall, a revulsion dullness. able toward lifelessness,a believeonlyin dullness" reactionagainstinertiaand sterility,against (113). "Dullness" is the pervasive lifedrained of value,against humans reduced ("Dummheit") evilthathaunts an to This world, emptiness notion,in turn, Herzog's objects(Telotte25). at the heart of things, embodied for him in linksus again withHoffmann's with automata, the blankeyes of the chicken.The horrific Tieck'sisolated,solipsistic and with figures, fowlshowsupinSignsofLife,EvenDwarves, the coldmarble andinertmatteralwayslurkStarted Heartof Glass ing behind the bewitching of GerSmall,Caspar Hauser, projections in what is no doubt its most man romantic heroes. and, excruciating as the perfectly arIn this film at least, Herzog's"romantiappearance, programmed cadechicken toward the endofStroszek. While cism"does not consistof a glorification of the the hundredsof rats that Herzogimported lonemaleiconoclast, as Timothy has Corrigan into the alarmed town of Delft provided him asserted. Herzog presents romantic"striva scenariofor his obsessionwith physically ing"as a formof self-delusion; he invokes the thatrepro- questerpatternwhilehe simultaneously expresent, "reallife"confrontations duce his filmicvision(recounted andits movement by Walker), poses its desireas blindness stillit is the stuffed roosterthatfiguresas the as stasis. The frequent allusions to romantic of thatperverse motifsserve to placespectator more appropriate awareness in metaphor undercut atemporality represented by the vampire. a terrainof ironically anticipations.
"Deathis not the worst,"says Dracula.Worse is the life lived in "dullness"and daily futility, without love; "the absence of love is the most abject pain,"Dracula tells Lucy. Death itself This unmaskingof the supernaturaland the demonic is itself a Germanromanticgesture, with the crucialdistinctionthat Herzog'sinversions involve no alternativeidealisticsignifica-

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tions. Rather, they are aimedat a celebration of temporal,absurdreality.There remains, finally,only the stubborn vitalityof quixotic will to act on the of Lucy's exigencies personal visionwithin the precariousness of a worldin one as she we all which, says, may daywake in to find ourselves straightjackets. up

Kipperman,Mark. Beyond Enchantment:German Idealism and EnglishRomantic Poetry. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1986. in Novalis Alice.Delayed Nonclosure Kuzniar, Endings: and H1lderlin. Athens:U of Georgia P, 1987. Lacoue-Labarthe, Phillipe,and Jean-LucNancy. The Absolute. State U of New YorkP, Literary Albany: 1978;1980. Murnau The andthe Vampire." Judith. Mayne, "Herzog, Filmsof Werner 119-32. Herzog. in Questof the SubPeucker, Herzog: Brigitte."Werner lime." New German Filmmakers. Ed. KlausPhillips. WorksCited New York: Ungar,1984.168-94. TheShapeof German Romanticism. Rentschler, Eric."ThePolitics of Vision: Heart Brown,Marshall. Herzog's TheFilmsof Werner Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1979. of Glass." Herzog.159-82. In theCircles Werner Patrick. of Fearand Desire. Singer, Alan. "Comprehending Day,William Appearances: The FilmsofWernerHerzog. Ironic Sublime." U of Chicago P, 1985. Herzog's Chicago: 183-205. Eisner, Lotte. The HauntedScreen. Berkeley:U of and Idolatry in the HorrorFilm." California P, 1952;1973. Telotte,J. P. "Faith the "An Planksof Reason.21-37. Thomas. Elsaesser, Eye: Where Anthropologist's TheEnglishNovel TheFilmsof Werner Green AntsDream." Ed. Todd,Janet."TheClassicVampire." Herzog. New York: andtheMovies. Ed. Michael Klein andGillian Parker. Methuen,1986. 133Corrigan. Timothy 56. New York: Ungar,1981.197-210. H. ortheMysteries "Werner ofWalk- Walker, Horak, Beverly. Nosferatu." Herzog's Sightand Jan-Christopher. "W. 23-42. Sound(Autumn 1970):202-05. ing on Ice."TheFilmsof Werner Herzog. A. TheLivingandtheUndead. Film Quarterly(Spring Waller, Urbana: Kawin, Bruce. "Nosferatu." Gregory U of Illinois P, 1986. 1980):45-47. "The Mummy's Pool." Planks of Wetzel, Kraft. "Interview." Ed. Herzog/Kluge/Straub. Reason: Film. Ed. BarryKeith Peter W. Jansen and Wolfram Schuitte.Munich: Essayson theHorror 1984.3-20. 1976.113-30. Grant.Metuchen: Scarecrow, Hanser,