Adventures on the Set of Werner Herzog’s 'Nosferatu'

The scene is recollected like a dream: I am standing barefoot in the middle of a poor Czechoslovak farmer’s hut, dressed in a nun’s robe of white silk, surrounded by gypsies. Next to me is Dominique, the very serious make-up assistant, playing a doctor and next to him is a real actor, Bruno Ganz, perspiring and ashen. He is supposedly ill, having fallen from Count Dracula’s castle while escaping, and indeed he looks rather ill. Across from us are the farmer and his wife, looking like a portrait by Thomas Hart Benton, and in my mind are passing images already committed to celluloid: Klaus Kinski running across a square, his emerald green cape fluttering behind him like the wings of a primeval insect; Isabelle Adjani staring sadly from a window; Jacques Dufilho, strapped to the wheel of his death-boat, floating mysteriously into harbour.