Nosferatu
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| Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens | |
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 A promotional film poster for Nosferatu |
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| Directed by | F. W. Murnau |
| Produced by | Enrico Dieckmann Albin Grau |
| Written by | Bram Stoker Henrik Galeen |
| Starring | Max Schreck Gustav von Wangenheim Greta Schröder Alexander Granach Georg H. Schnell Ruth Landshoff John Gottowt |
| Cinematography | Fritz Arno Wagner Günther Krampf |
| Distributed by |  Film Arts Guild |
| Release date(s) |  4 March 1922 3 June 1929 |
| Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | Silent film German intertitles |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Nosferatu is a German Expressionist film by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok. Its original German title is Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens ("Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror"). The film, shot in 1921 and released in 1922, was in essence an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel (for instance, "vampire" became "Nosferatu", and Count Dracula became Count Orlok).
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[edit] Cast
- Max Schreck as Count Orlok (Count Dracula)
- Alexander Granach as Knock (Renfield)
- Gustav von Wangenheim as Thomas Hutter (Jonathan Harker)
- Greta Schröder as Ellen Hutter (Mina Harker)
- Georg H. Schnell as Mr. Harding (Westenra)
- Ruth Landshoff as Ruth Harding (Lucy Westenra)
- John Gottowt as Professor Bulwer (Abraham Van Helsing)
- Gustav Botz as Dr. Sievers (Jack Seward)
- Max Nemetz as the Captain of Demeter
- Wolfgang Heinz as First Mate of Demeter
[edit] Plot
Thomas Hutter is an employee at a real estate firm in Wismar, Germany, happily living with Ellen, his wife. One day, his employer, Knock, receives a mysterious letter, written in strange symbols. Knock decides to send him to visit Count Orlok in the Carpathian Mountains to finalize the sale of a house. Hutter leaves his wife with his good friend Harding and his wife Ruth before embarking on his multiple-month journey.
Close to his final destination, Hutter boards at an inn, where the locals become frightened at the mere mention of Orlok's name, and discourage him from traveling to his castle during the night. In his room at the inn, Hutter finds a book entitled The Book of the Vampires, which he disregards before falling asleep.
Hutter is left to finish his journey on foot after his hired driver refuses to pass the bridge to the castle. However, he is soon picked up by Count Orlok's coach, which is driven by a strange specter that hides its face, and moves at an unnatural speed. At his arrival at the castle, whose doors open by themselves, he is welcomed by Count Orlok. His grotesque facial features hidden at this stage by his hat, Orlock initially appears to be a mere eccentric gentleman. Hutter has dinner at the castle; Orlok refuses to eat and silently reads a letter. A bell rings at midnight and a startled Hutter cuts his thumb. Count Orlok tries to suck the blood out of the wound, before being repelled by a cross hanging around Hutter's neck. Hutter falls asleep in the parlor after a conversation with Orlok.
Hutter wakes up to an empty castle with fresh wounds on his neck, which he attributes to mosquitoes. That night he is joined by Orlok and they sign the documents for the sale of the house facing Hutter's. Hutter finds The Book of the Vampires in his luggage and starts to suspect that Orlok is a nosferatu. He tries to hide in his bedroom as midnight approaches. However, the closed door opens by itself and Orlok comes in, his true nature revealed. At the same time, Ellen sleepwalks and is found by Harding in a comatose state, screaming for Hutter. Her screams stop Orlok, who leaves Hutter untouched.
Waking up, Hutter explores the castle and its crypt. He finds a coffin, where Orlok is resting in a dormant state. Paralyzed with fear and the sheer sight of the nosferatu, he dashes back to his room, where he witnesses Orlok piling up coffins on a coach and climbing into the last one before the coach leaves. Hutter escapes the castle through the window, but is knocked unconscious when he falls and hits the ground. Meanwhile, the coffins are shipped down a river on a raft.
Next, Hutter is at a hospital after his flight from the castle. The coffins are put into a large boat, after the crew sees that they are full of soil and rats. In a psychiatric yard, Knock is in a confinement cell where he eats flies and tries to bite the neck of his doctor. Hutter decides to leave the hospital to warn his town against Orlok. In his cell, Knock steals a newspaper with news of a new plague, which causes him to rejoice. The sailors on the boat carrying the coffins get sick and soon, all but two are dead. One of them decides to destroy the coffins, which are now crawling with rats. However, Orlok wakes up and confronted with this vision, the sailor jumps into the sea. The captain ties himself to his ship's wheel. Orlok is the new master of the boat.
The ship arrives. Orlok leaves it unseen in one of his coffins, quickly followed by the rats. Knock escapes from his cell. Hutter also arrives in Germany. Next morning, the ship is inspected and it appears empty, except for the dead captain with wound marks on his neck. The logbook of the ship is found, the doctors realize they are dealing with plague. The town is stricken with panic. Ellen reads the book of vampires, despite Hutter's forbidding. She learns how to kill a vampire: a woman pure in heart must make him forget the rooster's first crowing. The town is flooded with corpses and its people chase Knock, mistaking him for a vampire.
Orlok stares from his window at the sleeping Ellen. She opens her window to invite him in but faints. As Hutter leaves to get help, Orlok comes in. He drinks her blood and forgets about the dawning day. A rooster crows and Orlok goes up in smoke as he tries to escape. The last image of the movie is Orlok's castle in the Carpathian Mountains where a woman stares out the window with a blank expression on her face.
[edit] Production
[edit] Deviations from the novel
The story of Nosferatu is similar to that of Dracula, although the first official film version of the story would not be made until 1931. Nosferatu retains the core characters — Jonathan and Mina Harker, the Count, Dr. Seward, etc. — but weeds out many of the secondary players, such as Lucy and Abraham Van Helsing. All the characters' names were changed as well (although in some recent releases of this film by companies profiting off the public domain status of the original film, the written dialog screens have been changed to use the Dracula versions of the names).
In contrast to Dracula, Orlok does not make any other vampires but brings with him the plague, which ravages the city. Also, Orlok must sleep by day, as sunlight would kill him.
The ending is also substantially different from that of Dracula. Count Orlok (Dracula) is ultimately destroyed at sunrise when the "Mina" character sacrifices herself to him. The time frame of the story is significantly earlier: according to the logbook of the ship captain, it takes place in 1838, while Dracula takes place in the 1890s.
[edit] Influences
This was the first and last Prana-Film GmbH film — the company declared bankruptcy after Bram Stoker's estate, acting for his widow, Florence Stoker, sued for copyright infringement and won. The court ordered all existing prints of Nosferatu destroyed, but copies of the film had already been distributed around the world. These prints were then copied over the years, helping Nosferatu gain its current reputation as one of the greatest movie adaptations of the vampire legend.
With the influence of producer and production designer Albin Grau, the film established one of two main depictions of film vampires. The "Nosferatu-type" is a living corpse with rodent features (especially elongated fingernails and incisors), associated with rats and plague, and neither charming nor erotic but rather totally repugnant. The victims usually die and are not turned into vampires themselves. The more common archetype is the "Dracula-type" (established by Bela Lugosi's version of Dracula and perpetuated by Christopher Lee), a charming aristocrat adept at seduction and whose bite turns his victims into new vampires.
Parts of the film depicting Transylvania were in fact filmed in Slovakia. Nosferatu's castle, for instance, is Orava Castle in northern Slovakia, and other locations are in the High Tatras and on the Váh River around Strečno Castle.
Murnau's Nosferatu is in the public domain, and copies of the movie are widely available on video (usually as poorly transferred, faded, scratched video copies that are often scorned by enthusiasts). However, pristine restored editions of the film have also been made available, and are also readily accessible to the public.
The film was remade in 1979 as Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, which was directed by Werner Herzog.
[edit] Origins of the name
The original meaning of the word nosferatu is difficult to determine. There is no doubt that it achieved popular currency through Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, and Stoker identified his source for the term as the 19th-century British author and speaker Emily Gerard. Gerard introduced the word into print in a book chapter ("Transylvanian Superstitions"; published 1885) and in her travelogue The Land Beyond the Forest (1888) (Transylvania's English translation).
The word itself does not mean "the undead" or "vampire", as is popularly thought. Theories regarding its etymology link it either to the Greek nosophoros (νοσοφορος; "plague-carrier"), or the Romanian nesuferitul ("the insufferable one").
[edit] Cultural references
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[edit] In film and television
- 1972 – Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires When Dracula (John Forbes-Robertson) awakes, the lid of his sarcopghogus opens by itself, and Dracula rises like a wooden plank on a hinge, à la Schreck in Nosferatu.
- 1989 - Woody Allen's segment in the movie New York Stories has Woody Allen mimicking Nosferatu's famous entrance, after a particularly stressful reappearance by Woody's character's mother.
- 1991 – The vampire Radu from the Subspecies series of films has visual cues from Nosferatu, including the grotesque white face, and over-long fingers and nails.
- 1993 - The Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode "Midnight Madness" revolves around an eccentric filmmaker who has retitled the film Nosferatu: The Demon Vampire and added a plot twist: "In my version, the vampire wins!" Nosferatu proceeds to come to life and run amok in the movie theater.
- 1997 – The Master, the villain throughout the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was visually based on Nosferatu, having long nails, large bat-like ears, and a bald white head. In the Angel episode "Why We Fight" there is also a Nosferatu-looking vampire, known as the Prince of Lies, on board a submarine, though it is implied he is actually supposed to be Count Orlok.
- 2000 – In the Friends episode "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry", Phoebe's sister, Ursula Buffay using Phoebe's name, starred as Buffay the Vampire Layer in a porn video. In the video, she refers to the male vampire character as 'Nosferatool', a play on his original name.
- 2000 – A Hollywood movie called Shadow of the Vampire told a fictional story of the making of Nosferatu, imagining that actor Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) was himself a genuine vampire, and that director F. W. Murnau (John Malkovich) was complicit in hiring the creature for the purposes of realism.
- 2000 – In an episode of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, the story revolves around an energy vampire named "NOS-4-A2", a play on the word Nosferatu.
- 2002 - In the end of the Spongebob Squarepants episode "Graveyard Shift" the reason for the lights flickering on and off is because Nosferatu is turning the flicker on and off.
- 2005 – General Grievous, a new Star Wars villain, is based on various aspects of Nosferatu. Rob Coleman (one of the top VFX workers on Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) when speaking about movements for the character is quoted as saying, "In fact, we talked about Fagin as well as classic vampire movies, including Nosferatu."
- 2006 – The character Uta Refson (Erica Cerra) [Nosferatu backwards] is introduced in the series The L Word. Uta Refson is shown to have a bony figure, very intense eyes, long sharp fangs and finger-nails, a casual avoidance of being seen in mirrors, exceptional stamina, a preference to only go out at night, an aversion to discussing religion and far greater strength than her body suggests.
[edit] In music
In addition to other works inspired by Nosferatu, the film and its variant of the vampire legend has had a significant influence in music, including musicals and, particularly, Gothic rock and death metal. The following list of references is by no means comprehensive.
- 1922–1929 – American composer Aaron Copland's first ballet, Grohg, has a plot loosely based on and inspired by Nosferatu, involving a vampiric necromancer who brings his victims back to life. Copland adapted music from the ballet (which was never staged) into his Dance Symphony of 1929.
- 1977 – The narrative song Nosferatu closes the album Spectres by Blue Öyster Cult.
- 1979 – 'Nosferatu' was the title of an album by The Stranglers' lead-singer/guitarist Hugh Cornwell and Captain Beefheart percussionist Robert Williams.
- 1987 – Nosferatu is the name of a song on the album R.I.P. by Coroner.
- 1988 – UK based Gothic Rock band Nosferatu is formed, heavily influenced by classic horror, vampires, and vampyre subculture.
- 1991 - "Nosferatu Man" is a song by the rock band Slint, appearing on their critically-acclaimed second album, Spiderland.
- 1994 - Nosferatu the Vampire, is a concept album and musical by Bernard J. Taylor.
- 1994 - German black metal band Moonblood released a demo-tape titled Nosferatu, with cover art taken directly from the film.
- 1995 – Illbient group Liminal released a soundtrack for the film; the recording was improvised as accompanying music when the film was screened at the Knitting Factory in New York City.[1]
- 1996 – The Detroit-based horror rap group House of Krazees release a song called Nosferatu about the vampire of the film.
- 1998 – German experimental krautrock band Faust releases Faust Wakes Nosferatu, an accompaniment or alternative soundtrack to the film. The vinyl and CD editions of the record, however, contain completely different music.
- 1999 – The Swedish progressive metal band Evergrey has a track on their 1999 album Solitude, Dominance, Tragedy titled Nosferatu.
- 2000 - Canadian alternative musician Nash the Slash debuts his new soundtrack for the film.
- 2001 – The American groove metal band God Forbid had a song entitled Nosferatu which is thematically based around the character of Count Orlock/Nosferatu.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Nosferatu at Google Video
- Download Nosferatu from the Internet Archive
- A comparison of Nosferatu DVD releases
- A long discussion of Nosferatu's restoration, along with another comparison of DVD releases
- Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens at the Internet Movie Database
- Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht at the Internet Movie Database
- Nosferatu a Venezia at the Internet Movie Database
- Nosferatu at FilmSpot
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| German films: Der Knabe in Blau (1919) Prinz Kuckuck (1919) • Der Januskopf (1920) • Satanas (1920) • Sehnsucht (1920) • Der Gang in die Nacht (1920) • Der Bucklige und die Tänzerin (1920) • Schloß Vogelöd (1921) • Marizza (1922) • Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) • Phantom (1922) • Der Brennende Acker (1922) • Die Austreibung (1923) • Der letzte Mann (1924) • Die Finanzen des Großherzogs (1924) • Herr Tartüff (1926) • Faust (1926) • American films: Sunrise (1927) • Four Devils (1928) • City Girl (1930) • Tabu (1931) |
