Nosferatu the Vampire

Nosferatu, a symphony of terror is a silent film German of 1922, carried out by Friedrich W. Murnau.

Synopsis

To Wismar in 1838 (and not to Bremen as implies it the French version), Thomas Hutter, a young clerk of real estate agent having made a happy marriage with Ellen, must leave in Transylvania in order to sell a property to the Count Orlok which wishes to have a residence in the city. After a tour on an umber, the young man is accommodated within a disaster castle by the count. During the transaction, Orlok sees a miniature of Ellen which it fascine and decides to acquire the building - near to the house of the couple - which is proposed to him. Hutter, host of the count, will not be long in discovering the true nature of this one. Then Nosferatu will walk on towards its new property, épandant death and desolation by the plague in its wake. Ellen soon in prey with the hands griffues of Nosferatu which covets it, will let the count make of it his victim and sacrifices its blood to the vampire to save the city struck by the Peste.

The subtitles are of three types: those which relate to the text of the narrator historian; those which evoke the documents written or read by the protagonists (diaries, letters as in the novel); finally, subtitles devoted to the dialogs.

Various visual effects are used by Murnau in order to cause Malayan concern and it: convey which brings Hutter to the castle, into negative; appearances of the count being detached from the darkness; accelerated movements of Orlok charging the coffins intended to shelter it during its voyage towards Wismar,… Moreover, the color of the film accentuates various climates, as it is the case for the scenes of night blue and the sequences of day, tinted sepia.

An adaptation of Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897)

The scenario takes several freedoms compared to the work of Bram Stoker. First of all, there is a change of places (Wismar instead of London) and of the names of the characters (Jonathan Harker becomes Thomas Hutter, Mina Murray becomes Ellen, Vlad Dracula Orlok, Renfield becomes Knock). These modifications were justified by the weak budget the film had and who prohibited to him the payment of the royalties. Then, Nosferatu is presented to Hutter in the form of a Loup-garou (represented here in the form of a brown Hyène), being thus inspired by the Guest of Dracula , first withdrawn chapter of the novel original and published in the form of a news a few years later. Lastly, light of day can kill the vampire (whereas in the novel, Dracula walks to London, in full day). Nevertheless, the narrative screen is respected.

These modifications however did not manage to prevent the lawsuit brought by the Stoker widow against Prana Film (between 1922 and 1925). In July 1925, the copies and the negative ones are destroyed. In October 1925, whereas British Film Society requires of Florence Stoker to sponsor a cinema festival in London, this one learns with stupor that Nosferatu belongs to programmed films. It engages consequently a new lawsuit intended to defend its rights on work of her late husband. In 1928, Universal Pictures acquires the rights of the Dracula novel and the film adaptations. On request for Florence Stoker, the copy is dispatched in the United States by British Film Society to be destroyed there (1929). In 1937, death of Florence Stoker. Reappearance of hidden copies (Germany, the United States, England). One witnesses a diffusion in rooms of the copies hidden in 1960 then in 1972. Lastly, in 1984, integral work is restored.

The character of Nosferatu

Dracula de Stoker is a gentleman suave and elegant, classieux, a being with the charm of another time, mysterious and refined. Nosferatu de Murnau is pale, rigid, the cranium bald person and deformed, a such corpse with the emaciated hands and the obnubilated glance, ringed by a soot contour, reinforcing one despairing loneliness. With the tragedy of Dracula, Nosferatu causes the repulsion and the malsainity. Its cave is a castle in ruin set up on a sorry moor where côtoie the savage and bestiality. Its residence is the visual demonstration of a dark heart. Nosferatu (“carrying plague”) is accompanied by troops by rats. Moreover, the film is located at Wismar in 1838.

A sequence: that of the ship of death. This sequence is assembled in parallel with the return of Hutter. The sentence: “the ship of death had a new captain” appears on the screen. A whole plan of the boat appears, the same one as at the beginning of the sequence, but this time, the light is blue.

A film expressionnist

A claustrophobic environment (sequences confined interiors: rooms, prison, castle, asylum, fixes boat) traverses film. Even for the scenes on the grounds of the castle, which, although being outsides, weigh on the character of Hutter, imprisoning it and crushing it by the hostility of a deserted moor, where non-naturel seems to have perverted an accessory nature from now on. The special effects of Murnau add to this worrying atmosphere. The use of blue filters and sepia, separates the night scenes from the diurnal scenes and confers on outsides their surrealist dimension. Various disappearances and appearances of the vampire, the accelerated movements of the servant of the count (who presents besides a strong resemblance to his Master), as well as the jerked movements of diligence, give to film this feeling of strange. But the strange one is due especially to the use of the image into negative which blackens the sky and bleaches the landscape. Lastly, the presence of a blue light in certain scenes confer an atmosphere squeaking on film.

The count Orlok illustrates with the pushing back and worrying brilliance monster. The play of the actors is particularly expressive. This expressive play is very communicative; when Knock appears for the first time, it reads a letter, written with occult symbols (detail which learns to the spectator that it is an initiate, a slave with the service of Orlok), then it calls Hutter to entrust a mission to him, it raises a convulsif laughter between each subtitle, its glance, that of insane, is supported by thick black eyebrows. Most of film was turned with sets of shades. The latter confer on the vampire one will have terror and of power. In particular, at the end, when it climbs, driving with the room of Ellen, its shade is spread out over the wall. Nosferatu is except field, the spectator sees only this shade growing, and this hand with the long fingers which advances towards the door of that which perhaps will succeed in overcoming this demon. Ellen incarnates perfectly the woman strong, specific to the couples expressionnists. Hutter is the man stiff and naive, whereas it is strong, it makes a serious decision. One finds this diagram in Métropolis de Fritz Lang (1927). The professor is him also present under the features of Bulwer. The topics like fear, the fear and terror are omnipresent. But also love; when Hutter is made bite, Ellen has a crisis of sleepwalking and shouts the name of her husband. Its cries are heard by Orlok. It is also the power of the love which saves the city.

A particular symphony

The film is divided into five acts. The first finishes at the time of the arrival of Hutter in the residence of the count. The second ends with the departure of the count and the escape from Hutter. The third ends in the subtitle “the ship of death had a new captain”. The fourth is completed with the advertisement of the epidemic of plague to the inhabitants of Wismar. The film finishes on a plan of a castle in ruin (that of Nosferatu, destroyed by its death?).

One can identify these acts with movements. As for a symphony, in fact the various movements regulate the emotions of the spectator. The first two acts install the fear, the third reaches at the stage of terror, and it is thus with a pitiless terror that the spectator attends the two last.

The happy-end, because if the monster is overcome, which price it is not total were necessary to pay? The final one, with the death of Ellen, leaves to the spectator a taste of sadness, but also of hope. Of hope because in spite of the atmosphere pessimistic and worrying of film, the monster is destroyed, which lets suppose with the spectator that the evil, whatever it is, can always be embanked.

Driven back sexuality

At the time of the supper to the castle, Hutter having literally left his wife for Orlok, offers little resistance to the influence of the count, succumbing to his strange seduction. Nosferatu is devoted here to very clear operations of approach, these allusions to homosexuality surely rising from the tendencies of the realizer. The bite of the vampire thus has a value of metaphor for a kiss exchanged between two men, homosexuality being taboo at that time.

In the final scene, Ellen attracts the vampire with its bed to be given freely. Hutter finding itself thus impotent whereas Nosferatu represents what is denied and which must be hidden in the shade, clarifying the aversion with the light. Moreover, the being drawn up vampire of its coffin is comparable visually to erection.

Ambivalence, ambiguity then shapes with the manifestation of the double. Because the shade which constitutes from its nature, double of the man. Hutter is thus at the same time the husband heterosexual and the homosexual lover. The shade visually connoting in the expressionnism the murderer, the assassin, anticipates also here the imminence of the danger and the driven back sexual desire. Hutter thus finds in a certain direction its malevolent and especially alternative double in Nosferatu. This last is the dark and revealed figure of the young man. Hutter, representing the being inhibited by the social conventions, drives back unconscious desires, him, which lives in full day, with the light. Nosferatu, night creature, post as for him the primary education desires hidden in the unconscious one.

Thus, with the moral and romantic happiness of the scenes where Hutter is with his Ellen wife, the young man meets his double in the person of the count, sits of his driven back impulses. The lugubrious and obscure castle of the Count symbolizing the seat of unconscious, certain plans, shown in inversion of negative of the film (dark appears white it, and light becoming black), corroborates this passage of the conscience to the unconscious one. Paroxysm is reached when Hutter goes down in the crypt, like unsoundable place of unconscious, and discovers the nature of the monster. Horrified by this revelation at the level at its clean unconscious, he wants to flee, and of this fact thus tries to drive back it in order to turn over to the threshold of its conscience, near its wife, at the stage where impulses and desires are inhibited.

Nosferatu and painting

The film marks the transition between Romantisme and Expressionnisme. The membership of the work of Murnau to the romantic movement is obvious. Its topics like the bivalence (subjectivity and the unconscious one, the mystery and imagination) as well as the double, the Gothic and the communion between the artist and nature are omnipresent in the feature-length film. Ambivalence assigns mainly the characters of Orlok (count/vampire) to Knock (notable/insane) while passing by Hutter (husband heterosexual/homosexual lover) as well as the parallel between the world of the vampires and that of human (see in particular the use of negative when master key of the normal world to that of Orlok fits with body it). The unconscious one is characterized by a constant fear of the count who is materialized in nature when it is not with the screen. For the romantic ones, portraits, reflections, and shades are based in only one entity. The shade, particularly important (see scene of the rise of the staircase), prevents of an imminent danger, materializes a sexual desire and always betrayed the murderer in the German cinema. The Gothic appears in the physique of the vampire and architecture. The oval head and bald person of Nosferatu return to the Gothic vaults of its castle, while its twisted body answers the curves of the gate. Its long nails symbolize the despotism of the East and correspond to the lengthened lines of the Gothic architecture. Lastly, nature has a paramount role, as important as a character. The mountains have a supernatural side, the extents are the mental projection of the characters while the waves of the sea announce the imminent arrival of the count. The film makes as direct allusions to certain romantic paintings as Murnau transposes in scenes. The scenario writer borrows mainly from Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). One will notice in particular The Monk By The Sea (Ellen Hutter at the seaside), Cross In the Mountains (crosses in the mountain) and The Churchyard (the gate of its castle). One will note also the lesson of Anatomy of Rembrandt (autopsy of the corpse of the captain), the streets faithful to the features of Carl Spiteway, The Coach One the Bridge (fits with body it of the count) as well as the Red Tower of Market of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Lastly, some claim that Nosferatu would return to the character of the Cry of Münch with its quiet cry just like in film where the name of the count cannot be marked. The film is completed with the death of the vampire which rings the knell of the Romanticism to leave room to Expressionnisme.

Nosferatu and the Cinema

The character of Orlok is a report of the positioning of the cinema vis-a-vis other arts and in particular painting. The vampire is between death (immobility: painting is a fixed art) and the life (movement: the cinema is an art moving). This duality represents also the technical evolution of art, the cinema while being the alive form thanks to technological advance.

Data sheet

Title: Nosferatu the vampire
original Title: Nosferatu, eine Symphony of Grauens
Scenario: Henrik Galeen, according to the novel of Bram Stoker Dracula
Photography: Fritz Arno Wagner
Decorations and costumes: Albin Grau
Music (according to version): Hans Herdmann, P. Schirmann
Production: Prana Film Berlin GMBH
Kind: horror
5 acts
Format: N&B - 1,33:1
Lasted: 72 min (that is to say 1967 m)
First August 6th, 1922

Distribution

max Schreck: the count Orlock, Nosferatu
Alexander Granach: Knock
Gustav von Wangenheim : Thomas Hutter
Greta Schroeder: Ellen
Georg H. Schnell: Harding
Ruth Landshoff : The sister of Harding
John Gottowt: The professor Bextrait

Around film

Undoubtedly the first film adaptation of the book Dracula , of Bram Stoker, as well as first film approaching the set of themes of the Vampire.
the woman of Bram Stoker having refused to allot the rights of the chief of work of her husband, recently deceased, forced the realizer to call his Nosferatu film. Original significance of the word " nosferatu" is difficult to determine. It became popular thanks to the novel of Bram Stoker and this last found it in a work of the English writer Emily Gerald. According to a popular etymology, nosferatu would come from Rumanian " naked sfîrşitul" who means " nonthe fini" , i.e. it not-death, it death-alive. It is possible that this name was influenced by the Greek nosophoros, meaning " conveyer of maladie".
This first version was the subject of a specific Remake: Nosferatu, phantom of the night of Werner Herzog, in 1979, with Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani and Bruno Ganz.
In 2000, E. Elias Merhige carries out a fictionalized adaptation of the realization of Nosferatu under the title the Shade of the vampire ( Shadow off the vampire ). It takes again in particular the legend according to which the actor who incarnates Nosferatu, max Schreck, was an authentic vampire.
the influence of Murnau on film of vampire is enormous. In its film, its vampire is destroyed in the light of the day, whereas in the novel of Bram Stoker, the count Dracula trotts himself in full day. Since this film, light of day synonymous with died for a vampire.
In 1929, at the time of one arisen Parisian from film, invisible since 1922, the surrealist go there in " large cérémonie". Georges Sadoul: " During a few weeks, we repeated ourselves, like a pure expression of the convulsive beauty, this French subtitle: " Passed the bridge, the phantoms came to its rencontre." "

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

Nosferatu, the film to view on line (fallen in the public domain)
To download the film
Analysis of Nosferatu on Cadrage.net;
personal Page on Nosferatu;
File Nosferatu vampires expressionnists on the site Black screen;
Nosferatu has symphony off horror a dedicated site.

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