Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors. (PG.)
Directed by F.W. Murnau.
Starring Max Schreck, Gustav Von Wangenheim and Greta Schroeder. 1921. Silent. 97 mins.
That Bram Stoker really knew how to ramp up the horror. If a bloodsucking creature of the undead isn’t terrifying enough for you, he sticks in an estate agent just to ensure your blood runs cold. This early version of the Dracula tale directed by German master Murnau (which had a brief, Halloween, excursion into cinemas) is the classic tale of how the young Hutter travels to Transylvania to complete a property transaction that will see the Count Orlok and his various coffins full of tainted earth move upmarket from his drafty Carpathian castle to the homely German hamlet of Wisborg. Most of the familiar aspects are already in place - only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
This version was entirely unauthorised, the producers having neglected to get the rights to the book, and after a lawsuit from the Stoker estate a judge ordered that every print in existence be destroyed. Ironic then that many of the Dracula screen convention originated here. The chief interest now is the sense of seeing a legend being born in front of you: it is like going back in time to witness the invention of the Knock Knock joke.
A cultural landmark no doubt but, in all honesty, does this offer anything much beyond (considerable) historical interest? Film academic love to rave on about the glories of silent film movie, sometimes to such a degree it is as if they were inherently superior to these new-fangled talkies. (Murnau’s later Sunrise was voted 5th on the Sight and Sound list of the greatest ever list.) Watching Nosferatu you are impressed by its historic magnitude but it is still deadly dull.
The main problem I think is rather than feeling like you’re being shown a story, it is more like you’re being told a story, albeit with extensive illustrations. There is something thrilling about any stretch of film that is genuinely a nonverbal experience, but in Nosferatu the storytelling is rarely visual and is often reliant on the words on the title cards. When Orlok is being transported by boat to Wisborg we are told that one of the sailors has fallen ill and died. By the next card the entire crew is dead apart from the captain and the first mate. Similarly when Hutter is stuck in Orlok’s castle the film is infuriating vague about what is happening. Murnau’s is credited as being the first film to establish the idea that daylight is fatal to vampires. This is ironic as half the time his Dracula is seen moving around in broad daylight even though the cards insist that it is midnight.
Directed by F.W. Murnau.
Starring Max Schreck, Gustav Von Wangenheim and Greta Schroeder. 1921. Silent. 97 mins.
That Bram Stoker really knew how to ramp up the horror. If a bloodsucking creature of the undead isn’t terrifying enough for you, he sticks in an estate agent just to ensure your blood runs cold. This early version of the Dracula tale directed by German master Murnau (which had a brief, Halloween, excursion into cinemas) is the classic tale of how the young Hutter travels to Transylvania to complete a property transaction that will see the Count Orlok and his various coffins full of tainted earth move upmarket from his drafty Carpathian castle to the homely German hamlet of Wisborg. Most of the familiar aspects are already in place - only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
This version was entirely unauthorised, the producers having neglected to get the rights to the book, and after a lawsuit from the Stoker estate a judge ordered that every print in existence be destroyed. Ironic then that many of the Dracula screen convention originated here. The chief interest now is the sense of seeing a legend being born in front of you: it is like going back in time to witness the invention of the Knock Knock joke.
A cultural landmark no doubt but, in all honesty, does this offer anything much beyond (considerable) historical interest? Film academic love to rave on about the glories of silent film movie, sometimes to such a degree it is as if they were inherently superior to these new-fangled talkies. (Murnau’s later Sunrise was voted 5th on the Sight and Sound list of the greatest ever list.) Watching Nosferatu you are impressed by its historic magnitude but it is still deadly dull.
The main problem I think is rather than feeling like you’re being shown a story, it is more like you’re being told a story, albeit with extensive illustrations. There is something thrilling about any stretch of film that is genuinely a nonverbal experience, but in Nosferatu the storytelling is rarely visual and is often reliant on the words on the title cards. When Orlok is being transported by boat to Wisborg we are told that one of the sailors has fallen ill and died. By the next card the entire crew is dead apart from the captain and the first mate. Similarly when Hutter is stuck in Orlok’s castle the film is infuriating vague about what is happening. Murnau’s is credited as being the first film to establish the idea that daylight is fatal to vampires. This is ironic as half the time his Dracula is seen moving around in broad daylight even though the cards insist that it is midnight.
