Film Review
The original, and arguably the most chilling, vampire
film is Murnau's
Nosferatu,
a Symphony of Horror, a film that
was born out of the unholy marriage of German romanticism and the expressionist movement
of the 1920s.
Whereas directors of subsequent horror films were content to simply
frighten their audiences with blatant images of visceral horror, Murnau used his understanding
of the subconscious and the subliminal to create a far more effective, far more disturbing
work. If Bram Stoker's novel
Dracula, on
which the film is loosely based, was a metaphor for the corrupting and destructive influence
of foreign speculation on local communities, Murnau's
Nosferatu
is a grim lament for the inability of the human spirit to reconcile civilised
conscious behaviour with subconscious bestial desires. Nothing in this film should
be taken at face value, and the more one watches it, the more one sees.
Like many artists of his period, Murnau was greatly influenced by social and political
events. After the humiliating and devastating defeat suffered by Germany at the
end of the First World War, many German people resented authority and saw themselves as
ineffectual victims of forces they could not control. This helplessness is represented
in
Nosferatu by the character of Hutter, a childlike
non-hero who wantonly ignores all signs of danger and who is incapable of arresting the
threat when it becomes apparent. Hutter is in essence the embodiment of a failed
Germany.
Another influence was the growing interest in psychology, an area which
was being revolutionised by the researches of Sigmund Freud and others. The notion
that every person is the composite of various personality traits - the compassionate,
civilised individual living side-by-side with the instinctive, neurotic beast -
was shocking but held a fascination for the educated classes of the day. Murnau
references these ideas directly in
Nosferatu
- by portraying Hutter and Nosferatu as two halves of the same individual -
but also indirectly, through subtle references to his own homosexual tendencies.
The notion of duality is a key ingredient of this film, which is underpinned by Murnau's
clever and effective use of his technique to bring two well-separated locations together
in the same mental space. Events which take place in two different places
appear to occur in the same location, allowing Murnau to make connections
between two different individuals, sometimes without the audience even noticing.
Nosferatu is a film about desire, about the power
of the subconscious to assert its control and wreak havoc on the external world.
In the film, Orlok is the dream creature that is craved both by Hutter and his wife Ellen.
The exaggerated hideousness of Orlok's appearance emphasises the nature of this perversion
and allows us to anticipate its deadly consequences. Neither Hutter nor Ellen will
be complete until they have fused with the vampire, but it is Ellen whom Nosferatu ultimately
chooses. Hutter is left helpless, guilty and defeated, not unlike the German nation
in 1918.
Some commentators have also noted that
Nosferatu
prefigures the rise of Nazism in Germany of the 1930s, with Orlok personifying
Hitler, a being whose irresistible personal magnetism would unleash a plague of irrepressible
evil across the whole of Europe. Murnau is not predicting the future but merely
stating what was pretty much inevitable after the Treaty of Versailles. If Ellen
symbolises the spirit of Germany of the early 1920s - unfulfilled yet insanely
desirous of fulfilment - it was only a question of time before a Count Orlok would
appear on the scene to give her the gratification she sought, and the cold kiss of death
that would surely follow.
Although often cited as one of the best examples of
German expressionist cinema,
Nosferatu probably
owes more to the romantic movement of the nineteenth century. Murnau was particularly
influenced by artists such as Caspar David Friedrich, some of whose works find their way
into
Nosferatu as part of the rich location photography.
In comparison to his expressionist contemporaries, Murnau preferred natural locations
to the artificial, confined space of film studios, which explains why most of
Nosferatu
is filmed on location, in Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Baltic towns of Wismar,
Rostock and Lübeck. Contrast this with the entirely studio bound film
Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (1920)
which shows a far more explicit form of expressionist art.
Murnau's form of expressionism
is much subtler, and some would argue far more effective, creating a subconscious sense
of unease in the spectator, rather than provoking an immediate emotional response.
To create his disturbing world, Murnau relied more on cinematographic techniques -
long shots with hard focus photography, low angled shots, stop motion photography, negative
images, etc. - and less on blatantly expressionist set design and overtly stylised
performances. The power of
Nosferatu stems
mainly from the way in which Murnau subverts the normal world of daily existence and gradually
draws the spectator into a fantasy world of macabre dreams and irrational phobias, like
a fly drawn into a spider's web (a recurring metaphor in this film).
The tradition of European folklore and legend is also apparent, feeding off hidden memories of the fear
that was born from centuries of real-life terrors, such as plague, famine and war.
Indeed, the character of Orlok/Dracula was based on a middle European tyrannical ruler,
Vlad the Impaler, who had a habit of staking his enemies to death - by the hundred.
"Nosferatu" itself derives from a Slavonic word which implies "plague carrier".
Thus is can be seen that
Nosferatu is a complex
and hugely symbolic work, nourished by many sources, not least of which is the genius
of Murnau and his production team. It is a film that can be appreciated on many
levels - as a straight horror film, as a piece of political commentary, as a statement
on human psychology, even as a piece of dark eroticism. Whilst it is a profoundly
disturbing film, it is also a beautifully poetic work, and some of the images of the film
have assumed an iconic significance in the history of cinema. It is also one of
those few films which genuinely does alter the perception of its spectator and leaves
a totally indelible impression. Like the bite of the vampire, one's memory of this
haunting film cannot easily be effaced.
Incredible as it may seem,
Nosferatu
was very nearly obliterated shortly after its release in 1922. With a cheek
and bravado which would now be unthinkable, Murnau made the film without settling the
issue of copyright with the estate of Bram Stoker, the author of the original
Dracula
novel. He and his screenwriter, Henrik Galeen, believed that they could
get away with this blatant adaptation simply by changing the location (from England to
Germany) and the character names (Dracula became Orlok, Harker became Hutter, etc.).
The author's widow, Florence Stoker, was not amused and as soon as she found this out
she called in the lawyers. When it became clear that the film's production company,
Prana Films, was heading for bankruptcy and so was unable to reimburse Mrs Stoker financially,
it was agreed that the film would be destroyed - totally destroyed. In one
of the most unpardonable acts of vandalism in film history, the negatives and all prints
of the film were retrieved and systematically burnt. All prints? No, clearly
not all. Just as killing a vampire is no sure thing,
Nosferatu
survived, thanks to its widespread distribution before its death sentence was
pronounced. (Ironically, the globalisation which Stoker condemned in his novel
Dracula
saved
Nosferatu from oblivion).
Five prints of the film survived, from which various versions of the film have since been
re-assembled. The original colour-tinted version of the film was lost but has since
been restored, with the help of advanced digital technology.
When the American film production and distribution company Universal acquired the rights to the
Dracula
novel in the late 1920s, it re-released
Nosferatu
, with new English intertitles and the character names changed back to those in
Stoker's novel. The public thirst for horror and fantasy led Universal to make a
series of horror films in the 1930s which have passed into film legend, although none
of these has the artistic brilliance, atmosphere and sheer power of Murnau's film.
Which is more terrifying: Bela Lugosi's dapper, well-coiffured Count Dracula or Max Schreck's
skeletal, rodent-faced Graf Orlok? Whom would you rather
not
care to meet at the top of that shadow-laden staircase...?
Murnau's timeless
Nosferatu continues to exert its influence
over subsequent generations of filmmaker. In 1979, the acclaimed German film director
Werner Herzog made a revised version of the film,
Nosferatu - Phantom Der Nacht, with a heavily
made-up Klaus Kinski in the role of Orlok. Then, in 2000, the background of the
Murnau's film was explored in E. Elias Merhige's
Shadow
of the Vampire, which looked at the bizarre relationship between Murnau (played
by John Malkovich) and the mysterious Max Schreck. The latter actor was unknown
before he appeared in
Nosferatu, prompting some
speculation that he may have been a well-known theatre actor who adopted a pseudonym (Schreck
means "terror" in German) to protect his reputation if the film failed. Merhige's
tongue-in-cheek film, however, offers an alternative, more sinister, explanation...
© James Travers 2004
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Next F.W. Murnau film:
Phantom (1922)