Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
Directed by F.W. Murnau

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...

Film Synopsis

Real estate agent Herr Hutter lives with his young wife Ellen in the German town of Wisborg.  At the request of his employer, the mysterious Herr Knock, Hutter travels to the Carpathian Mountains to conclude the purchase of a property with a certain Count Orlok.  Ignoring the advice of the terrified locals, Hutter enters the Count's remote castle and settles the business transaction.  Orlok agrees to take ownership of a house opposite Hutter's own home in Wisborg.  During his stay in the caste, Hutter becomes increasingly uneasy about his client and soon realises that his wife's life is in great danger.  Too late: Orlok is already on his way to Wisborg, travelling in a coffin on a sailing ship whose crew are mysteriously dying.  On his return to Wisborg, Hutter finds that the town is in the grip of a terrible plague which has already claimed scores of lives.  Ellen Hutter alone divines the cause of the plague and realises that in order to break the power of the evil Count Orlok she must sacrifice herself to him...