“Nosferatu. Does this word not sound like the deathbird calling your name at midnight? Beware, you never say it- for then the pictures of life will fade to shadows, haunting dreams will climb forth from your heart and feed on your blood.”
That we have F.W. Murnau’s 1922 film “Nosferatu“ at all today is a miracle. As is tragically often the case, a staggering number of films from the silent era of cinema have been lost due to neglect or accidental destruction. “Nosferatu,“ as it happened, almost suffered a similar fate at the behest of some German copyright lawyers acting on behalf of Florence Stoker, widow of Dracula author Bram Stoker. Those who have both read “Dracula“ and seen “Nosferatu“ will note its overt similarities: A young real estate agent travels to Transylvania to arrange a purchase by a mysterious and wealthy nobleman, who develops a psychic connection to the young man’s wife and journeys west to obtain her, spreading a plague-like pandemic in his wake.
Where “Nosferatu“ differs from the novel is in what we can assume are budgetary cuts: e.g., fewer characters, a more straightforward story, and a less action-packed ending. Still, the similarities were enough for the Stoker estate to sue Prana Films (the company behind the production) for copyright infringement. To summarize, “Nosferatu“ was Prana’s first and only film ever made. The intent was to destroy all copies of the film, but fortunately, a copy survived and made its way to America. Over 100 years later, it remains one of the most influential and intriguing works of silent cinema.
“Nosferatu“ emerged during a particular artistic movement in German cinema known as expressionism. Taking place roughly in the interwar period, this movement was defined by exaggeration, aesthetically, thematically, and dramatically. Poetic, romanticized themes were set against purposefully artificial backdrops, told through fantastical scenarios, and played to the back row. The films of this era were often of a supernatural nature, helping create and define what we know today as the horror genre. Within many of these films were characters who commit acts of violence against their will.
Robert Weine’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,“ for example, tells the tale of a somnambulist who an evil asylum director manipulates to kill citizens of a small German village. Caligari is perhaps the zenith of the expressionistic aesthetic, as actors with geometrically designed stage makeup act this fantastical tale against a painted backdrop of twisted light and shadow. In Fritz Lang’s iconic serial killer thriller “M,“ Peter Lorre plays a child killer who claims to have an “evil thing“inside of him that forces him to kill, suggesting a sort of psychological disturbance lurking within the populace. Film historians and theorists attribute this movement to the trauma suffered by the country’s population during the First World War, when an unprecedented amount of Germany’s people, including its artists and filmmakers, gained first-hand experience with death and destruction while under the command of some faceless higher power. This explains why this tale of psychological manipulation and unexplained horrors would have been so appealing to Murnau and his team in 1922.
Bram Stoker introduces his titular character as “a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white mustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of color about him anywhere.“ He is warm and courteous to his visitors and gets by with a certain charm and attractiveness. Obviously, such an approach was abandoned by “Nosferatu’s” crew, offering a unique interpretation of this much-portrayed character. Rather than an exotic seduction, Max Schreck’s (strategically renamed) Count Orlock, in both appearance and behavior, truly appears as if he’s one of the undead. He’s not a handsome devil who charms his way into your heart; he is a creature of the night. He looks to have just crawled out of his grave, somewhere between man and vermin. Much of Orlock’s design can be credited to the film’s producer and production designer, Albin Grau, a student of the occult and member of the “Fraternitas Saturni“ magical order. Rubbing shoulders with the likes of Aleister Crowley, Grau did his best to embed “Nosferatu“ with occult symbols and themes. Grau was also the artist behind some of the film’s stunning and totally eerie promotional drawings. Here, rather than a pale skeletal figure, Orlock is a dark shadow with glowing eyes, a haunting figure one might stumble upon in the middle of the night, only to wonder the next morning if that thing you had seen was just your eyes playing tricks on you. This dichotomy of light and dark is present throughout the film under the watchful eye of legendary cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner, who created masterful shadowy tableaus that would continue to inspire a century of horror cinema. In contrast to other films like “Caligari,” “Nosferatu“ is mainly set within the natural world, utilizing the jagged landscape of the Carpathian mountains and towering, intricate gothic architecture to emphasize its expressionistic themes. As such, there is no division between the film’s horrors and real life. It’s almost like a found footage film, enough to make you think twice about your next stroll through the woods.
Perhaps the film’s naturalistic approach has allowed it to have such an enduring and fascinating legacy. E. Elias Merhige’s “Shadow of the Vampire“ is based on the urban legend that the mysterious actor Max Schreck was not quite who he said he was, positing that he was, in fact, himself a blood-sucking, night-dwelling vampire. The fifth season of Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story“ goes back in time to suggest that Murnau was turned into a vampire while scouting Transylvania for the perfect filming location, a gift which he soon gives to a fictionalized Rudolph Valentino, who in turn goes on to turn Lady Gaga and…well… I’ll refrain from more spoilers.
German director Werner Herzog admired the film to no end and took it upon himself to direct a faithful, though uniquely styled, remake in 1979. Starring certified terror Klaus Kinski as Dracula (they went ahead and used the more familiar name for this adaptation), the film is told through stunning tableaus of light and dark. The colors pop, the darkness looks infinite, and the stark white of Isabella Adjiani’s pale skin is striking against her raven-dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Herzog clearly understood that horror doesn’t only take place in the dark. As far as remakes go, it’s perhaps one of the greatest. Herzog emphasizes the subtextual nature of vampires as dangerously sexual beings working their way into a prudish society. The first encounter between Dracula and his victim, Johnathan, can easily be interpreted as a homosexual assault, while the psychic connection between Dracula and his paramore Lucy, is surprisingly lustful in nature, evoking a 19th-century painting of an incubus terrorizing, corrupting, and exciting an innocent young woman as she dreams.
Director Robert Eggers has spoken of his plans to remake “Nosferatu” since 2015, soon after the success of his directorial debut, “The Witch.” Like Herzog, Eggers’ desire to remake the film comes from a lifelong love and admiration for the property. He even acknowledged the absurdity of a filmmaker in his place remaking such an important film: “It feels ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting for a filmmaker in my place to do ‘Nosferatu‘ next.” As a noted skeptic of remakes, I can’t help but wonder precisely why Eggers, who has proven to be very creative in his ideas and execution, feels obligated to remake this film at all. I am not suggesting that the film will be unworthy as an exhibition of cinematic craft (early reviews are praising the film from all angles); rather, my fear arises from the effect that remakes inherently have on their source material. By creating a “new“ version of a film, the original, by default, becomes the “old“ version, implying that it has reached the end of its relevance. Remakes can often take up the lion’s share of cultural cache and suck the life out of their source material, transforming it into a forgotten relic. Personally, if it were up to me (which it is most definitely not), I would invite Eggers to produce a vampire film of his own creation, one that injects a sense of originality in a genre that has already been done to death (pun intended).
“Nosferatu” will be released in theaters from Focus Features on December 25th and the original “Nosferatu” can currently be streamed through number of services here. Are you excited for Eggers’s “Nosferatu?” What do you think of the original film? Which version of the character as presented in film has been your favorite? Please let us know in the comments below or on Next Best Picture’s X account.
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